For 18 years I had lived 8 houses away from Barbara. In Spring of 2010 I met her for the first time. Crushed over the new and horrifying news just reported by Ed Stetzer (researcher on the modern church), that last year only 3% of American Protestant churches participated as the primary financial support for … More 18 Years of Ineffective Living
This Should be Interesting: For about 15 years, I taught a couple of church planting classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity Seminary in Deefield, IL. As a part of one of those classes, I did the following thought experiment with my students. I begin by telling the class that I don’t believe there is extraterrestrial life on other … More Martians Have Visited Earth: What do they think of the Church?
Today’s Tweets on living Missionally in our Community Intensely local ministry means getting our hands dirty in the intensity of our neighbor’s lives, the sin, the crises, the joys and the sorrows. Intensely local ministry means we are not content to do ministry at arm’s length. We take the high-risk path of regular contact with … More What Does INTENSELY LOCAL Ministry look like?
What does an “intensely local” ministry look like? Revised from an earlier post: Our vision at Trinity Church for the future. This is what we would like to see happen in the thirty towns from which our congregations are composed. For our movement in central Illinois, it means being immersed in our neighborhood, connected to … More Fleshing Out an Intensely Local Ministry
Monday is for Discussion (updated August 2017) “Intensely Local” — a vision of the future (Dateline October 2025) (a potential future newspaper article) Communitas is a cluster of house churches being planted in suburban Charlotte, NC that has a unique approach to the “missional question.” The church has a big vision. They want to be a … More Lord Willing: A Snapshot of What the Future Might Be
Moses speaks of his old age longing “Let your works be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.” Psalm 90:16 You’ve lived your life, made your mistakes, paid your prices, celebrated your wins, mourned your losses and now you know that the sand in the top of the hour glass is … More The Glories of Being a Church Planter
Mancini, Church Unique “Remember: you have to navigate the tunnel of chaos if dialogue is to be successful.” p. 107 “There has never been a time when twelve to fifteen people in the visioning process did not produce something far better than any one person could. When it comes to clarity, Ken Blanchard stated it … More More Quotes from My Reading
What are ways that you have observed in which America is becoming less Christian or post-Christian as a nation in your life time? Let’s go for bulletized type responses. Here’s some pretty mundane examples: High School Spring Football practice on Sunday morning. Road races all occur on Sunday mornings The types of salacious ads … More Post-Christian: America’s Future or Present?
Quoted in Mancini, Church Unique “Clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.” Marcus Buckingham, p.51 “When a missional leader talks about the future, it is based on clarity that is past and present and word-and Spirit-dependent.” p. 53 “Followers cannot travel an unmarked path.” … More Still More Quotes from Today’s Reading
“The idea of the missional church as single-handedly captured the imagination of church leaders of all backgrounds and denominations. Take your pick: from the boomer power pastors of suburbia to the preaching punks of ’emergia’ and the collared intellectuals of ‘liturgia,’ everyone wants to be missional.” p. 33 Quoting Darrell Guder, et al from the … More More Quotes from Today’s Reading
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