Relighting the Lampstand: Slow Evangelism and the Mission of GOD
If we become enamored with building our lampstands but we have no flame of embodied love – then the world stays in darkness. As we relearn what it means to become rooted in one another’s lives and in the love of GOD which calls us out into our communities – the world will again have a witness…
Wendell Berry and the Re-Incarnation of the Church
We have become exiles…We have forgotten that the summation of GOD’s plan of redemption is not us going to Heaven, but Heaven coming to Earth. The end of the story and our forgotten future is GOD’s New Creation.
When All Else Fails Try Jesus
Maybe this could be a message to ourselves as the Church – “When All Else Fails Try Jesus’- when all our programs and methodologies for marketing and growing our churches has failed – maybe we will again return to simply learning and living as disciples of Jesus…
The Permanent Revolution by Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim (Book Review)
If you have been well-versed in the missional conversation this book will continue to expand your conception of the nature of the church and how to put feet to it. If you are just getting your feet wet in the missional conversation this book will blow your mind and then put it all back together again…
Towards Eden: A Vision For the Exiles
I fell asleep on the floor among my papers and pen and awoke later – dragging myself into my bed…In that inbetween place the first line came to me from when I went to sleep – “I fell asleep, dreaming, on hardened ground” and I knew that I would write my own ‘riff’ on Wendell Berry’s Mad Farmer poems…
Church As Sharing Community
His remark caught me by surprise, “if the Church would do that, we wouldn’t need the rest of this.” It was a statement that has stayed with me even to now. The idea that simply by practicing a culture of sharing, recognizing God’s role in our provision for ourselves and others, the Church could change the world. That initially sounds a bit naive. But didn’t it already happen once?…
Stewardship Gardening: A Values-Based Guide (resource)
During the Summer of 2010 I had the opportunity to help design Good Ground Garden of First Presbyterian Church in Champaign, IL…Using Good Ground Garden as a case study, I sought to explore peoples’ conceptions of spirituality in the garden and how it shapes their actions, or vice versa…
Temple and Whirlwind: Rethinking The Church Building
Church congregations were part of the same society that wanted supersized houses and the easy loans that made it possible…But now is it the end of a temple-based Christian spirituality in America? Would your community of faith continue on and thrive if the church building was eliminated?…
Will Campbell: Racism and the Church (EthicsDaily Video)
Why are the local churches in America the last place to see racial reconciliation- even in 2011? Author, farmer, activist and “renegade Baptist preacher” Will Campbell talks candidly about racism and the church (a clip from EthicsDaily’s DVD ‘Beneath the Skin: Baptists and Racism‘).
Alan Hirsch: DNA of Gospel Movements [VERGE Videos]
This is a powerful series of short videos featuring Alan Hirsch, missiologist, a key figure in the missional church movement and author of Untamed: Reactivating A Missional Form of Discipleship, The Forgotten Ways and other books. Be warned- you may start asking dangerous questions after watching these…
