600 Pages

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I recently read three books, each running about 200 pages.

Hsu_2 The first was The Suburban Christian by Albert Hsu.  I thought it was a very helpful book on suburban Christian spirituality that fills a gap in understanding life in suburbia.  There are points Hsu makes that I don't completely agree with, but all-in-all this is a good book worth checking out.

Simple The second was Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger.  I really wasn't sure what to expect since I hadn't read Rainer in near a decade.  I really enjoyed the book.  It was similar to something Andy Stanley might say (and at times has said), and I say that as a compliment.  If you are a pastor or church leader, this book will have plenty of good advice for you.

Speaking_1 The third and final read I both started and finished last night.  It was Speaking of Jesus by J. Mack Stiles.  This book has been on my shelf for a few years at least.  I really was looking to read a book that gave some practical, conversational helps.  I wasn't disappointed.  There were a few places where I wish Stiles would have taken a more missional approach, but as a whole I liked the book and would encourage my people to read it.  If you are looking for some practical advice on talking with people about Jesus there are many good things out there, and this book is a good one too.

The World Reconciled

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From whales to waterfalls, the whole created order has in principle been reconciled to God.  Like a sovereign making a proclamation and sending off his heralds to bear it to the distant corners of his empire, God has in Jesus Christ proclaimed once and for all that the world which he made has been reconciled to him.  His heralds, scurrying off to the ends of the earth with the news, are simply agents, messengers, of this one antecedent authoritative proclamation.

N.T. Wright in TNTC: Colossians and Philemon (on Colossians 1:23), p 85.

The Task of Evangelism

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The task of evangelism is...best understood as the proclamation that Jesus is already Lord, that in him God's new creation has broken into history, and that all people are therefore summoned to submit to him in love, worship and obedience.  The logic of this message requires that those who announce it should be seeking to bring Christ's Lordship to bear on every area of human and worldly existence.  Christians must work to help create conditions in which human beings, and the whole created world, can live as God always intended.

N.T. Wright in TNTC: Colossians and Philemon (on Colossians 1:19-20), 79-80.

Sermon Cloud

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My buddy Drew Goodmanson has some good news about Sermon Cloud.  This is a cool idea you need to check out.  Here's some info...

Sermon Cloud is a website for a community to interact with sermons. What are the powerful sermons people are listening to? Who are the up-and-coming preachers of the day? Where are the messages about themes that you need to hear? How can you find a great preacher in your home town? Sermon Cloud was designed to help you with all of these questions.  Sermon Cloud users help let each other know which sermons they amen. An 'amen' is a recommendation of the sermon. Users can post comments about their interaction with these sermons (even the comments can be designated as helpful or unhelpful). Sign-up for free to begin interacting, commenting and recommending sermons
today!

For Churches and Preachers: Sermon Cloud offers churches FREE Advanced Sermon Syndication & mp3 services. Are you interested in podcasting, syndicating and using all the other 'Web 2.0' buzzwords for your church? Sermon Cloud Features include Resampling mp3's to be optimized for the internet, Syndicating content (Integrating directly into iTunes store, syndicating through RSS feeds.), Displaying recent sermons on your church website, Podcasting mp3, Sermon Streaming capability in our Jukebox player, Tagging System, Commenting on sermons, Community recommending sermons, Searching for sermons and more...

Suburban Christian: Place and Anonymity

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When we speak of "community," we usually mean it in the sense of affinity groups, like the arts community, the African American community, the gay/lesbian community, the Christian community.  Lost today is the sense of physical community, in which "community" refers to a particular geographic area or neighborhood that anchors us and defines us. (p 117)

The chief antidote to suburban anonymity and isolationism may well be the Christian practice of hospitality. (p 132)

Both from Albert Hsu's The Suburban Christian.

SWBTS & Tongues

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Gotta love the SBC.  Dude shows up at Southwestern Seminary to preach at their chapel service.  He drops the prayer language (tongues) bomb on Paige Patterson and the bunch.  Hilarious man.  Who could have called this one?  So Paige "rebukes" him and refuses to make the video of the message public like other chapel sermons.

Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson has issued anextraordinary rebuke to the Rev. Dwight McKissic, a seminary trustee and prominent Arlington pastor, for acknowledging during a chapel service that he sometimes speaks in tongues when he prays.

Burleson responds,

Private prayer language is not the issue. The issue to me is that a man who holds a position that is well within the bounds of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message Statement is being silenced and censored.

We’ve got to create a climate within the Southern Baptist Convention where dissent is welcome, where dialogue is open and where disagreements can be accepted.

Suburban Christian: Creativity

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The opposite of consumption is production.  It takes far more time and energy to create something than to consume something.  It takes a novelist a year to write a book that someone can read in a few days.  A cast and crew of thousands spend years to create a film that will be viewed in two hours.  Often our only recreational activities are actions of consumption.  What an alternative it is, then, to rediscover the wonder and delight of creativity.

Albert Hsu in The Suburban Christian, page 87.

The Suburban Christian

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HsuI just got Albert Hsu's The Suburban Christian and immediately read about half of it last night.  I'm really enjoying it.  What I find fascinating is the way Hsu speaks of suburbia in much the same way some speak of the city.  Here are a couple of quotes.

Suburbia has become the context and center of millions of people's lives, and decisions and innovations made in suburbia influence the rest of society.  If Christians want to change the world, they may well do so by having a transformative Christian impact on suburbia and the people therein. (27-28)

While an individual suburb might not be a microcosm of the total city, it is an essential slice of the larger metropolis that cannot be partitioned off or seen in isolation, just as a traditional local urban neighborhood is an essential component of the whole city. (29)

Future of Church Planting

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Drew Goodmanson has given Five Trends for the Future of Church Planting.

1.  A move from denominationalism is going to radically alter church planting. Local smaller churches will partner together to plant churches.  Larger churches will follow in Redeemer's footsteps and be more concerned with planting gospel-centered churches, than churches of their own denomination. Already, our church in San Diego  has leaders as well as partners from multiple denominations.

2. Church planting networks will merge, collaborate and partner to more effectively plant churches.  For example, Todd Wilson, behind the 2006 National New Church Conference  started a Church Planting Network, whose aim is to, "help champion an explosive expansion of new reproducing churches through an alliance of collaborative church planting networks."  He has already seen this shift begin in a couple networks.  Even next years New Church Conference states the goal of, "helping church plant leaders to the next level of collaboration.  Together we can experience exponential growth of new churches in our generation."  At last years conference, Bob Roberts of Glocalnet gave an impassioned plea to the leaders of many of the church planting networks in this regard at a dinner for church planting networks and sponsors of the conference.

3. In America, churches will be planted at a faster rate in the next twenty years than we have witnessed before.  God, Technology (see #5 re: video venue), technique (mutli-site) and theological urgency will drive this.  More and more of the pastors will come from the laity.  In this same period, established churches clinging to methods will die at a faster rate than ever before.

4. Philosophy/worldview, world events and a renewed focus on kingdom/gospel/mercy ministries will contribute to a revival in America.  First, in America postmodernism (particularly the view of truth being relative) will be replaced as people are confronted with radical and extreme views.  Second, the increase in chaos in the world and a shift in our economy will drive people away from worldview complacency.  Lastly, expressions of mercy and a greater gospel cooperation (1 & 2) will create a greater witness of the church. Those who hold to the gospel and focus on gospel ecumenism will thrive; liberal churches will lose their identity trying to be relevant.

5.  More churches will be planted without the role of a preaching pastor. Many church plant organizations will promote the use of 'best of' or license videos from top preachers across America.  Already there have been churches who have licensed Willow Creek material for tens of thousands (I heard $50k) a year.  Others will simply pick series that they believe will draw the biggest crowd.  There already is one church plant that has grown to over 600 within a couple months using this method.  (Someone could probably make some good money by contacting all the 'big name' pastors and create a company that licenses their work to churches.)

Gospel & Our Culture Network

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The Gospel and Our Culture Network has a revamped site which looks good.  If you are unfamiliar with GOCN, here's some info from their site...

The Gospel and Our Culture Network has been spawned by:

  • the cultural currents of Western society and ethnic tradition that have shaped how we live in North America.

  • the rapid changes taking place as we move from a "modern" to "postmodern" form of society.

  • the growing un-ease of the church as it experiences a dislocation from its prior places of importance.

The aim is to explore what these things mean, under the light of the gospel, for the life and witness of the church.

[...]

The network offers companionship for Christian leaders and groups eager to work together with others who share similar concerns. It brings together people from a wide spectrum of churches -- from Mennonite to Roman Catholic, from Anglican to Southern Baptist -- and a range of local ministry settings.

  • It puts theological educators and ministry practitioners into fruitful contact with each other so that effective strategy and sound theory may be wedded together.

  • It provides mutual encouragement between denominational administrators and local congregational leaders to discover models of the church capable of sustaining a living and faithful witness to the gospel in our contemporary world.

  • It encourages the formation of local groups in which pastoral and lay leaders of congregations work together to develop practical responses to contemporary challenges.

  • It makes available resources and materials to facilitate vision and change in the missional life of the church.

Phriday is for Photos 8.25.06

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Four on the Floor

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We took a train trip to downtown Chicago this week.  These photos were taken at the famous Cloud Gate (the bean) which is a giant bean-shaped mirror.  It looks like this (not my pic).  It's an amazing sight that you need to find if you come to Chicago.  It's often photographed and starts looking ordinary after too many views.  But my daughter thought up this angle and I love it.  We also had our picture taken at Buckingham Fountain and got to watch the sunset in the city.

My Photography  ||  Joe's Friday Photo  ||  Flickr Friday Photo

Wild Wednesday

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I found (via FastCompany) a video on Web 2.0 that is super-helpful.  It's a 24 minute video from TechCrunch. I love the end where all these guys are asked what browser they use.  Care to guess?

In the video Arrington conducts conversations with 13 Web 2.0 CEOs about what Web 2.0 is, whether we're in a bubble, what business models work, what is the role of publishers, and how important and how large is the early adopter crowd, along with other issues related to user adoption trends and technology. For certain, Web 2.0 is about technologies such as Ajax, Mash-Ups, Flash, Tagging, and open source applications. But mostly Web 2.0's central focus is user participation.

Participants included Joe Kraus (Jotspot), Scott Milener (Browster), David Sifry (Technorati), Auren Hoffman (Rapleaf), Chris Alden (Rojo), Jonathan Abrams (Socializr), Aaron Cohen (Bolt), Jeremy Verba (Piczo), Steven Marder (Eurekster), Matt Sanchez (Video Egg), Godhwani (Simply Hired), Keith Teare (edgeio), and Michael Tanne (Wink).

Speaking of Web 2.0, last week Joe Carter (Evangelical Outpost) and I met with Justin Taylor (I hear J.I. Packer calls him Justin the Squire!) and a couple of other Crossway Publisher folks about blogging & reviewing books.  Very good conversation, and some great people.

I am trying out Browster because of the 2.0 video.  Wow, it's very interesting.  Anyone else trying it?  You need to check it out.

I'm pumped about GTDGmail.  If you haven't read Getting Things Done by David Allen, and/or if you aren't implimenting GTD in your life, please give it a look.  And then you can get GTDGmail and really geek out.

Watch the "Lecture Musical" from Prangstgrup.  Hilarious.

Michael Foster leads us to David Slagle's 100 Things I've Learned the Hard Way as a Senior Pastor.

Some Music You Should Check Out:

Husky Rescue (myspace)
Serena- Maneesh (myspace)
Black Angels (myspace)
TV on the Radio (myspace)

**If you are a Southern Baptist, please skip this next part.**  Imbibe?  Review and share your thoughts on your latest bottle of vino at Cork'd.  Gotta light?  CigarCyclopedia.

Speaking of "the good life," if you are a Southern Baptist you need to read this critical article from former SBC President Bobby Welch.  We need more wisdom like this!

I understand one pastor's blog site indicates he believes his drinking assists him in soul-winning!...

We have many outstanding young pastors and others on their way to leading this Convention to...do it as "sipping saints,"...as...soul winners! God help us to...elect a user or promoter of the use of alcoholic beverages to...leadership...!

Please don't sent hate mail.  It's a joke.  ;)  Bobbay is SOOOO funny.

City-Bound

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Dsc_0065Our family is taking the train into Chicago on Monday.  It's supposed to be a gorgeous day, clear and 83 degrees.  We plan on going to the Field Museum first and then spend some time in Millennium Park, which is a favorite hangout for our family when in the city.  The only pictures I have of Millennium Park were taken before I got my Nikon d50, so it should be a good photography trip too. 

Very excited because I love to spend long days off with the family.  Not too long ago we spent a day in Lincoln Park.  You can see those pictures here.