I just wrote a post on our Missional in Suburbia website about how we spend money as family when we are going out in the evenings. Would love to hear your feedback there. Do We Have to Spend Money to Have Fun?
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August 16, 2010
The Cost of Family Time?
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August 4, 2010
And: The Gathered and Scattered Church
A few weeks ago the book And: The Gathered and Scattered Church showed up on my front step (that’s because I bought it of course). This book was written by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay of Adullam Church in Denver, CO. I was interested in this book for a few reasons. First of all, we use the phrase “shaping and sending” in our congregation as a short description of what we are doing. I respect (from afar) what these guys are doing so I was hoping this book would be a bit of the struggles and successes they’ve had in trying to work this out in the context of their community. I wasn’t disappointed. I really, really appreciated hearing their story. They didn’t approach the...Read More →
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August 4, 2010
Is Evangelism a Dirty Word?
Tonight I hung out with a bunch of people from The Well and we sat around and talked about the scary, evil topic of evangelism. It’s funny, for some Christians “evangelism” is a dirty word and for others its like the greatest thing of all time. If you are a Christian or have ever been friends with one, you probably have some strong opinions about the topic. We started out the discussion by sharing our favorite (or not-so-favorite) evangelism stories. So we didn’t get too cynical, I asked that we tell some bad ones about ourselves too. I figure now is a good time to let my own embarassing personal evangelism story out of the bag. You might know about See You At the Pole....Read More →
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July 31, 2010
La Limonada – Tattooed On Our Hearts
I always love it when you meet someone and from that point on your life takes a difference course than you could have ever expected. About a year ago, at an IdeaCamp conference I was introduced to a young looking, old man named Bill Cummings (I seriously had no clue he was in his 40′s, I thought he was 33 at most!). I had heard that the director of Lemonade International was at the conference and I really was looking forward to meeting him. Lemonade International focuses on educating and empowering people in the largest urban slum in Central America – La Limonada in Guatemala City. Since one of our soon to be four children is adopted from Guatemala, we instantly connected. La Limonada, a...Read More →
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July 31, 2010
Money and Discipleship.
I’ve been reading Alan and Deb Hirsch’s (Twitter | Website) newest book, Untamed and I’ve really been enjoying it. In their chapter called “kultcha-schmultcha” they have a series of things in the culture that need to be addressed when it comes to discipleship. This is a great section because they touch on a bunch of things that are deeply embedded in our culture that are in need of some critical thinking about how they influence and shape our faith, our lives and our discipleship. Their little section on money is spot on. My only complaint is that it isn’t longer, but I know that’s not what they were trying to do – that is, write a long treatise on money. In this section they talk...Read More →
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July 21, 2010
ViralHope Video
This year I was part of a book project called ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs. You can get it off the Ecclesia Press Website or Amazon. This is the description of the book: “In ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs, fifty authors take on the task of sharing the good news for their city, together weaving a beautiful tapestry of the gospel in all its depth and complexity. These essays reveal how the gospel lives and breathes in neighborhoods around the world.” EcclesiaPress just published a video about the book which includes some of the centent from the book as the content of the video. Here it is…
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June 23, 2010
La Limonada – Day 2
Today was our second full day in La Limonada with Lemonade International. We continue to talk about how we don’t have categories in our brain for what we are experiencing. I feel completely in the middle of a fog and I don’t know what’s on the other side. It’s a good fog though. You might call it a God-fog. I’m into making up words so that works for me. I have no clue where this trip will lead and I’m not really trying to figure it out. I think I’ll let God do his thing… There is one practical way you can help with a very specific need: Today I learned that the teachers are in danger of not being paid this month. Of course,...Read More →
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June 22, 2010
La Limonada – Day 1
Today was our first day in La Limonada. The picture above is from the top of the ravine where we visited with a family who had lost their home in the recent storms. They are now living in a communal shelter where they share a 9ft. by 4ft. space with three other families. I’ve seen poverty in my day. I’ve been to Africa twice and have seen desperate conditions there. But, this is different for some reason. I’ve never seen anything like this and I don’t have a category to place today’s experience. We talked tonight about what we “offer” and came to realize we can’t offer much more than our presence and maybe a hug. We can’t fix this. But we can be present...Read More →
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June 21, 2010
Lemonade International
Last fall I was at The Idea Camp conference in Washington D.C. While I was there I learned that there was some guy representing an organization from Guatemala called Lemonade International. Since our second son is adopted from there, and we had a desire to serve that country, I sought him out as quickly as possible. Little did I know that Bill Cummings and I would hit it off so well. Fast forward 8 months later and here I am sitting in the Lemonade House in Guatemala City. Tomorrow we will meet the people who live in the community of La Limonada. We have a long week ahead of us and we’re not totally sure what God is going to do with us and those...Read More →
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June 5, 2010
Cole’s Golf Swing
I haven’t really taught Cole how to swing a club. He’s basically taught himself from watching the pro’s on TV.
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June 3, 2010
Short Survey on Missional in Suburbia
I’ve stated another blog, resource catalog website that will be focusing on the challenges and opportunities about being missional in suburbia. It’s a joint venture with a friend of mine and I’m excited about. This isn’t going to be a your typical blog but really it will be a place we categorize and collect thoughts, quotes and resources. We’d love to have you participate in the dialog. But even more importantly we’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Could you take 5 minutes to fill out our short survey on being missional in suburbia? If so, you can do so here: http://missionalinsuburbia.com/survey
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May 28, 2010
In the Name of Jesus: From Relevance to Prayer
Last week I spend a few days here on the blog working out the leadership culture we are trying to create at The Well. Now, admittedly I am a big leadership book junkie. I love exploring the sociology of leadership and community. But, as much as I love that stuff I realize there is a danger in it. One can become so dependent on good leadership technique that we forget that it is the Spirit that works in and through us. While technique is important, and firmly believe we can’t avoid it, we must not depend on it. With that being said, I want to highly recommend the little book by Henri Nouwen called, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. This book...Read More →
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May 24, 2010
What’s for Breakfast?? (Thoughts on Selfishness)
It seems to me that the world trains us to be pretty selfish, individualized people. Thomas Merton writes about this as he describes the problem of pride, “The self must be treated as if, not merely in feeling but in actual fact, the whole universe revolved around it…If I am the center of the universe, than everything belongs to me. I can claim, as my due, all the good things of the earth. I can rob and cheat and bully other people. I can help myself to anything I like, no one can resist me.” Now, this is a rather harsh assessment of our demeanor. I personally do not like to think of my perspective on my self as thinking that I am the center...Read More →
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May 17, 2010
Cultivating a Missional Leadership Culture
Download a PDF of this blog post here: Leadership Culture This post summarizes a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This is a list that we’ve discovered along the way and is still a work in progress. Over the years we have learned that it is important to set expectations up front on how we will walk forward together in leadership. It is also important that we intentionally...Read More →
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May 15, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture – Leading in and With the Congregation for the Sake of Others
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This series of statements is some of what we’ve learned along the way and is still a work in progress. But, I share them here in the hopes that our experience will help others and also with the hopes of learning from what you have learned along the way as well. Introduction (5/11/2010)...Read More →
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May 14, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture – Risk and Failure
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This series of statements is some of what we’ve learned along the way and is still a work in progress. But, I share them here in the hopes that our experience will help others and also with the hopes of learning from what you have learned along the way as well. Introduction (5/11/2010)...Read More →
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May 13, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture – Decision Making and Change
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This series of statements is some of what we’ve learned along the way and is still a work in progress. But, I share them here in the hopes that our experience will help others and also with the hopes of learning from what you have learned along the way as well. Introduction (5/11/2010)...Read More →
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May 12, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture – Working as Team
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This series of statements is some of what we’ve learned along the way and is still a work in progress. But, I share them here in the hopes that our experience will help others and also with the hopes of learning from what you have learned along the way as well. Introduction (5/11/2010)...Read More →
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May 11, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture: Introduction
This post starts a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This is a list that we’ve discovered along the way and is still a work in progress. Over the years we have learned that it is important to set expectations up front on how we will walk forward together in leadership. It is also important that we intentionally define the type of leadership culture that we are...Read More →
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May 11, 2010
White Flight? (and the call of the suburban church)
A few friends sent me the link to this article that points out that white, young males are fleeing the suburbs and that, while the burbs still “tilt white…for the first time, a majority of all racial and ethnic groups in large metro areas live outside the city. Suburban Asians and Hispanics already had topped 50 percent in 2000, and blacks joined them by 2008, rising from 43 percent in those eight years.” I believe this has major ramifications for how the church in suburbia sees its calling. A year ago as I was taking part in a prayer walk in my local town (Hatboro, PA). In this small suburban town with a main street. On the outskirts of this suburb there is a growing...Read More →
