We have to ask ourselves, we have to ask each other, we have to come together as church communities to ask: what story is really defining our lives? I am not talking about the story that we say is defining our lives. But, I am talking about the story that is really defining our lives. Is it really first and foremost about loving God and loving others? Or is it more about loving ourselves and only those we tend to get along with? Are we more concerned with our personal comfort? Or are we more concerned with supporting the gospel as it goes forth and the sacrifice that this comes with? Are we more concerned with finding security? Or are we more concerned with supporting...Read More →
Archive for May, 2007
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May 29, 2007
What Story Are You Living?
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May 21, 2007
An Inadvertant, Unplanned, Refreshing (and Expensive) Sabbath.
This morning I drove a guest we had in to visit with our family and The Well from New Orleans to the Philadelphia airport. On the way back, the traffic was terrible. So, I figured instead of sitting in traffic for an hour I would just spend the morning in Center City Philly. I love the city and I always find it refreshing to spend the day walking around and working in a Starbucks or someplace with wi-fi. Today was no different. After a few hours of relaxing work in the Starbucks on Market Street, I went back to my car and…well…it was gone. If you have ever seen my car, you will know why I was quite sure that it wasn’t stolen. Yes, my...Read More →
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May 18, 2007
Pastors and Prayer…and the Psalms
I continue reading Eugene Peterson’s book, “Working the Angles” and I continue to find it really helpful. He writes about a pastor’s interaction with the Psalms (by the way, I of course not think this stuff only applies to pastors, I believe it applies to all those who profess to follow Christ). He writes about how we need to be students of the prayer book of the Isreal and of Jesus: the Psalms. He writes, “If we insist on being self-taught in prayer, our prayers, however eloquent, will be meagre. Inevitably they will be shaped on the one hand by whatever the congregational ‘market’ demands, and restricted by our own little faith on the other.” also he writes, “Where will we acquire a language that...Read More →
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May 16, 2007
The iPod is Stupid…or so they said….
Josh over at Church Marketing Sucks just linked to funniest and most amazing discussion thread I have seen in a long, long time. This thread from around 2001 when Apple unveiled the iPod and the discussion that insued. You have to go and read it. Its amazing. Here are a few of my favorites: “hey – heres an idea Apple – rather than enter the world of gimmicks and toys, why dont you spend a little more time sorting out your pathetically expensive and crap server line up?” “I still can’t believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently! Why oh why would they do this?! It’s so...Read More →
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May 16, 2007
Joe Myers Podcast
We’ve set up a podcast section on Joe Myers’ website. Here we’ll be posting mp3s of talks that he gives at events as well as some short talks he’s recorded. Right now we have four talks from some conference speaking he’s done on Language of Belonging and his new book Organic Community.
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May 14, 2007
Discussion on the Missional Church in Suburbia
Alan Hirsch, co-author of The Shaping of Things to Come and author of the new book, The Forgotten Ways has posted my paper on his blog. I quoted from his Shaping book a bunch in my paper so its great to hear his perspective on the topic. It has started some good discussion so far on his blog. Feel free to stop by and join the conversation…
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May 9, 2007
Pastors and Prayer…
“It is possible to do pastoral work to the satisfaction of the people who judge our competence and pay our salaries without being either diligent or skilled in [prayer, reading scripture and giving spiritual direction]. Since almost never does anyone notice whether we do these things or not, and only occasionally does someone ask that we do them, these three acts of ministry suffer widespread neglect.” (page 3) “The implication for pastoral work is plain. It begins in prayer. Anything creative, anything powerful, anything Biblical, insofar as we are participants in it, originates in prayer. Pastors who imitate the preaching and moral action of the prophets without also imitating the prophets deep praying and worship so evident in the psalms are an embarrassment to the...Read More →
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May 5, 2007
Church Sign Sightings
In our driving yesterday evening, my wife and I came across two “wonderful” church signs: Sign #1 – “Visitors Welcome. Members Expected.” Ouch. Nothing like a little guilt tripping to get your members to get their butts in the pews. Sign #2 – “Friends ask for your time. Not your money. Wait a minute. Is that true? Really, I am wondering. Friends are not allowed to ask for help when it comes to finances? That’s off limits in true friendship? Oh, and does this mean it is not okay for churches to invite their members to take part in the mission of the church by financial giving? Maybe I am off here, but this sign really bothered me.
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May 1, 2007
Web Lauching Lunacy
Phew. Time for a vacation. It’s only Tuesday. I just launched my third website in two days. Now I have a headache. I am really excited to have worked on these sites and am looking forward to seeing them develop as they grow: Language of Belonging: I already blogged about this one. We’re still adding some content. But, I am really proud of the layout and design for this site. One Village Coffee: This was not only a website job for me. I really believe in what this company is doing. If I were a pastor of a church that served a lot of coffee, I would buy theirs in heartbeat. Oh, wait. I am…ha! For this project, I had the honor of working Samantha...Read More →
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May 1, 2007
Further Thoughts the Suburban Church
As you can tell from the title of my blog, I live in the Suburbs. In the past I have considered that a negative thing. I used to long for the day that I could move to the city and “be a real Christian.” In the beginning it was the rampant individualism of the burbs that bugged me the most. I longed for the city, where community seems to be a bit more natural. People actually know their neighbors and they aren’t so isolated. I also began seeing how much the bible talks about the need to take care of the orphan, the outcast and the widow. It seemed to me that one could not really do this living in the burbs. Another issue is...Read More →
