Category: Missional
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Living Missionally in the Mountain Empire
In this video Tim Keller offers some insights about ministry in areas that still largely hold to traditional conservative values. This is helpful to me because the place where I live and serve is still largely characterized this way. While I embrace a missional mindset, how our church lives that out in East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia…
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Externally Focused Quest
Most churches have a subtle, perhaps even unspoken, objective. It is driven by the question: “How can we be the best church in our community?” How a church answers that question determines the approach to membership, staffing, budget, etc. In a book I am now reading, Externally Focused Quest, authors Eric Swanson & Rick Rusaw ask…
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Being Sent
This past Sunday I offered a brief exposition of John 17.6-21 & John 20.21, explaining what it means to be “sent” into our community and world in the same way God the Father sent Jesus into our world. These texts demand that we understand, as John Stott says: “Our God is a missionary God.” They…
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Deep Church & Ordinary Means
Unbeknownst to me when I posted earlier today, two of my long-time friends interviewed Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church, earlier this year for their podcast: Ordinary Means. In this interview Jim introduces and discusses his book with two guys, Matt Bohling & Shaun Nolan, who unhesitatingly identify themselves with the Traditional Church. Great discussion… To listen click: Deep Church.
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The Deep Church
At the suggestion of a friend, I recently read Jim Belcher’s Deep Church. I was not disappointed. This is thoughtful and thought-provoking book. The subtitle really captures the theme of this book: A Third Way. With all the discussions about “how” to do church, and the polemic approaches of the Traditionalists and the Emerging/Emergent, some of us…
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Won’t You Be My Neighbor
A group of pastors invited the mayor of their city to discuss his dream for the city, along with the issues that were hindering that dream from becoming a reality. The mayor came with a list of pervasive issues that the pastors in this group were eager to address: at-risk kids, elderly shut-ins, dilapidated housing, and hunger. But before addressing…
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Is “Missional” Just “Evangelistic”?
In his book The Present Future, Reggie McNeal reveals the contrasts in the different ways leaders can think about the church and its ministry. McNeal reveals the different paradigms that pastors can have as they fulfill their ministry in the church. Being missional is first a shift in thinking about the nature of the church.…
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A Missional Church IS…
A missional church is rooted in the purpose of God, and understands that God is on a mission to reclaim a People for himself and restore a Creation to it’s orignal beauty. This is known as missio dei – Mission of God. A missional church recognizes that our culture in North America is no longer an…
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Keller on Being Salt & Light
Working through the Sermon on the Mount on Sunday mornings, a few weeks ago I preached from Matthew 5.13-16, the Salt & Light passage. What I explained to our congregation is that, after instrucitng us about what our attitude ought to be as citizens of the Kingdom, Jesus goes on to reveal the Influence he…
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Missing the Missional Mark
To read something I disagree with on the Internet is not an unusual thing. When what I disagree with comes from a source that I respect – highly respect – it makes me somewhat uncomfortable. When the source I respect seems to oppose what I hold, well that is just down-right disappointing. But that is the…
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Ambition
I’ve been listening to the audio of sessions from Acts 29 Network’s 2009 Bootcamp: Ambition. While not everyone will find these talks of interest, I think they are challenging and stimulating for those of us in ministry and church leadership. Ministry for the Long Haul & Ambition (Matt Chandler) Decoding Your City & Ambition (Kevin Cawley)…
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Crazy Love
I don’t know Francis Chan, but I think I like him. I know I like what I see so far. A friend, who is also an Elder in our church, introduced me to Chan a few months ago. He had just finished reading Chan’s book, Crazy Love, and said that Chan was teaching the same…
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Characteristics of a Missional Church
As our church begins to explore what it means to be a missional church, it might be helpful to hear the insights of one of the most effective practitioners and proponents of the missional approach to ministry. In the above video Tim Keller, of Redeemer Church in Manhattan, explains some of the key characteristics of…
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Gospel in Context
The gospel is always conveyed through the medium of culture. It becomes good news to lost and broken humanity as it is incarnated in the world through God’s sent people, the church. To be faithful to its calling, the church must be contextual, that is, it must be culturally relevant within a specific setting. The…
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Maundy Thursday Matters
Today is Maundy Thursday. It is a special day on the Christian calendar. But many Christians don’t know what maundy means. I imagine for some this day could easily fall just after Manic Monday, Ruby Tuesday… You get the idea. So if the term Maundy Thursday sounds foreign to you, relax, you are far from alone. The term…
