Reading this post by JR Woodword got me thinking. We are studying through the book of Acts together as a community. We’re in chapter 4 this week so we’re still fairly early on in the narrative. If you’ve read or studied the book of Acts you know that it is addressed to “Theophilus.” Luke is writing to this person (whoever he is) and sharing with him the stories of the early church. So, like I said, this got me thinking. If Luke were to write narrative about our local church or better yet the group of local churches in lower Bucks County. What would he say? As Willimon pointed out, “Theophilus will be told stories of people who overcome personal anxiety, who found security in...Read More →
Archive for January, 2008
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January 27, 2008
Dear Theopilus?
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January 22, 2008
How is the Church like a Family?
This past weekend I preached from Acts 2:41-47. This is a passage that really has shaped our community significantly early on and it was exciting to look at it again a number of years later. One of the blessings of preaching from this text was that I didn’t feel like I needed to chastise or rebuke our community as I feel we’ve done a good job a cultivating a family at The Well. Of course, we have much room to grow but these people are truly my family. I started out sharing a bit of how the metaphor of family relates to the church. Here is what I came up with: You don’t “go to family.” Rather, you are part of a family. In the...Read More →
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January 22, 2008
Sermon on Acts 2:41-47
I am sicker than a dog, so this will be short. But my sermon from last week is up on our church’s website here. Except for a few others, I haven’t enjoyed preaching a text much more than I did this one.
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January 18, 2008
Leadership in Acts 2?
I’ve been studying Acts 2:42-47 for the past week. I’m realizing that I could preach this passage 20 weeks straight and wouldn’t run out of material. So, I am trying to narrow my sermon down to the thing that I think is most pertinent for our specific community. While this likely won’t make it into my sermon , I had some interesting reflections on the leadership situation in this passage. (I guess you can consider this a sermon outtake). So, think about this for a second, if there are 12 apostles and there were 3000 people total, we now have 12 groups of 250. Hmmm… likely this isn’t how it worked since we see that they met in homes. Let’s say then that they split...Read More →
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January 16, 2008
7 of the Most Important Jobs in the World.
My list of jobs that suck but are super important.
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January 14, 2008
Father / Son Bonding
We took some Christmas money and gift cards to IKEA this weekend and got two of these shelves (at half off!). Cole and I then spent the next 1 hour and a half putting one together. I put the second together in about 25 minutes. I had more fun with the first. See all the photos here of our fine work here..
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January 11, 2008
What does it mean to “get involved” in your church?
I am curious about a question here. In your church context, wherever it is, what does it mean to “get involved.” I’m not talking about a general response, but what are the actual perceived (or real) expectations for you as a member of your church. Would love to hear some feedback from a wide variety of church contexts. So, go ahead, please share….
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January 9, 2008
Eugene Peterson on Life and Christ
“Rescue me from the person who tells me about life and omits Christ, who is wise in the ways of the world and ignores the movement of the Spirit.” - Eugene Peterson in
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January 7, 2008
Rethinking Church Websites
The following quote from the book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott that I am reading for my design work has got my creative, brainstorming juices flowing in relation to church websites. Here is the quote: “Website content too often simple describes what an organization or product does from an egotistical perspective. While information about your organization and products is certainly valuable on the inner pages of your site, what visitors really want is content that first describes the issues and problems they face and then provides details on how to solve these problems.” then they write, “It’s all about delivering content when and where it is needed and, in the process, branding you and your organization as a leader.”...Read More →
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January 5, 2008
Sorry Mom.
The hair is gone. It had a good run, but I couldn’t last. Fact is, I am pretty much going bald. There is no way to get around it. OK, I might not be going bald but I sure am thinning! I am not sure if I’ll ever grow my hair out again. Maybe I will. But for now I can’t stand having mass amounts of hair stuck in my keyboard all the time. It also kills me to see the shower clogged with my locks every time I take a shower. So, sorry mom. I promise to call you more or something to make up for it. Just don’t tell Grandma!!
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January 5, 2008
Acts 1:1-11 Sermon Summary
This is my summary of Acts 1:1-11 for tomorrow’s sermon: God has called us, in the power and direction of the Spirit, following in the footsteps of the apostles, to be a community that serves as a touchpoint between heaven and earth.
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January 4, 2008
Newbigin on Private and Public Truth
“We read [scripture], naturally, as part of our real history, secular history, the history of which we are a part. What other history is there? There are not different histories, but there are different ways of understanding history…it is clearly an illusion to imagine that there are two kinds of history – sacred and profane, salvation history and secular history.” - Lesslie Newbigin in Foolishness to the Greeks
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January 3, 2008
Bosch and Incarnational Ministry
“It should not bother us that [during different epochs] the Christian faith was perceived and experienced in new and different ways. The Christian faith is intrinsically incarnational; therefore unless the church chooses to remain a foreign entity, it will always enter into the context in which it happens to find itself.” David Bosch in Transforming Mission
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January 1, 2008
Books of 2007: A few I missed in the list
I recently blogged through a series on all the books I read in 2007. Over the last few days I have found a number that I didn’t put in the list. So, I’m adding them below. First, if you missed the other sections here is what I posted on so far: Missional Theology General Theology Church Leadership Pastoral Leadership General Leadership (Business Books & Fiction) Now, here are some that I missed: General Theology: Proper Confidence by Lesslie Newbigin I wrote a longer blog post on this one because it was so good. As I was struggling through a time where I was wrestling with faith, doubt and reason, this was a big, big help. I can’t recommend it enough. The Lord and His Prayer...Read More →
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January 1, 2008
Bonhoffer on Confession
“In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown…” Dietrich Bonhoffer in Life Together (p.112)
