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Four Missional Movements for the Suburban Church
At The Well, we’ve been studying the book of Acts. Its been a very, very formative and challenging book for us to work through. For me, there have been four ways that my life, and I think our life, has been challenged so far.
Here are four movements that I’ve seen:
From Individual to Communal
As individuals we are important, very, very important. But we need to continually celebrate the individual but we must do it within the context of … -
Personal Financial Accountability In the Church, A Way Forward
For the first three years of our marriage my wife and I didn’t have any outstanding credit card debt. Then the crap hit the fan. Between some unnecessary purchases, not making enough money, hospital bills, and a string of car repairs, we amassed ourselves some significant credit card debt.
Over the last two years we’ve been trying to be more conscious of how we spend and how we save. We’re finally starting to show some signs of …
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The Consuming Christian and the Consuming Church
I was thinking Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church. I do that sometimes… think, that is. Anyways, we’ve had a number of new people visiting our community recently. There is a general theme going on with their story. Many of these folk have come from either not being in church for a long period of time or suffering (their words) through being part of a church that is not very life-giving.
At …
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Leading and Speaking with Confidence
I was driving my car today through town and saw this sign on a gas station / car wash. This is one of those higher end car washes that does the whole car, inside and out.
The marquee says, “We really know how to clean your car right.”
Now, on some level this is a little simplistic and cheesy. But honestly, I am really drawn to …
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The Role of the “Pastor”
A couple days ago I was writing how being bi-occupational allowed me to naturally pastor in a way that calls the community to live their gifting and calling for the sake for the kingdom…
In case I wasn’t clear, let me quote from one of my heros, Lesslie Newbigin. He’s talking about the role of the pastor and says this,
“The task of ministry is to lead the congregation as a whole in a mission to the community as a …
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The Lure of Shiny New Things
I’ve become a big fan of Patrick Lencioni and his leadership books. I think he sees things that most of just don’t see. The things he sees are those “duh” type of things too. I subscribe to his “Point of View” newsletter. (you can do so here).
Today he sent out a thought on the lure of “new” things. At the risk …
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Church Leadership Meetings: Is it Possible Not to Hate Them?
Meetings. We typically don’t like them. In fact, most of us hate them. This is true for many reasons. I’ve blogged about this before.
At The Well we’ve been on a journey to figure out how to best form our meet time so that our time is well spent. I’ll be honest, I’ve gone back and forth between loathing out meetings and loving our meetings. Since we’re working in an atypical model with two part-time …
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Open Handed Ministry
(I posted this post over at my other blog that I don’t think will actually take off again because I am realizing I can’t put energy into two blogs, so I am reposting it here).
If you are a pastor, here’s a question: How do you refer the people in your church? Most pastors I know use interesting language when talking about the congregation they pastor in. They usually are called “my people?” Now, I …
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MereMission: Missions, Missional & The Global Church
I’ve got my first post of the new MereMission up. Here’s an excerpt:
One of in things to say in churches that claim to be “missional” is something like this: “we don’t have a missions program, our church is a missions program.” This is a great statement, I’ve said it quite often and I am a firm believer that we need to understand and see our entire church as “missional.” This means, that everything we do as a community is …
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The Church & Suburbia Seminar with Al Hsu
I know this is early, but with vacations in the summer, I’m trying to get the word our early.
So here it goes…On August 8-9, 2008, my church The Well, in partnership with the Ecclesia Network and C4ML at Biblical Seminary, will be hosting a one-day conference with Al Hsu, author of The Suburban Christian around the topic of Suburbia and the mission of the Church.
EVENT SUMMARY
“God always shows …
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Does Your Church Really Need Jesus?
I’ve been reading Organic Church by Neil Cole. I’ll admit that when I saw the cover I wasn’t too excited to read the book. The coffee cup just kinda turned me off for some reason. Then, at our Ecclesia Gathering Alan Hirsch kept raving about the book so I figured I would give it the old college try.
I’ve been really impressed so far. I love the way …
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Pastoring Like It’s 1989…kind of
For the last two days I’ve been with out a computer. My MacBook Pro is on a little vacation for some R&R. Okay, it actually had a bunch of problems all at once and I finally broke down and sent it off to get fixed. I should have it back on Thursday. I am writing this post from my wife’s 12″ Powerbook.
Now, if you know me you’re probably wondering if I am breaking into a cold sweat …
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Environmentalists in the Church
No, not those kind of environmentalists. Not the ones who talk about caring for the earth. I’m all for that. But, I’m referring to leaders who create environments that give room for people to change as Joe Myers talks about in his book The Search to Belong,
“Environmentalists” practice restraint when it comes to controlling the results. They are primarily concerned with creating a “healthy” climate for spontaneity to occur. They develop simple environmental …
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Don’t
JudgeDraw Final Conclusions On A Church Based on One VisitFor whatever reason, we have a lot of people who visit our community on Sunday mornings. This is all fine and dandy. But, a thought occurred to me recently. I often want to tell those visitors that you can’t judge draw final conclusions about The Well (or any church for that matter) based on one Sunday morning visit.
A few reasons:
We have a team of people who preach. I preach maybe twice a month. Because …
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Inspired by the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr
I’ve always been fascinated by the life and ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I just never imagined I would be able stand behind the pulpit where he began his ministry as a 26 year old young man.
Today my dad, Gary and I took the afternoon off from our conference here in Pine Mountain, GA and took a little trip down to Montgomery, AL. Honestly, there is …
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How Not to Grow the Mission of your Church
I am in a seminar with Ken Callahan and we’re talking about growing and advancing the strengths of the mission of your church. Here are some notes that I think are helpful:
When we are looking at a church, how do we improve our mission? Do we look for the weaknesses or the strengths? Where do we start. Most people would say we start with our weaknesses. This is the wrong approach.
The usual …
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Ecclesia National Gathering Audio
If you are interested, I posted the audio for the Ecclesia National Confernce with Alan Hirsch and David Fitch yesterday on the Ecclesia Website. Check it out here
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“Giving and Stewardship” in the Local Church
I’m doing a little talk at this week’s Ecclesia gathering here in Maryland. Here are some notes that I promised I would put on my blog.
Six Motivations for Giving:
Compassion (sharing, caring, giving, loving, serving)
Community (good fun, good times, belonging, family)
Hope (confidence, assurance in the grace of God)
Challenge (accomplishment, achievement, attainment)
Reasonability (data, analysis, logic, it makes good sense)
Commitment (duty, vow, obligation, loyalty)Some extremely helpful books where I have stolen borrowed most of my thoughts:
Giving and Stewardship …
Community: Stop Making Excuses
I was at the bank last July to send a large sum of money to Guatemala as the last part of our payment for the adoption. As I was waiting in line the man in front of me, in somewhat of a panic, was pleading with the bank tellers to help him with his situation. He had apparently deposited a check earlier in the day for a client that he wasn’t supposed to deposit, and he needed that …
Dear Theopilus?
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 …
Apparently I am now friends with myself on facebook. I live in Canada too eh.
