Category: Connecting to God
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Cool church?
This is so encouraging to read – especially from a church with the size and influence of Life Church: The American Church is not lacking for “cool” pastors. Like a single guy who is trying just-a-bit-too-hard to impress a girl, some churches are simply trying too hard to be cool. I’m very encouraged to see […]
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Be unsafe
Ben Arment’s a guy I’ve been following through his blog for at least four years – through his work as a church planter, to relaunching that same church with a new name and location, to packing up and moving to Georgia to work with Catalyst. (It’s amazing the lessons you can learn from a guy […]
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God & pain
I’ve been thinking about Steven Curtis Chapman and his family today. My heart is so saddened at the loss of his 5-year-old daughter, Maria. It’s odd to feel pain for a family you don’t even know, but I guess music can form a connection, too. In fact, a song of Steven’s helped me walk through […]
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So these three theologians walk into a …
Seminary’s a weird place. You’re learning a lot about God. Some of it’s even useful and incredibly beneficial. But you also get stuck in this “other world” with terminology and ideas that can separate you from normal, everyday life. That’s why I love this joke a buddy sent me today. It’s the only seminary joke […]
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Becoming missional communities
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be a “missional community” – how small groups can organize around outward mission that enables those relationships with God and each other to grow and be developed along the way. Alan Hirsch has a lot of great things to say about this here. The […]
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Jesus, sinners, and you
I’m always amazed at how Jesus not only hung around rough crowds filled with corrupt businessmen, prostitutes, and sinners but how those crowds actually wanted to be around Jesus. How does that happen? His message essentially tells them they need to change, but they invite him to parties. When I’m in a new group and […]
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Theology with feet
One of the constant (healthy) tensions I face in seminary is what the theology means in life. We can spend a lot of time thinking great ideas about God. But what does it mean for following God? In the midst of talking about Hebrew parsings, evolution and creation accounts, sermon structures, the nature of evil, […]
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Learning from other pastors…
David Fitch (author of The Great Giveaway) writes about the things he wished he’d done more of during the past few years as a missonal pastor. I found them enlightening and encouraging. The first three are below. Click through to his blog at the end to read the rest… Over the past several years of […]
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Do something. Just don’t do everything.
As you can probably guess from my quotes page, I really believe that what we DO gives us much more credibility than what we KNOW or what we SAY. We can hold a lot of beliefs and ideas, but how we live says a lot more about what we truly believe. I’m beginning to realize, […]
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Life change, anyone?
Unclutterer.com posted an interview with Peter Walsh, host of TLC’s Clean Sweep that talks about his new book and his mission to help people keep “stuff” from controlling their lives. This doesn’t just apply to clutter… Unclutterer: What steps do you take to insure that your clients won’t revert to their old clutter-hoarding ways after […]
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Accountability
Keeping accountable to others can be the difference between finishing well and failing miserably. But most of the time, it isn’t done in a way that provides much more than a slap on the wrist and a guilt trip. Usually there’s a list of questions regarding different sins you could have committed that week. Did […]
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Leadership hinges on discipleship
We all have different giftings and passions. Even in the same field, one person may have a different emphasis than another. When I was in journalism, I worked with writers who focused on sports, features, and “hard news.” It’s time to see pastors in the same light. There’s not one proper style for church leadership. […]
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Speeding through that text? Slow down!
One of the lessons I learned from taking Greek wasn’t something I was expecting. When you’re translating, you have to read the text slowly (sometimes VERY slowly). Beyond the nuances that reading the original language brings out, it is amazing how considering every word can make a piece of text you may have heard many […]
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Another lesson from that coffee shop
I normally don’t write the “how church can get better by adopting business practices” posts. A lot of people are already doing that. Plus, I don’t believe it’s always a one-to-one comparison. There are different forces at work in church life (more community focused, outward oriented, God-driven) that don’t always neatly mesh with the consumerist-based […]
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Patience: that tension between doing and waiting
Tonight Grete and I attended Fuller’s Korean welcome event so we could have dinner with some folks from our community. We had a great cross-cultural experience of humming along with Korean worship songs and eating a full Korean meal (I skipped the kimchi, though!). The pastor who spoke at the event talked about patience, referring […]
Jon Sampson 