“The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father. . . . Since this mission goes on and in the course of history unfolds the [...]
Archive for December, 2007
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The Church, in the Western world, faces populations who are increasingly “secular” — people with no Christian memory, who don’t know what we Christians are talking about. These populations are increasingly “urban” — and out of touch with God’s “natural revelation.” These populations are increasingly “postmodern”; they have graduated from Enlightenment ideology and are more [...]
There is a very interesting conversation over at Read the Spirit between David Crumm and Rob Bell at the beginning of Bell’s “The God’s Aren’t Angry” tour. You can find the complete interview here, but here is a bit of the dialogue: DAVID: You’re known as a master of new media -– that’s the way people think of [...]
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My friend Georges Boujakly shared the following newsletter article from Margaret Benefiel, author of Soul At Work and Founder of Executive Soul. Benefiel writes that Advent ought to be a season for waiting and looking for what God is doing. She writes: Advent is about waiting for God, looking for the new thing that God [...]
Darryl Dash shares a provocative post on the Christmas theme of weakness. Here is a portion: Jesus consistently taught about laying aside our rights, becoming weak like children, and rejoicing when we were under-appreciated. He identified with those who were outcasts and powerless. He taught that the tiniest of seeds becomes the haven of birds. [...]
Matthew 3:2 “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. ” Matthew 4:17 “From then on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”’ Matthew 5:3 “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for [...]
While reading JR Woodward’s review of The Forgotten Ways this week I was reminded of how much I loved this book and how much I enjoyed reading and blogging through the book several months ago. I thought I would pull together each of the summaries for those who may have not yet read it. If [...]
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The next Missional Network gathering will be Thursday, January 24th. For this gathering we will be discussing Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect by Joseph Myers. Hope you will get a copy of the book and be prepared to discuss it together. Here are a handful of helpful reviews/reflections on the book: Adam Cleaveland at [...]
I was reminded today that people talk too much. Why is there such a strong desire for us to have our opinions heard? Even if our thoughts have no bearing on the issue being discussed so often we think others need to hear our input. I am convinced that being Jesus to others involves large [...]
6 Reasons Not To Quit
Posted: 7th December 2007 by Brad Brisco in Church Planting, Missiology, MissionalEarlier this week I read an outstanding article by Andrew Hamilton titled “6 Reasons Not To Quit.” Andrew is the Director for Forge Western Australian as well as the team leader of Upstream Communities, a missional community in the Perth suburb of Brighton. I have included the entire article in the post but you can also find the [...]
John Santic at Toward Hope published an excellent post earlier this year titled “10 Tips For Living The Incarnation.” I would highly recommend reading the entire article, but here are three of John’s 10 tips: Attentive Listening: The art of listening is becoming increasingly important for what it means to live incarnationally. Appropriate listening is [...]
A Mile In My Shoes – Chapter 4
Posted: 3rd December 2007 by Brad Brisco in Books, Spiritual FormationToday I want to conclude the review of Trevor Hudson’s wonderful little book “A Mile in My Shoes.” Thus far I have shared briefly from chapter 1, chapter 2 and chapter 3. In chapter 4 Hudson emphasizes the necessity of reflecting on life’s experiences. While this is the shortest chapter in the book, I found [...]
Here is one last excerpt from my favorite chapter of Donald Miller’s “Searching For God Knows What.” Here Miller uses Communion to illustrate just how far removed today’s church is in many ways from that of the first century church, especially in terms of real life community. Miller writes: How odd would it seem to [...]