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The Task of the Church
From Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics v.4.3.2 - The Doctrine of Reconciliation
To sum up, we may say there is committed to it the gospel, I.e. The good, glad tidings of Jesus Christ, of the real act and true revelation of the goodness in which God has willed to make and has in fact made Himself the God of man and man His man. This great Yes is its cause. It has no other task besides this. (page 800) -
Books of 2008 - Theology
Last year I listed out the books I read in 2007. It was fun to look back over the year and see what books influenced me and shaped my thinking. You can see the list for 2007 here. This post is made of the books that relate to Theology and Church for 2008.
You can see the books of 2008 that relate to leadership here.
Believing in the Future (Christian mission and modern culture)…
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Books of 2008 - Leadership
Last year I listed out the books I read in 2007. It was fun to look back over the year and see what books influenced me and shaped my thinking. You can see the list for 2007 here. So, without further waiting, here are the books that I read in 2007 along with my response to each one. This first section is on General Leadership. A follow-up post with books on Theology will be coming soon….
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Resident Aliens in Suburbia
I’ve been reading Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon over the break. Chapter four is brilliant. This year I have done a lot of thinking about the Church as a counter-cultural community. I think this is always necessary and I’m certain there is a desperate need for those of us in a suburban context to be intentional about re-imagining a life together that …
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The Wait is Over
This is a short writing i did as I wrote my sermon for this sunday. I turned this into a reflective slideshow which you can view here.
Immanuel.
God is with us.
Wait.
Stop.
Listen again…
Immanuel.
God is with us.
God. Is. With. Us.
Wait.
God is with you.
Sure.
But God is with me?
Yes.
Really?
Yes.
You don’t need to come to Jesus.
He’s has come to you.
He has pursued you.
Loves you.
Yes, you.
The wait is over.
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The Biblical Narrative & the Significance of Christmas
The more I appreciate the narrative of Scripture (to put it simply: creation, fall, jesus, redemption) the more I have grown to appreciate Christmas. It used to be for me that Jesus’ birth was kinda, well, anti-climatic. His birth is nice and all, but let’s just get the presents and then get on to the cross/resurrection for what really matters.
Now, I don’t want to minimize the cross at all. I don’t want to de-emphasize the …
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Use Cash, Spend Less. Boo Credit.
I read this article on CNN.com today. Bascially it was talking about the shopping habits of Americans this Christmas season.
“Most Americans have put themselves on a budget this holiday season and are sticking to it,” said Phil Rist, executive vice president of strategic initiatives at research firm BIGresearch, in a statement. “Retailers are finding that consumers who pay with cash or a debit card may be less likely to make impulse purchases, but recognize that these shoppers …
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Surprised by Scripture
I never cease to be amazed at how scripture surprises me. Over the last two years we’ve preached through Exodus, Acts and now we’re finishing up Ephesians.
Each of these books (especially Exodus and Acts) have had some seemingly difficult, boring or irrelevant passages in them. Exodus and Acts had more because they are narratives. Each time I would come to one of these passages I would get frustrated that I had to preach it. …
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The Church Informing the Powers…
Sometimes all you need is a little quote from NT Wright to get your blood flowing…
“It is by the Church living as the one believing community, in which barriers of race, class, gender and so forth are irrelevant to membership and to holding of office, that the principalities and powers are informed in no uncertain terms that their time is up, that there is indeed a new way to be human.”
NT Wright in What Saint Paul Really Said (161)
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The Tragedy of Dong Yoon & His Family
Eugene Cho posted details of a story that has not received too much press even though the story is both crazy and tragic. Many of us heard that a US fighter jet had crashed into a neighborhood earlier this week but not many of us know the tragedy that lies behind that random occurrence.
Dong Yun Yoon (Don Yoon in English) lost his wife, his two infant daughters and his mother-in-law in that instant. He was out of …
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The Slave Tree in Ndola, Zambia
This summer I went to Zambia to work with a two other pastors from the states and our good friend George Palo who is doing some awesome work there with the Zambian Church. George pastors in Ndola which is about 4 hours north of the capital, Lusaka.
[/caption]Standing near the recently fallen slave tree in Ndola, Zambia
Just outside Ndola …
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Talking About Money in the Church (Part 3)
Over the last few weeks I’ve been writing a bit on how I have been talking through 2 Corinthians 8 with our community during our offering time. (You can read the others posts here) The last two time we covered verse 1 and verse 2. This week we get to verse three. Here they are (vs. 1-3)
1 And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 Out … -
Metavista: The Bible and Culture
[/caption]Metavista
I’m reading a new book called,Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination by Colin Greene & Martin Robinson that I received to review. This isn’t really my official review but I’ve really enjoyed it so far. What I like most is that they don’t pull any punches when talking about how the church has …
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Coffeehouse Theology
Give me a living room, with the lights down low, a glowing Christmas tree, a french-press of coffee and a few good books and I’m a happy man.Tonight I was finally able to finish Ed Cyzewski’s book, Coffeehouse Theology. Ed and I started seminary at the same time so I’ve been excited to …
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Leaders, We Need to Get Out of the Way
One of the great things about a church community is the different gifts and callings that individuals have within it.
God has given some people a knack for thinking and academics.
God has given some an intuitive and uncanny ability to lovingly listen to needs of others.
God has gifted others with an ability to organize people and “get things done.”
Others have an uncanny ability to think way outside the box and push boundaries and question the status quo.
Still others pray and are …
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The Consumerism Mob
I’ve written in the past about things people will do when they are part of mobs that htey would never do while they were alone. Like, say “stomp a defenseless 34-year-old man to death, even for a free TV.”
Shane Claiborne captures my heart very well in his recent article on Sojourners. CHeck it out here: Buy Nothing Day as Advent Activism Against the Demon Mammon
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Mental Illness & The Church
For the last five years I have had a friend named Michael who has been part of my life. We’ve lost touch recently touch due to some circumstances but his friendship has been one of the more challenging experiences of my life. See, Michael is a paranoid schizophrenic. He hears voices. He called my phone one day cause his therapist told him he should try out our church. The therapist thought it was a “wellness” church. …
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Talking About Money in the Church Part 2 (II Cor. 8)
At The Well we have been focusing on 2 Corinthians 8:1-13 during our offering time (which i talked about at greater length here). If you haven’t read/studied this chapter, I encourage you to do so. For us, this has been a really helpful narrative to filter our understanding of stewardship, generosity and giving through.
Here is the section of Chapter 8 that we have been looking at:
8:1 And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know … -
The Pastor’s Responsibility
A friday rebuke/correction/encouragement from our friend Eugene Peterson,
“It is the pastor’s responsibility to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades.”
From Working the Angles
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Talking about Money in the Church (Part 1)
This is the first in a series of posts about giving, money and the church. You can follow this series of posts here.
For the last couple years, a little passion of mine has been this topic of talking about money in the church. You see, for most churches this is one of those things that we just don’t talk about publicly. We don’t want to offend anyone. In fact, we’re often slightly embarassed by the idea of “taking an offering” or taking …
