Reformissionary

Lots-o-Links 5.14.08

Good to hang for a couple of hours with Darryl Dash of DashHouse last night.  He is in a city just north of me for a conference and decided to look me up, so we found some time for coffee.  Great guy.

Care to buy Scott Lamb's 6,000 book library? 

Jonathan Dodson isn't starting new ministries.

Learn how worship teams practice at Sojourn Church in Louisville, KY.  They use The Planning Center.

Scott Hodge describes The Orchard's critiquing culture.

Joe Thorn pointed me to this video: "From Russia With Hate."  Wow.  Awful.

JD Greear is describing the missions strategy of Summit Church: Part 1, Part 2.

Resurgence interviews Matt Chandler.

Important values for Christian artists as summarized by Justin Taylor.  The whole PDF.

Jeremy Pryor continues his explanation of The Story-Formed Life discipleship class...

The Church I Pastor: ILT

Because our church has adopted a new direction including some pretty dramatic changes, I have led them toward adopting an Interim Leadership Team (ILT). 

Today our church changed our constitution to add the ILT, and upon my future recommendation will vote in a few men to be on the ILT.  This essentially is a transition team of leaders who will lead us through our changes, primarily toward a new constitution and the appointment of elders.  While the ILT won't be elders, they will be a much more like elders than what we have now.  Once the church adopts a new constitution and appoints elders, the ILT will dissolve.

Lots-o-Links 4.9.08

I have now won the second blog voting contest!  That has picked me up, between the two contests, $175 in online bookstore gift certificates: $50 for Westminster Seminary bookstore, $50 for Amazon, and $75 for Eisenbrauns.  Woohoo!  I will order The Reason for God copies from Westminster and Amazon.  Eisenbrauns was a late addition to the first place prize and doesn't carry Keller's book, so I will be picking up some books for my personal library.   Thanks for all your effort!  And thanks to Scot McKnight for his effort to find some votes for me.

On a side note, the total official vote count for all blogs was "666" as you can see by the screen capture.  While some might find that a bit off-puttin', I think it's awesomely hilarious.

O Lord, let there be a blog contest for the cost of hotel, airfare and conference fee for the Total Church North America Conference.  I WANT TO GO!!!

Carolyn Mahaney: How to Help Your Husband When He is Criticized

John Piper on C.S. Lewis on writing.

Al Hsu on "The New Suburbanists."

Scott Hodge has some advice for those who are thinking about change.

Makoto Fujimura: A Wedding and the City.

10 Questions Every Leader Should Ask

Growing Sustainable Suburbs

Top 10 Myths About Networking

Joe Thorn is now making my voicemails on his cell a matter of public consumption.  I want to be upset, but it represents such a positive side of me that I can't help but propagate it...

Lots-o-Links 3.27.08

Saw Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! with the fam today.  Enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  Worth watching and discussing.  Jonathan Dodson weighs in.

Joe Thorn expands on "The Table, the Pulpit, and the Square."  Joe also summarizes Dever on evangelism.

Tom Schreiner, my NT prof from my SBTS days, has been interviewed.  Among other issues, he speaks about his new New Testament Theology.  It will have a prominent place on my shelf.

Monergism interviews Tim Keller.  Keller's next book is listed on Amazon: The Prodigal God.

Scott Hodge shares a bit he is learning from Made to Stick.

After reading an interview with Michael Perry in the April issue of The Writer, I'm intrigued. 

NT Wright says "Heaven is Not Our Home."

Exagorazo is talking about missional communities: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Evangelism 2008: Calm Before the Storm

I haven't posted much on evangelism lately, but that should change soon.  The main reason is that I'm doing a ton of work on some strategic planning for the next two years (and beyond) at our church.  I've had some extra meetings and lots of sketchy ideas and plans that are starting to gel.  Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll have some things nailed down and can share more about my evangelism plans for the rest of 2008.  Some of them are directly tied to our church's plans.

Here are a few books I'm currently reading, rereading, perusing, etc

Promoting the Gospel by John Dickson (info here): To be fair, I haven't gotten past the table of contents.  But that's because I just got it in the mail today from Lisa at Narwee Baptist Church in Australia.  Thanks Lisa!

unChristian by Kinnaman and Lyons: Used some stats in last Sunday's sermon.  Good resource.

Love Walked Among Us by Paul Miller: A book I reread or reskim at least yearly on the compassion of Jesus.  You can get it used for about $4 at Amazon.  Well worth it.

Redeemer Church Planting Manual by The Godfather (Tim Keller): How can you NOT own this?  It's simply outstanding.  Been using it a lot for church strategy and planning, but also pulling much on evangelism, ethnographic interviews, etc.  I'll be blogging on a few things from the book soon.

Also worthy to note is the short New Church Initiatives (NCI) paper on "The Work of an Evangelist."  Check out NCI and their other resources.

I'm curious about the Mulit-Site Exposed Conferences.  I'm not a video venue kind of guy, but I'm very open to thinking multi-site if we are growing and it makes sense for our area.  Keller's approach is my favorite, with live preaching at all locations.

Lots-o-Links 1.31.08

Doug Wilson on how friendship evangelism is really about your money and material possessions...

Friendship evangelism rests upon generosity, sacrifice, kindness, openness, hospitality, goodness, and open-handedness. That is to be the texture of your life, and non-believers are welcome to come along with you. In short, is your evangelism giving or taking? Are you a benefactor or a salesman?

Alex Chediak is working through a pre-publication copy of Tim Keller's new book, The Reason for God.  (Amazon)

Steve Ogne on mobilizing leaders (from GCA conference).

Whiteboard Sessions website is up.

Mike Cosper is Worship and Arts Pastor at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY.  In 2006 Mike gave Acts 29 talks on "Missional Strategies for the Arts."  Both messages are here.

Mark Batterson - Four Dimensions of Courage.

Timmy Brister interviews Mark Dever on Richard Sibbs.

I've been looking forward to Son of Rambow for over a year now.  It's finally coming out in May.  Here's the trailer...

Lots-o-Links 1.19.08

Justin Taylor has an interview with Tim Keller about his new book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.  I think this book will be a great resource for skeptical friends, due in February

OnMovements (first posted by Sam Metcalf) let's us know How to Kill a Movement.

Nelson Searcy's assimilation book is now out: Fusion: Turning First Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church.  Get some free resources from the Fusion Site.

More free Jerram Barrs' resources (audio, pdf) from Monergism.  Covenant Seminary stuff.

People are talking about Neil Cole's Organic Church (which just came from Amazon today).  Tim Chester has a thought-provoking post, Seven Principles for Planting Organic Churches.  Chester has another great quote on making new believers evangelists and church planters.  Church Planting Novice explains How to Grow a Missional Church.

SUBURBIA: Watch some James Howard Kunstler on YouTube.  He is often very helpful on issues of suburbia.

Lots-o-Links 1.9.08

Sorry for the lack of suburbia links.  I have many to file through and some will be on the way soon.  I'm halfway through The End of Suburbia, which is disturbia-ing.  Ok, not really, but I wanted to try a new word.  It's interesting, to say the least.  Worth watching, no question.

This is why my best friend is better than your honor student.

You need some good business books, via Fast Company.

Brian Hedgeson elder training.

David Fitch: Confessions of a Missional Pastor (Wannabe?)

Carl Trueman: What Can Miserable Christians Sing?

Is Al Mohler the best choice for SBC President this year?  Many think so.  Some don't.  My question is: Should we have the most recognized face and voice of cultural criticism among SBC'rs be the most recognized face and voice of the Convention as a whole?  As much as I love and respect Mohler, I think the answer is clearly no.  What do you think?

2008 is the year of evangelism for me.  It's the year of discipleship for others. 

"The Tyrannus Effect" is a good example of how to get me thinking on issues of evangelism, discipleship and ecclesiology. 

Speaking of evangelism...
Roger Carswell's site, author of And Some Evangelists
BeThinking.org - Engage with Culture
Tim Chester PDF: "The Kingdom of God is at Hand: Eschatology and Mission"
(Chester's blog is one of my favorites.)

Evangelism 2008 books I've picked up...
Questioning Evangelism and Corner Conversations

Lots-o-Links 12.20.07

New Keller audio from City Life Boston: "A Broken Spirit" & "Encounter With God".

Blue Like Jazz the movie.

Time Magazine: Rob Bell is "The Hipper-Than-Thou Pastor."

A Missouri Baptist Acts 29'r talks "View and Brew."  He (Kevin Larson) has also been interviewed by Tom Ascol.

Angela Booth's top writing blogs of 2007.

Scott Hodge talks about "Fuel," leadership training at The Orchard.

Joe Thorn has found the secret to a better prayer life, and it's probably not what you think.

The curse of knowledge is only one great reason to read Made to Stick.

Lots-o-Links 11.15.07

Me and a certain pastor friend are going to see this tomorrow.  I'm pumped! 

-Bob Hyatt is good reading, as usual.  80-20 and the Organic Church Part 1 and Part 2
-Harry Potter as "Shared Text"
-Seth Godin's "Unleashing Your Ideavirus" (Part 1 and Part 2) was an excellent and thought-provoking read.  It's not very new (2000), but it was good.  More Godin here.
-I really dig this creative photography of kids.
-Must reading for those mashing the Thanksgiving potatoes.

Life and Death of the Missional Leader

I know I posted on this a long time ago, but when my wife and I were at the first Reform & Resurge Conference in Seattle (2006) we heard Darrin Patrick's talk on "The Life and Death of the Missional Leader."  I listened to it again this morning and was struck by how helpful of a message it is right now in my life.  I encourage you to listen to it.

Quitting or Sticking

Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a bit longer than most.

Extraordinary benefits also accrue to the tiny majority with the guts to quit early and refocus their effort on something new.

[...]

Quit the wrong stuff.
Stick with the right stuff.
Have the guts to do one or the other.

--Seth Godin in The Dip, page 4.--

Rohrmayer: 3 x 5 Rule Ideas

I've been sharing links to Gary Rohrmayer's helpful posts on Engaging in More Spiritual Conversations.  His newest addition provides "Ideas for Practicing the 3 x 5 Rule."  From the post...

The 3 by 5 rule is simple:  A leader seeks to find 5 contacts a day or 35 a week until they get 3 meetings or sit downs to either share the gospel or the vision of the church.  A contact is securing a person's name and contact information (a business card, phone number or email.) A sit down is a follow up appointment with one of the contacts you have generated.

The primary question generated by this rule is "How do you find 35 contacts a week?" There are three sources of contacts we will look at today. 1) Follow-up Contacts 2) Networking Contacts and 3) Cold Calling Contacts.

Read more...

"Engaging in More Spiritual Conversations" (Part 1, 2, 3, & 3x5 Ideas)

Life and Ministry Management

From Jim Wideman's Blog (1 & 2)...

10. ACCOUNT FOR YOUR TIME
How did you spend your day? Write it as you go & evaluate how you did at the end of the day. Now look for ways to improve and ask yourself, “What am I going to do about this tomorrow?”

9. PLAN YOUR TIME OFFENSIVELY
Act like your time belongs to you! Learn to say no to the things you don’t need to do.

8. KEEP YOUR PRIORITIES IN ORDER
Remember if you don’t have priorities you can’t keep them.

7. DELEGATE TO THE FAITHFUL
What are you doing someone else can do? What is it, that only you can do?

6. PLAN FOR INTERRUPTIONS
When everything is said & done, there is more said than done. Things don’t always happen how you plan them.

5. RESPOND RATHER THAN REACT TO A CRISIS.
There is more than one side to every story. I’ve found in church work there are about 36. Do your homework.  It’s okay to say, I’ll get back to you, I don’t know is a smart answer.

4. DON’T PROCRASTINATE
Do what you can do, don’t put it off.

3. GET SOME HELP
Make some calls, network, read a book, listen to a CD, get a mentor.  Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

2. PLAN FOR GROWTH
Remember people follow people with a plan.  Have a plan for spiritual growth, organizational growth, and numerical growth.

1. PRAY
Things happen when we pray that don’t happen any other way.

(HT: CR)

Bill Hybels Loves Mark Driscoll

It just kills me how hard some folks (can anyone say Missouri Baptist Convention?) are trying to distance themselves from the "emerging" Acts 29 organization and Mark Driscoll.  Driscoll is all pomo and truth has no meaning for him.

Then in Bizarro world Bill Hybels (a pastor of a moderately influential, smallish church in suburban Chicago) has poked him publicly for his fundamentalism after viewing Driscoll on video at the National New Church Conference.  He basically didn't like Driscoll's male-centered approach to church planting and let that be known from the platform.  That resulted in Acts 29 eating thousands of Driscoll's videos because the conference decided not to hand them out as originally planned. 

From Driscoll on the Resurgence website...

Last year I spoke at a large church planting event along with a number of other church planters and church planting movement leaders. The event was held in Florida, went well, and did a very encouraging job of bringing together a number of denominations, networks, and organizations that otherwise would not have benefited from such a partnership.

This year I was invited back but declined because the few-day round trip from Seattle to Florida to give a very short message (last year it was less than twenty minutes) seemed like too much in light of other responsibilities. So, the sponsors of the event asked me to instead put together an eight-minute video on church planting that could be shown at the event and then handed out to each of the 1,500 attendees. So, in an effort to be helpful, the video crew from Mars Hill Church and I spent half a day in freezing weather at a military cemetery shooting scenes that were then edited for the video. Apparently the video was shown at the event, was well received by the attendees, and then criticized by Bill Hybels from the stage because it did not speak of women church planters. And, not wanting a bigger fuss, the organization hosting the event then made a decision not to hand out the video as they had promised, leaving the guys from our Acts 29 Church Planting Network who had hauled suitcases of the videos to Florida with thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of wasted effort. The leaders of the event are good guys whom I still consider friends, and I've never met Bill Hybels so I won't speak about him personally. But, I thought we should at least post the banned video online, so here it is:

Sabbatical Food

Here are a few resources I've enjoyed so far on my week-long planning/strategy sabbatical.  Some are new to me.  Some are for review or rereading or re-listening.  Some books I'm reading in full, some in part. 

Tim Keller: Should I Not Love That Great City?
Tim Keller: The Meaning of the City
Tim Keller: Love for the City
Tim Keller: Why to Plant Churches
Mark Driscoll: Leadership Lessons from Nehemiah Part 1, Part 2 (notes Part 1, Part 2)
Philip Yancey: Prayer
Bill Sullivan: Ten Steps to Breaking the 200 Barrier
Bil Cornelius: Go Big
Bill Hybels: Just Walk Across the Room
Church Leader Insights (Nelson Searcy): Momentum and Church Growth (post/article by Scott Whitaker)

I'm also doing some of my planning/strategy work at Bubbl.us, which is a simple way to do mind-mapping.

Some resources I hope to get to...
Henry Cloud: 9 Things a Leader Must Do
Jonathan Edwards: Personal Narrative
Don Whitney: Family Worship

Cutting Edge Keller

I first heard through Charlie Pharis that Tim Keller (Tim Keller Resources) has an article in the Cutting Edge, a Vineyard church planting publication, but it wasn't online.  Now it is.   Read Keller's article on "Our New Global Culture: Ministry in Major City-Centers."  Looks like some other good articles there too, and Cawley has a list of Keller's points.

Knowing Mark Driscoll

Ed Stetzer interviews Mark Driscoll for the Exponential Conference (National New Church Conference) podcast.  Want to know more about "the cussing pastor?"  Want to know more about Driscoll's church, prayer life, struggles with sin, history with Emergent guys, or preaching?  This is a great way to find out from the horse's mouth instead of the latest blog gossip.  Great info.  Very encouraging. 

Grab it at the Exponential site, or on iTunes.  The whole series of podcasts has been helpful.

Church Leader Roundup

Here are a few things I've read recently that you might want to check out.

Kent Shaffer: 5 Ways Your Church Can Build Trust In Your Community
Mark Driscoll: Twenty Leadership Questions for Building a City Within the City (including Driscollian chest fur)
Tony Morgan: 10 Signs You're Not Ready for Change
Drew Goodmanson: The Future of Spirituality and What Is After Postmodernism
Steven Furtick: Irreplaceable
Mark Dever: Baptists and Elders (best for Baptists who don't have elders)
Joshua Sowin: A Guide to Writing Well
Acts29: An Expanded List of Books for Missional Church Planters
ESV Daily Readings (I'm doing this one)

Influence

Dangit.  Creflo Dollar is STILL more influential than me.  I thought this was my year!  The Reformissionary needs a strategic plan for taking over the world.

At least Frank Page (SBC President) beat Creflo Dollar.  And with less bling!  Of course that matters little when Phil "Big Idea" Visher beats the SBC President.  I propose that the SBC should focus more on puppet ministry in order to beat Visher next time around.

World Changers

I should have been linking this blog for some time now, but just realized I don't have him on my blog list.  Please keep up with Steve Addison's blog, World Changers.  It's consistently fantastic.

Smaller Churches

It's budget time at our church and Tim Keller's words are painfully evident.  Ugh.

The smaller church by its nature gives immature, outspoken, opinionated, and broken members far more power over the whole body. Since everyone knows everyone else, when a  family or small group of members express strong opposition to the direction set by the pastor and leaders, that small group’s misery can hold the whole congregation hostage. If they threaten to leave, the majority of people will urge the leaders to desist in their project. It is extremely difficult to get complete consensus from a group of 50-150 people about program and direction, especially in today’s diverse, fragmented society.  Yet in smaller churches there is an unwritten rule that most everyone must be happy with any new initiative in order for it to be implement. Leaders of small churches must be brave enough to lead and to confront immature members in spite of its unpleasantness.

Tim Keller, "Leadership and Church Size Dynamics"

Keller: Leadership & Church Size

New article by Tim Keller in the new issue of The Movement (Redeemer's church planting newsletter): "Leadership and Church Size Dynamics."  This is Part 1 of 2.  Read the rest of the issue here. 

Also encourage you to read the interview with J.R. Vassar, "Calling and Seduction of the City."  He is the planter of Apostles Church in Manhattan, NYC.  I met him in my first year of ministry in Colorado when he spoke at a college retreat I organized.  Good guy.

In other Redeemer resource news, I noticed a few days ago that Redeemer has a Coaching Urban Church Planters book out from J. Allen Thompson.  Should be helpful.

Darrin Patrick on Video Venues

Bob Hyatt has pointed to a thoughtful comment from Darrin Patrick (The Journey Church in St. Louis, Acts29) on church planting, church growth, and the use of video venue preaching.  It's worth reading.

Next Generation Leader

Last night I finished reading Andy Stanley's The Next Generation Leader.  I've been reading it on and off for about 8 weeks.  I thought it was good, filled with helpful advice.  I really liked the stuff on coaching.

I've read a lot of books on leadership and most of them have been at least a little helpful in their own way.  This one was helpful in several ways.  If you have read the book, what did you think? 

Driscoll on Church Innovations

For Mark Driscoll, being innovative as a church means getting young men into the church.  Quotes...

The problem in the church today is just a bunch of nice, soft, tender, chickafied church boys. 60% of Christians are chicks and the 40% that are dudes are still sort of...chicks. It's just sad.

We're looking around going, How come we're not innovative?  Cause all the innovative dudes are home watching football or they're out making money or climbing a mountain or shooting a gun or working on their truck.  They look at the church like that's a nice thing for women and children.  So the question is if you want to be innovative: How do you get young men?  All this nonsense on how to grow the church.  One issue: young men.  That's it.  That's the whole thing.  They're going to get married, make money, make babies, build companies, buy real estate.  They're going to make the culture of the future.  If you get the young men you win the war, you get everything.  You get the families, the women, the children, the money, the business, you get everything.  If you don't get the young men you get nothing.

Links Matter

A few links...

John Piper has written a manuscript responding to N.T. Wright's view of justification.  Who knows if/when we will see it since he is seeking the thoughts of others on it, but the conversation at Justin Taylor's blog about it is already interesting.  Piper wrote this on his summer sabbatical at Cambridge.

Brian Spears writes on the 10 things you'll learn by visiting other churches.  Always helpful for those of us who too rarely get to visit other churches.

The Church Planting Resources site is looking good, and is now considered to be 83% sexier (according to Drew Goodmanson).  It's a site for "free exchange of information to help build the Kingdom and ultimately spread the gospel." 

Comback Churches has some good stuff from Ed Stetzer, including his "Stirring the Waters" articles.

And have I mentioned before the PeopleGroups website?  Some good, basic demographic stuff for you.

Going Big

I'm reading a book by Bill Easum and Bil Cornelius called Go Big: Lead Your Church to Explosive Growth and finding it a very helpful, practical pastoral resource.  Easum is the VP of Easum, Bandy and Associates and Cornelius is the pastor of Bay Area Fellowship.

A few quotes...

Lead pastor, if your church is not growing, you are the stopping point.  If your church is growing, you are the catalyst.  It's that simple. (p. 9)

When God wanted to change your part of the world, he placed you there for such a time as this.  We hate to tell you this, but you're it.  Start taking responsibility for what God wants you to do with your life. (p. 10)

Knowing everybody is not the definition of a healthy church.  In fact, it may be the definition of an unhealthy church. (p. 68)

Reform & Resurge: Chandler

What are you doing right now?  Whatever it is, it's not important.  Stop it. 

Now, go and listen to Matt Chandler's message from Reform & Resurge called Gravity: The Weight of Pastoring and the Knowledge of Christ (video).  One of the most important and helpful messages I've ever heard.  It sparked a very sober discussion with my buddies in Seattle, and I hope the trend continues. 

Matt Chandler is the pastor of The Village Church in Highland Village, Texas.

UPDATE: I just finished listening to the message from Matt Chandler again and I almost broke down.  It's directed toward pastors and people in ministry, but it's relevant to you no matter who you are.  I'm working hard to not get too dramatic, but please, seriously, listen as soon as you can.  It just may save your life, or your marriage, or your church or ministry.