Last night we put on the Bucks County Forum on Suburban Poverty here at The Well. It was awesome. About 65 people showed up, only 23 of which were from The Well. It was not only a great turnout, it was an awesome event. The panelists did a great job and the conversation was excellent. I don’t have time to write my thoughts about it right now because we’re getting ready for a massive fundraiser garage sale tomorrow but I’ll be sure to post some reactions this weekend.
Archive for July, 2008
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July 25, 2008
Bucks County Forum on Suburban Poverty
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July 25, 2008
Soon. Very Soon
I promise I’ll start blogging again soon. Life has been nuts. I’m way behind in my desing work from my recent trips and I am almost caught up. Until then. Stop surfing the Internet and read a book or play with your kids or spend time with some close friends! Jeez you all are such Internet addicts! (Says Todd as he updates his blog from his iPhone).
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July 21, 2008
A Suburban Missions Trip
A few years ago I wrote a post asking what it might look like to have a suburban missions trip. Well, in about two hours we will be begin our first missions trip to suburbia. I’ve gotta be up front here. I’ve done very little to make this happen other than maybe share in the creation of the idea and what kinds of things we might do (I forget who thought of it and that’s really irrelevant). Gary (my now blogging co-pastor) has done an enormous amount of preparation for us to spend the next 6 days working with 9 different non-profits in suburban Philadelphia. We have about 25 people from The Well who will be participating in serving others in our own neighborhoods. Thursday...Read More →
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July 21, 2008
Suburban Blog Worth Reading – Gary Alloway
I would be remiss (and a jerk) if I didn’t mention that my co-pastor, side-kick, friend and all around good guy Gary Alloway is now blogging. For those of you know Gary, you know that this is a big deal. A few thoughts about Gary and why you should not only visit his blog often, but subscribe to his blog in your RSS reader: Gary is awesome. Gary is funny. Gary kicks butt as a pastor. You can learn a lot from Gary. Gary thinks you would be cool if you read his blog. Gary is a city guy at heart intentionally living in the suburbs. This brings an amazing dynamic to his leadership in our setting. Ok. Go read his blog. Now. I’m certain...Read More →
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July 19, 2008
NT Wright on the Resurrection & the Church
Reading NT Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope this afternoon. A few quotes for your reading pleasure: The mission of the church is nothing more or less than the outworking, in the power of the Spirit, of Jesus’s bodily resurrection and thus the anticipation of the time when God will fill the earth with his glory, transform the old heavens and earth into the new, and raise his children from the dead to populate and rule over the redeemed world he has made. (265) and… the split between saving souls and doing good in the world is a product not of the Bible or the gospel but of the cultural captivity of both within the Western world… (265)
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July 17, 2008
Suburbia Seminar with Al Hsu Registration
Just a reminder that the seminar for the ages is coming up soon (August 9th to be exact). There has been a lot of discussion about what it means to be missional in the suburbs. Wait, forget about being missional in suburbia, let’s ask a bigger question, what’s it mean to be Christian in suburbia? Many of us are realizing it’s not as easy as we’ve thought. So, Al Hsu had graciously agreed to come all the way from Suburban Chicago and spend a day with us at The Well in suburban Philadelphia. His book, The Suburban Christian was fantastic and the day promises to have a great combination between theory, information and concrete examples of how we can think and live differently in our...Read More →
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July 16, 2008
Where Do We Start? Inside or Outside the Church?
Been reading The Multiplying Church by Bob Roberts. I was slightly surprised to realize recently that I’ve never really read a church planting book and a friend recommend I start here. I’m finding it a good primer on the topic. A quote that was very compelling to me, “Where do you start in your dreaming – the church or the world outside the chruch? That determines everything. It determines how you organize, where you engage, and how you prioritize. The reality is that we’ve been starting with the “church” stuff and have done very little to engage the community and soceity as we always say we plan to do.” This is good stuff. Makes me wonder. As we talk about starting new ministries. What if...Read More →
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July 14, 2008
What are Some Practical Examples of What it Means to be Missional?
In the comments of the last post, Jim asked this question: “I’m just beginning to try to help my established congregation turn itself into a missional focus. I really like the notes and presentation, but where I struggle is where your presentation leaves off…what does this look like practically…what are the practices your community is a part of…in what ways is your community different in appearance, look and action than what I see going on in my established non-missional congregation? just looking for some practical, concrete things I can point to as I think about helping my congregation move in another direction.” This is really a great question! I began to make a comment but realized it was really long and figured it may as...Read More →
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July 14, 2008
Intro to the Missional Church Class Notes
This past weekend I taught a class at The Well called, “An Introduction to the Missional Church.” It as basically a very broad overview of the topic and a crash course in how we structure things here at The Well and why we do the things that we do. I’m more than happy to post my notes here (At hte request of a few friends) because, well, most of this stuff is borrowed from people who are much, much smarter than I. I’m really not sure how much you’ll be able to get from these notes if you weren’t there but hopefully you can get something… For the record, it was John Chandler who provided me with the idea for the outline of the class....Read More →
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July 11, 2008
How does the gospel judge suburbia?
I’m working on a class at The Well for tomorrow that is basically serving as an introduction / overview to missional theology. It’s been a blast to put it together and I think we’ll spark some great conversation about our specific context and calling here in suburban Philadelphia. Of course, I’ve been looking back through a few of my Newbigin books and came across this gem in The Open Secret: “The day-to-day worship and word and witness of the local church has to be developed in relationship to all these in such a way that it becomes credible to the inhabitants to the local culture as a sign, instrument and foretaste of that one universal reign of God that is the true origin and goal...Read More →
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July 10, 2008
Why Community is so Important to Mission
So, I’m almost on two weeks since I got back from Zambia. I feel like I was pretty prepared for the “missions trip high” (for lack of better way to describe it). I’ve done this before and like most people I usually crash spritually and revert to my old self within two weeks. I’m coming down off my cloud a bit but I’m happy to say that we have not moved away from the direction we sense our lives moving. What direction is that? The basic story is this: we need to live more sustainably so that we can be free to respond to God’s daily calling to spend ourselves on behalf of others. This has to do with big things like debt reduction and...Read More →
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July 9, 2008
Cole at Bat!
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July 9, 2008
My 4/5 year old baseball star
I’ve been posting a bunch of serious thoughts lately so I thought something on the lighter side would be good. My son Cole loves baseball. We play together daily. He’s four, turning five this week. If you are a major league scout, you can contact me if you’d like.
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July 8, 2008
The Bible and Mission
“The Bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation…” The Mission of God Christopher Wright
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July 7, 2008
Begin Reimagining Your Life…
“We can begin [to reorganize our lives around the Kingdom of God] by surrounding ourselves with other people who are asking the same questions – who are suspicious of the emptiness of consumption and who dare to risk just a little bit more and dare to love just a little bit deeper.” - Shane Claiborne as quoted by Tom Sine in The New Conspirators
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July 6, 2008
The Great Sin of the Western Church?
Last week I wrote about the way that my Zambia has effected me and one of the things that came from it is that we’re hosting a new small group in our house on Sunday nights. We were talking in this new group about how easy it is to departmentalize our lives and so easily miss how the gospel actually calls us to live differently from how we are. Thoughts went to things such as the crusades, the church in Nazi Germany, the white church and segregation during the civil rights movement, etc. Here’s the question that came to us. In 200 years, what will be the great sin that our culture has been blind to? The more we talked, the more it seems likely...Read More →
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July 5, 2008
Cole Learns to Ride His Two-Wheel Bike
This is the first day. About 30 minutes into our bike riding lesson. Not a bad days work!
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July 2, 2008
Are You Rioting with the Suburban Mob?
Okay, its been about a half a week since I’ve been back from Zambia. I’ve not done much deep writing around the trip because there is so much in my head that I am just trying to sort it all out. Sunday morning, I preached a mess of a sermon that I am hoping made sense. I really tried to share my heart and what God is doing with Melanie and I since I’ve returned. The sermon didn’t record for some reason so I’m going to try and lay it out in a shorter version here: Thought #1 – The culture in Zambia is beautiful and they get worship, prayer and community better than we ever have. Its part of their DNA. It’s beautiful really....Read More →
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July 1, 2008
Forum on Suburban Poverty
We’re doing our summer missions trip this year a little differently. We’re going to the far away land of Feasterville, PA! Yes, that’s right. Feasterville. The hotbed of today’s youth culture… or something like that. Two years ago we went to New Orleans. Last year we went to Philadelphia. Next summer looks like another trip to Zambia. But this summer we’re staying local. Gary has lined up a week full of serving the poor in our suburban area and its shaping up to be an awesome week. One of the highlights of the week will be the Thursday night when we are hosting the “Bucks County Forum on Suburban Poverty.” We’re basically bringing in four local leaders from different types of organizations and will have...Read More →
