I have come to give you church and church in abundance!!!

Reggie McNeal's new book Missional Renaissance lays out the shifts the church needs to make, to be who she's meant to be today.

One paragraph that sticks out for me is this one- it comes after he makes the point that people go to the airport to go somewhere else, the airport is not the destination even if it's beautiful:-

When the church thinks it's the destination, it also confuses the scorecard("Measuring success in Church"-me) It thinks that if people are hovering around the church, the church is winning The truth is, when that's the case, the church is really keeping people from where they want to go, from their real destination That destination is life Lucky for us, it just so happens this is what promised to bring us (He did not say, "I have come to give you church and give it to you more abundantly") Abundant live is lived out with loved ones, friends, and acquaintances in the marketplace, in the home, in the neighbourhood, in the world.

What do you reckon ?

The Principle of the Path by Andy Stanley

This is my first Andy Stanley book. I've listened to him and his dad on podcasts. He is as easy to follow as his father and is as easy to follow in written form as he is in spoken. He is a communicator par excellence.
The thesis of the book is that you can get where you want to get to if you choose to focus on the steps to get you there. It's not brain surgery. In fact a few times I found myself having "Aw doh !" moments when think yes well that's plain to see. However what Andy does so well is remind us in a gentle straight forward easily understood way.
He uses the stories so well to illustrate about and from, the points he's trying to make. Old Testament David is his prime narrative source but he intertwines personal experiences too.

All in all a good how to book - that is, how to live a fulfilled life - making choices - taking steps to where you want to get to.



Thanks Andy

Men's weekend - David and Giants

From the men's weekend:- We we're looking briefly at King David and his battle with Goliath.
Giants in peoples lives shout loud, try and intimidate and defy God and His people. They appear to be the champion.
But before He had arrived at this point. David had won unseen private battles in the isolation as a shepherd boy. Defeating fierce animals.
So with the private battles won he was ready for God to use him to defeat the giant.

What giants are on your horizon?
Are you winning your small private battles?
Will you be ready for a giant when it comes?

Am I ? Lord help me be ready !

Missional renaissance arrives :)

Just got McNeal's new(in the UK anyway) book. He suggests/argues for a different scorecard for church. He highlights the changes that need to be made to join God on His mission.

Church focus change from internal to external, developing people not programmes, and church based to Kingdom based.

He seems to articulate the obvious fabulously, - he seems to be saying things that a loty of people are thinking but not able to express. Thank you Reggie.

Finished the intro and first chapter - hoping that there will be some tools as to how to get there from where we are. We will see.

Church on the move!

Wow, I love to hear stories of God working in lives and in churches. Here's one that's on its way.
Kingsland Lexden which is the one I'm a part of is planning a move. Check it out here.
It's a God thing upto now and has to be a God thing to complete.

Easter in Halstead

The Churches got together in Halstead, Essex to re-enact the Easter story for all to see last Saturday. It was very effective and moving.

Who are you listening to ?

Steven Furtick offers good counsel regularly. A recent blog made me think a bit more than usual. Thanks Steve!

We receive so many messages every day and have heard them from birth. We learn and seek to be discerning and sort out the good from the bad. Sometimes, perhaps when we were younger we listened to some from authority figures like parents, teachers etc, perhaps some were not so helpful.
I need to listen to the my Father's voice and ask him to help me remove the messages I've taken on board that are not the truth. More than that now I need to find my identity in Him - and filter all the messages through that.

HT: Steve Furtick

You gotta start off right otherwise you wont get there !

Love this guy. I find him really challenging in a good way!

From Alan Hirsch's blog
In a remark ascribed to Gordon Cosby, the pioneering leader of that remarkable community, Church of the Savior in Washington. DC, he noted that in over 60 years of significant ministry, he had observed that no groups that came together around a non-missional purpose (i.e. prayer, worship, study, etc.) ever ended up becoming missional. That it was only those groups that set out to be missional in the first place (while embracing prayer, worship, study, etc. in the process) that actually got to doing it. This observation fits with all the research done by Carl George and others that indicate that the vast majority of church activities and groups, even in a healthy church, are aimed at the insiders and fail to address the missional issues facing the church in any situation.
more here

Quote: Reggie McNeal

"God takes attendance on who is NOT there !"

Love God, Love people nothing else matters !

"There are some people who think that the world will know we are Christians by how we defend truth." ~ Reggie Joyner.
Thanks to Ben Armant for this one.

Good challenge out of Orange Conference

SOmebody at the conference shared this on their blog... Reggie Joiner shared last night about Prodigal Son story at the Orange Conference! I was there last year and would've liked to go again this year ...

Comparing the Loving Father’s response to the returning son to that of the Older Brother.

LOVING FATHER: Preoccupied with whoever is missing
OLDER SON: Preoccupied with self

LOVING FATHER: operates on a context of forgiveness
OLDER SON: operates under a context of shame

LOVING FATHER: throws a party
OLDER SON: throws a fit

LOVING FATHER: confronts the older brothers thinking
OLDER SON: criticizes the loving father ways of thinking

LOVING FATHER: probably kept the porch light on for the sons return
OLDER SON: probably turned the light off and locked the door

As a church - our heart, our mission needs to be that of the LOVING FATHER. We need to treat every prodigal the way a loving father treats his prodigal son. We need to make sure our church emphasizes FORGIVENESS & JOY.

Good stuff to act on.

Expectations and excitement

Carey Niewhof has a great blog about getting what you came for. It got me thinking about what gets us excited. More over what do our kids see us getting excited about.
A question I asked my son last year - "What would you bring me if I asked you to bring me what was the most important thing in my life ?" - He told me my computer ! What a challenge !
How would your kids answer that question ?

One (young) person can make a difference

I've been impressed with the curriculum our Youth Pastor has been using recently from Youth For Christ USA Three Stories. "I was so impressed I bought the company" NOT - but i did subscribe to their youth evotional. Today's highlights a young person who is making a difference in their community and much further afield. Here's a snippet

"Nine months later, the No Cussing Club has a Web site, claims 10,000 members and boasts chapters in several states and countries. Hatch considers his greatest
achievement, though, to be getting his hometown of 25,000 to become a cuss-free
zone. "

Check out the whole evotional here

Seeing and Answering

I like the challenge that John Johnson heard N.T. Wright make recently:-

N.T. Wright reminded us to come to the biblical text with 1st century eyes and
21st century questions, rather than 19th century eyes and 16th century
questions. Most do not want to do the hard work of exegesis (that pulls us into
the 1st century), while others are too out of touch with present culture to know
the questions they must ask. Wright notes that there is a crisis in Western
democracy. These are dangerous times—threats of terror, an ecological crisis
that should have the attention of every believer, and a wave of books by Dawkins
and others intent on attacking the credibility of Christianity. There must be
cultural critique, but it must not be in the form of bashing, but rather be
about Spirit led discernment. Reasoned discourse is what will win the battle.
And Wright models this. It was clear in each of his talks that he has spent
considerable time seeking to discern the flow of the biblical books, the world
of the authors, while discerning the times in which we presently live. A good
model for all of us.

I think we need to ask God to open our ears and eyes as well as ask God for revelation

To hear the questions people are asking today. To see the Word speak from when it happened into today. The Answerer is the same yesterday, today and for ever.

What does that look like to you ?

What if ...

At our small group last night we were discussing loving together. And said the challenge was that we don't know each other that well. We asked what it would take to get to know each other better. So ..
What if we met with our small group more regularly even every other day. Maybe these times would be prayer times, sharing communion together, annointing of oil, laying hands on each other, speaking blessings over each other and of course singing God's praises. The kids would be there of course.
Billy Ritchie over in England has thoughts on these lines too.
What does it take to make this "What if... " a reality ? Choosing to make it a priority and finding like-minded people. Anything else ? ... WHat do you think ?

It broke Dad ! Can you fix it ?

I'm not a poetry kind of guy, but every once in a while a poem will really grab me. Ratna, one of our amazingly hard working and caring office staff here at First Alliance Church shared this poem with me last night.

First I was reminded of my son who had just yesterday morning asked me to help him build a Lego project, but then immediately after I start to help him pushes me out of the way so he can build it. A few minutes later he comes and grabs me again and syas he really, really really needs my help this time, because it seems to be broken and not working out right.

Next my mind goes to Moses and his grasping God's calling on His life to save his people in Egypt. He starts off by killing two Egyptians who abusing his fellow Jews, which he seemd to think fitted into the plan. However that only made him have to wait another forty years to nove into his calling!

Anyway I'll let you read the poem ...

Broken Dreams

As children bring their broken toys

with tears for us to mend,

I brought my broken dreams to God

because He was my friend.

But then, instead of leaving Him

in peace to work alone,

I hung around and tried to help

with ways that were my own.

At last, I snatched them back and cried,

"how can you be so slow?"

"My child," He said,

"what could I do?

You never did let go."

Author unknown

Family Ministry

I didn't realise there were quite a few ways of doing family ministry. Jon Erwin presents us with a great working table of Family ministry models. There are many options. There are several organisations individuals promoting literature and methods for family ministry as well. Two that that we've taken ideas and resources from are

Mark Holmen's "Faith begins at Home" - great book - we were able to distribute this to our parents last year. This year the book has expanded into Church wide package, which we're looking into here at FAC. Mark Holmen is coming to GTA in May and we're taking a group of our parents to hear him.

Orange is all about family ministry. I went to the Orange Conference last year in Atlanta. It reinforced my changing philosophy of ministering just to children. Since at Church we have the children most Sundays for 1 hour and the parents have between 80 and 100 hours - unstructured time with their children each week we need to find a way to help parents make better use of some of that time for things of God. This is especially important when we look at Deuteronomy 6 - charging the parents with sharing God's words with their children throughout the day.

So this year we've added a monthly FamJam to our family ministry schedule where the whole family come together. This is on top of Families Eating And Sharing Together (FEAST) which we started last year.

Blogged recently on my Family ministry blog about Keeping hope alive!
On Sunday our parent group (FEAST) discussion was around chapter 5 of Dr Tim Kimmel's Grace-based Parenting. It's focus is for us to lay a foundation of hope in our kids lives.
Childhood is a time we should move our children from dependence on us todependence on God. And knowing there will face challenges they can’t handlebutGod can.
Tim goes on to give us two things that are needed to raise hope-filled kids
A) They need to see/watch parents who place confidence in the only trueGod. When they see parents who say the right words but without much joy, with much fear and lack of love for not yet Christians they get a mixed message.
B) They need to be raised by parents who treat them the way Jesus treats us. With grace.
The importance of this really struck home when I read about 17 young adults in a Welsh town hanging themselves and 3 youth in Northern Ireland
As Jesse Jackson says we need to "Keep hope alive!"
Dr Kimmel goes on to say that childhood is a time we should move our children from dependence on us to dependence on God. And knowing there will face challenges they can’t handle but God can.
He also talks about parents being there for their kids so the kids know that there is someone bigger than there problems. This helps them understand as they get older that God is bigger than any of our problems.

It just takes a spark to light a fire

It just takes a spark to light a fire. We do not even know the "fires" we have started. Some good, some not so good I'm sure!
Take this guy over here at the Fermi Project (check it out here). He's choosing to serve his community for an hour a week and somebody has copied his efforts.
At my church we're going through Forty days of Community and part of the small group actvitiy is to find a way the small group can show love. My group hasn't decided yet what we're going to do. I'm excited to see what we do, especially now that I'm thinking that our spark might just start a fire. Maybe with others or maybe even with the individuals in our group, maybe even me :)

Cup O' Joe with Bill: For Thinkers Only: Strategy and Execution

Over on a Cup O' Joe Bill asks the question
What's more important:The great execution of a flawed strategy..or a flawed execution of a great strategy?

It's like one of those survey questions where you're given two options and you suppossed to choose one over the other. And of course neither are true or both are equally valid.

If his purpose is to get you to think Bill certainly does that. My thoughts are that it doesn't really matter for a number of reasons:-

If you've been called by God to do something and you're being obedient to that call, what looks flawed maybe achieving exactly the desired effect from God's perspective.

If you're working on a team, flaws are often a catalyst for strengthening relationships, which in the end are more important than any strategy or execution.

On the other hand if you're a person that is able to learn from mistakes then both are important, because both are learning opportunities.
Thanks Bill the answer is Yes :) !

Cup O' Joe with Bill: For Thinkers Only: Strategy and Execution