Monday Discussion We don’t need to plant churches. We need to plant church-planting churches. We need to plant churches that replicate themselves as part of how they define health and obedience to Christ. As Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird write in Viral Churches: We want to lay the foundation for an out-of-control replication of new … More We Don’t Need to Plant Churches
Weekend Musings A friend (Miguel, over at Making Disciples on Facebook) asked what my simplest definition of discipleship was. How about this one: “Leading people to believe in, and to love and live more like Jesus for a lifetime.” When people say they want to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20), what is it we are making? … More A Simple Definition of Discipleship
Friday is for Heart Songs (Cf. Matthew 27:45-46, Mk. 15:33-34; Psalm 22) “My God, My God, Why Have Your Forsaken Me?” It was the ninth hour of the day, 3:00 PM by our reckoning. Hanging in silent agony for some time, He opens His mouth and reveals what His heart has been meditating upon through … More Forsaken By God: What Can We Learn?
Thursday is for Discipleship I am away at a conference training church planters this week and have zero time or energy to write a new piece today. But there is a piece that I wrote not too long ago titled, Jesus is not your Savior, that was more controversial than the comment stream indicated. I … More Can Jesus Be My Savior If I Will Not Do What He Tells Me to Do?
Wednesday is for Prayer When was the last time you got away for an extended time of prayer? A time to listen to the voice of God in his word? A time to reflect on the greatness of the gospel and the ministry of reconciliation to which you have been entrusted? When was the last … More Prayer Essentials for a Ministry of Length and Depth
Tuesday is for Preaching Here’s a video of Tim Keller on what the Bible is all about. If you preach the word of God, if you have the responsibility of opening the word of life for a flock of God’s people, you need to wrestle with what Tim Keller says here. Then you need to … More Why Every Message Ought to be About the Gospel
Saturday Discussion Back in 2010, I interviewed Dr. Peter Nelson, author of the new book, Spiritual Formation: Ever Forming, Never Formed, (Biblica Publishing). Here is a sneak peek at one paragraph that captured my attention. But with Christ’s global Great Commission to make disciples among all the people groups on earth, a dramatic shift of … More We’ve Been Practicing Old Testament Paradigms
Weekend Musings Sunday I leave for Schenectady, NY to train church planters at a conference with Dynamic Church Planting International (DCPI). Usually, I teach the track associated with Churches Planting Churches but this time I will be teaching the Church Planting Essentials track. I’m excited about the opportunity to work with church planters and those … More Training Church Planters from the Northeast and Canada
Weekend Musings Sometimes a foreign language can illuminate an issue with a clarity that our native language seems tongue-tied about. Reading Bruce Rowlison’s 1981 book on Creative Hospitality I read this: “In the German, the word for hospitality is Gastfreundschaft which means ‘the freedom of the guest.’” Henri Nouwen picks up the same idea in some … More Gastfreundschaft: “the freedom of the guest”
Weekend Musings “Why is it that in the church we usually violate so many of the rules of hospitality? Where else in our society do we force people to get all dressed up [that one we have relaxed a bit] and sit in very hard seats for one hour, and sit in such a position … More Relearning Christian Hospitality:
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