Wake Up Call on Evangelism

I am starting to see a parallel between the last 100+ years of evangelism and Acts 1:8. In Acts 1:8 Jesus tells his disciples that they will be witnesses in Jerusalem - Judea - Samaria - and the ends of the earth. The last 100 or so years of church growth has been a lot [...]

Still Wrapping My Modern Head Around Post-Modernism

Here is a nice little summary statement that I came up with in trying to wrap my tiny brain around post-modernism:
Modern – want to know it is right before they can feel a part of it.
Post-modern – want to feel a part before they can know it is right.
Any thoughts?

Unpacking the Pew Study and Evangelicals’ View of Pathways to Eternal Life

The statistic that is getting a lot of airtime on the blogs is that 57% of evangelical Christians said that many religions can lead to eternal life (which is actually one of the lowest percentages among groups in the study).

Most people are drawing their conclusions based on this chart. Based on this chart how would [...]

Dan Kimball’s Emerging Church

I have been reading up on the Emerging/Emergent church a little because I am invested in understanding and reaching out to people who have grown up with a postmodern perspective. Kimball splits this book into two halves - the first half is theoretical to help the reader understand the underlying cultural concepts that are a [...]

N.T. Wright on Attempting to Restore New Testament Christianity

“Many writers…have seen the religious experience of the early Christians…as the normative element within Christianity. This has the apparent advantage that it enables one to conduct the ’scientific’, supposedly ‘objective’ study of early Christian religion and theology, with the knowledge that when one has found them one is in touch with the real model of [...]

Complacency in the Kingdom

How often do we get complacent because we think we have to do everything in a big way or not at all and so we opt for not at all? Have we forgotten that sowing seed is never a small thing even if only one plant grows from dozens of seed that were cast upon [...]

Doing Church vs. Being Church

People talk about “going to church” or what happened “at church today.” Those are all kind of misnomers. The problem is we begin to identify Christianity as the sum total of what happens in an auditorium two hours a week rather than as an identity issue of the individuals and the community of those who [...]

Change in Churches - What is Healthy?

There is a fine line we walk when we talk about change. The line is between relevance to a lost and dying world and being pleasing to the God who has made us our own. When people try to swing too hard in either direction the results are often disastrous. Those who seek to please [...]

Thoughts from the LeadNow Conference in Orlando

Missy and I went to the LeadNow conference for leaders of 20 and 30 somethings and I have to say it was pretty phenomenal. Speakers included Dan Kimball, Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz), Erwin McManus, Todd Phillips and several others. I want to deal with what was presented in several posts but first [...]

Bible Study - Seeing the Big Picture

I have always been one for details. When I study a passage I tend to break things down as small as possible. When you do that there is only so much information you can handle at a time. What is the background? Who is speaking? Where are they located and how might that affect the [...]