Willow Creek admits to getting it wrong. In the Hawkins’ video he says, “Participation is a big deal. We believe the more people participating in these sets of activities, with higher levels of frequency, it will produce disciples of Christ.” This has been Willow’s philosophy of ministry in a nutshell. The church creates programs/activities. People [...]
discipleship
Contextless Links
The dark side of Google? Oligarchy in the church: Sociologists have discovered that in virtually all forms of social organizations, from friendship groups to nations, a small self-perpetuating group grabs most of the power. This tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a few persons is called the law of oligarchy. Through His various [...]
Richard Dawkins as an "enthusiast"
On Becky’s blog she is quoting Richard Dawkins who makes the claim that he may be passionate but is not a fundementalist. No, please, do not mistake passion, which can change its mind, for fundamentalism, which never will. Passion for passion, an evangelical Christian and I may be evenly matched. But we are not equally [...]
The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson
I have been enjoying Eugene Peterson’s latest book, The Jesus Way. The book is based on this article published in Christian Century. Here is are a couple of quotes from the introduction The popularized acronym WWJD (“What would Jesus do?”) is not quite accurate. The question must be “How does Jesus do it?” – page [...]
Cultivate Missional Living
Last night while working on Resonate‘s website, I checked out the referrals and I saw some links to Pernell’s newest project, the Cultivate Missional Living discipleship training community. Of course like I have done before, I assumed that because it was online, it was ready to go and I linked to it. Well, now that [...]
Review of The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch
Published by Brazos Press :: Purchase at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca294 PagesWebsite: www.theforgottenways.org which also has an excellent weblog which is published by Alan HirschDisclaimer: Publisher (Brazos Press) sent me a free review copy but I would have purchased the book regardless. Before you start into the review, my initial thoughts on the book topped 9000 [...]
Not feeling at home
From page 23 and 24 of Where Resident Aliens Live by Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas are some great thoughts I re-read tonight while looking for another story that I know is in there (I read the book twice tonight trying to find it). The image of resident aliens means in a possibly offensive way that [...]
An Apprentice of Jesus
While in Newport Beach, I had a chance to talk with Mark Scandrette and Adam Klein from ReIMAGINE! in San Francisco. They were talking about The Jesus Dojo . While surfing the ReIMAGINE! website, I found the Dojo page and saw this incredible list of what makes an apprentice of Jesus. We have been discussing [...]
Contextless Links
A bunch of theologians who disagree with the emerging church gather together to critique the emerging church. More of the same and it misses the mark. Brian McLaren in the Washington Post The Economist on the risks ahead for the global economy :: Five major risks threaten the world economy. Three centre on the United States: renewed [...]
The church and popular culture
I don’t often disagree with AKMA becasue despite us looking at the world from different theological traditions, I find him right far more than not. I read with interest his post on the church and popular culture. Somewhere between “helpful” and “neurotic” lies the terrain on which people (very often church people) insist that the [...]
What is the Missional Church?
Larry Chouinard has posted about some of the characteristics of the Missional Church. (1) A missional church is externally focused.(2) A missional church is culturally engaged without being absorbed.(3) A missional church is incarnationally not institutionally driven.(4) A missional church is about discipleship not church membership.(5) A missional church is patterned after God’s missionary purpose [...]
