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.
Pastoring & Leadership
Sermon Cloud
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...
Future of Church Planting
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
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.
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.
Core Values
I'm preaching through a series on Core Values for my church. We have five: Truth, Beauty, Redemption, Community, & Mission. This Sunday the Core Value is community.
The series has been phenomenal, for me as the pastor-teacher and for the congregation. It's been a great discipline to derive some values for our church in our context, prepare the messages, and watch our people respond. The response has been exciting.
This has been a more difficult series in some ways for me. I typically preach through books of the Bible, so this is harder work. I also realize that once I define the values they are considered defined. I feel obligated to be comprehensive yet simple.
One thing I have done is to not only apply the values so we know how we live them out, but also to have one significant and challenging application each week. I want our people to respond concretely to each value.
So, for example, the first Core Value was truth. For our concrete application we took an offering for Bibles that we could buy in bulk and have for giving to friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors. If we value truth, let's get the Word out! The offering allowed us to buy 120 ESV Bibles (Outreach Edition, both OT and NT). It's fun to watch our church respond and see something tangible happen because of it. The Bibles arrived early this week.
This week as I prepare to talk about community, I've realized how helpful it is for our community of believers to think through what we value together. God is doing some great things.
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)
Visitor Giveaways
I've been wondering if it would be good to have a giveaway book for visitors on Sunday. I really like the idea. One of the few books that seemed to fit the category of a short, inexpensive, good book for visitors is Andy Stanley's How Good is Good Enough?. I hadn't read Stanley's little (94 pages) book yet, so I picked it up last night and read it. I was pleased.
I think it's a good book especially for churches in areas where nearly everyone is a "Christian" but few really know Christ. It has just enough logic and reason arguments to fulfill that need in logical thinkers. It has enough story and illustration to keep it moving and engaging. It has a nice flow and argument and closes with Christ.
Have you read Stanley's book and what do you think about it? Know of other books that would be good as giveaways to church visitors?
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.
McManus Interview
Acts29 Boot Camp: San Diego
I want to encourage any of you who are interested in planting a church, replanting/renewing a church, or just learning to be a better pastor or church leader to attend the Acts29 Boot Camp in San Diego. There will be some really good guys speaking there including David Fairchild, Scott Thomas and Daniel Montgomery. It's at Kaleo Church where my friend Drew Goodmanson is an elder.
My Acts29 Boot Camp experience was in Dallas last fall. It sparked much conviction about my calling and direction in ministry. It was also life-changing for my wife. I highly recommend it.
Challenge of the Suburbs
Reform & Resurge: Keller
Reform & Resurge audio of Tim Keller: Preaching the Gospel. Also hear his first talk at R&R: Being the Church in Our Culture.
My Tim Keller Resources page.
Driscoll Interview
Mark Driscoll interview in CT: Men Are From Mars Hill.
Kevin Cawley on Driscoll's Confessions
Kevin Cawley offers a thoughtful review of Mark Driscoll's Confessions of a Reformission Rev.
Keller: City Centers IV
Tim Keller has a new article up over at The Movement: "Ministry in the New Global Culture of Major City-Centers, Part IV."
Read the whole series of articles: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.
Also note a reading list on contextualization from the current issue of The Movement.
Reform & Resurge: Stetzer
The audio for Stetzer's first Reform & Resurge message is up (MP3).
Me, Joe, and Andy Stanley
Joe Thorn and I faced a 16 hour road trip back home from Greensboro, NC. What would we do?
Would we listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio? Would we debate the ancient-future longevity of the shofar? Would we sleep? Would we (again) loop the CD of Wolfmother or Espers over and over? Would we grow tired of SBC politics and go mad???
None of the above. Since I was the designated driver for the whole trip (not because Joe is a winebibber, but because I get carsick if I don't drive), Joe read aloud Seven Practices for Effective Ministry by Andy Stanley (and others). He read on and off for the whole trip and finished the book about 5 miles from his house.
It was a very helpful & practical read for both of us as we think through the issues and problems and possibilities we face in our local churches.