Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Missional Church
Those of you who know me know that I have a slight obsession with church structure and church worship. To most people these things are about as interesting as mustard but I can talk for hours about them. I love seeing people connect to God and to each other and I love how worship gatherings and communities of faith facilitate this connection.
My friend Bob has been given a vision. God has led him to Huntington, Indiana to hang out with goth kids and skater kids. So that is what he does. He hopes that a community of believers will emerge from within this unique community of God's children and you can see the foundation of that community starting to form. It's quite wonderful. Bob is attached to this group called Missio that is passionate about birthing communities of faith where none exist right now. Not too unique an idea when you consider the popular world of church planting that has swept the nation, that is until you consider their "method." Most churches send small communities of people to a location that they are fairly unfamiliar with to start a new church. Sometimes these church plants don't work. Other times they grow quite rapidly but are mostly fed by transfer growth (people leaving churches for other, more cool, churches). Missio, on the other hand takes principles from missiology (the study of missions) and applies them to unchurched contexts. Novel idea, huh?
Really, Missio and it's participants desire to go into certain contexts and allow church to happen as a natural response to faith and relationship rather than bringing church into those contexts. They allow church to form within a community rather than taking a certain model of church and trying to get people from a unique culture to fit inside a church model made by people from another unique culture.
If you are unfamiliar with missiology or how it can be applied to western culture check out Alan Hirsch's website The Forgotten Ways or his book:
My friend Bob has been given a vision. God has led him to Huntington, Indiana to hang out with goth kids and skater kids. So that is what he does. He hopes that a community of believers will emerge from within this unique community of God's children and you can see the foundation of that community starting to form. It's quite wonderful. Bob is attached to this group called Missio that is passionate about birthing communities of faith where none exist right now. Not too unique an idea when you consider the popular world of church planting that has swept the nation, that is until you consider their "method." Most churches send small communities of people to a location that they are fairly unfamiliar with to start a new church. Sometimes these church plants don't work. Other times they grow quite rapidly but are mostly fed by transfer growth (people leaving churches for other, more cool, churches). Missio, on the other hand takes principles from missiology (the study of missions) and applies them to unchurched contexts. Novel idea, huh?
Really, Missio and it's participants desire to go into certain contexts and allow church to happen as a natural response to faith and relationship rather than bringing church into those contexts. They allow church to form within a community rather than taking a certain model of church and trying to get people from a unique culture to fit inside a church model made by people from another unique culture.
If you are unfamiliar with missiology or how it can be applied to western culture check out Alan Hirsch's website The Forgotten Ways or his book:
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Goodbye Jerry
So Jerry Falwell died today. It's hard to be indifferent isn't it? Either you loved him or you just wished he would shut up. In his later years even the news got tired of reporting some of the outlandish things ol' Jerry had to say: the tsunami was the fault of the homosexuals, as was 9/11, etc.
I've known plenty of students from Liberty, Falwell's university, that defend him tenaciously. I've met others that are relatively indifferent. Either way death is always a hard subject to write about. On one hand it is sad that his family and friends have to go through the mourning process and on the other death can be a very gracious thing. Perhaps Jerry had completed the tasks that God had for him in this life. I may have disagreed with you Jerry but I hope we can sit down to some tea in heaven, maybe even some wine.
Rest in Peace
I've known plenty of students from Liberty, Falwell's university, that defend him tenaciously. I've met others that are relatively indifferent. Either way death is always a hard subject to write about. On one hand it is sad that his family and friends have to go through the mourning process and on the other death can be a very gracious thing. Perhaps Jerry had completed the tasks that God had for him in this life. I may have disagreed with you Jerry but I hope we can sit down to some tea in heaven, maybe even some wine.
Rest in Peace
Monday, May 14, 2007
A Baby Pastor
If you were to ask me how I spend my days I'm not sure I could give you a good answer. A week ago, today, I became a pastor. I have an office and volunteers and drawers full of curriculum and a key that gets me into a relatively expensive building from which I'm to operate. All of these are great but they don't really have much to do with being a pastor. My job can be described in pretty basic terms: Love God and love neighbor; teach others to do the same. My questions, then, is how do I spend my time most effectively to accomplish this two in one love? I'm really just writing this post to see if the html on my new blog works. We'll see! Peace.
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