Reggie McNeal

May 20, 2008 | Filed Under kingdom of God, leadership, missional | 3 Comments

Here are two excellent presentations from Reggie McNeal recorded at the Reformed Church in America’s One Thing Conference last February.

While McNeal’s presentations are always laced with an abundance of humor, he never fails to present a great challenge to the church to struggle deeply with why and how the church functions. These two sessions are certainly no exception. I especially appreciate McNeal’s emphasis on the Kingdom in the first presentation. His thoughts on developing a “blessing strategy” are also very refreshing and applicable.

You can also download the audio of both sessions here.

The Tangible Kingdom

April 22, 2008 | Filed Under kingdom of God, missional | 1 Comment

tangible-kingdom.jpgLeadership Network’s featured resource this month is the new book by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay titled “The Tangible Kingdom.” I hope to begin to read the book this week and offer a review soon. In the meantime here is a short interview that Leadership Network did with the authors. You should also check out both Hugh’s and Matt’s blogs for more discussion on missional living.

Kingdom Evangelism

April 17, 2008 | Filed Under kingdom of God, missional | 2 Comments

howard-a-snyder.jpgHere is a link to an excellent paper titled “The Missional Church and Missional Living”  presented by Howard Snyder to the faculty at Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto. 

While the entire 15 pages are well worth reading, I found the last four pages (12-15) to be especially profitable. Snyder present a holistic approach to evangelism that is not limited to “conversion evangelism” but instead involves the comprehensive nature of the Kingdom.

The Central Theme of Jesus

December 18, 2007 | Filed Under kingdom of God | 5 Comments

glimpses-of-the-kingdom.jpgMatthew 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 him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”

Matthew 5:10
“God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”

Matthew 6:33
“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

Matthew 12:28
“But if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you.”

Matthew 19:24
“I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”

Matthew 21:31
“Which of the two obeyed his father?” They replied, “The first.” Then Jesus explained his meaning: “I tell you the truth, corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the Kingdom of God before you do.”

Mark 1:15
“The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”

Mark 4:11
“He replied, ‘You are permitted to understand the secret of the Kingdom of God. But I use parables for everything I say to outsiders,”’

Mark 4:26
“Jesus also said, ‘The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground.’” More>>

You Might Be Missional If

September 5, 2007 | Filed Under church, kingdom of God, missional | 1 Comment

Larry Chouiard provides a bit of humor (and a lot of truth) over at Spiritual Conversations with a post titled “You Might Have Missional Tendencies If:” 

1. You talk more about the Kingdom of God than you do your local church.

2. You are more in awe of the radical Jesus than you are the charisma of your pastor/preacher.

3. You feel a greater sense of community in the parking lot than in the pews.

4. You’ve oftened muttered leaving a ‘church service’, “there’s got to be more to it than this”.

5. You’ve often wondered why the church couldn’t meet in the park or Starbucks once in a while.

6. You’ve cringed at the coldness and indifference of church people when someone shows up at our ‘church service’ that looks and smells different.

7. You’ve wondered why Christians only hang-out with Christians when Jesus seemingly never missed an opportunity to party with the riff-raff.

8. You’ve wondered what God does the other six days of the week.

9. You’ve had the urge to spill your guts to the next artificial inquiry, “I’m fine, how are you?”.

10. You’ve had the compelling urge to join the preacher at the podium to present an alternative perspective.

11. You’ve wanted to fall to your knees while everyone stood for another happy-clappy song.

12. You’ve wanted to close a ’service’ by shouting from your pew, “NOW WHAT?”

13. You sometimes find more spiritual depth and authenticity in the lives of those who do not go to church.

A Holistic Gospel

September 2, 2007 | Filed Under gospel, kingdom of God, missional | No Comments

cross.jpgFor some time now I have enjoyed JR Woodward’s blog dream awakener. Over the past few weeks I have been following a series of posts that he has been doing on developing a holistic Gospel.

Woodward argues that to try to separate personal from social salvation is to argue against the law, the prophets, Jesus, and the Apostle Paul. I would like to hear your thoughts on his perspective. Here are the links to the first ten twelve posts:

A Holistic Gospel - Part I
A Holistic Gospel - Part II
A Holistic Gospel - Part III
A Holistic Gospel - Part IV
A Holistic Gospel - Part V
A Holistic Gospel - Part VI
A Holistic Gospel - Part VII
A Holistic Gospel - Part VIII
A Holistic Gospel - Part IX
A Holistic Gospel - Part X
A Holistic Gospel - Part XI
A Holistic Gospel - Part XII

The Trinity & Missional Ecclesiology

July 20, 2007 | Filed Under dmin project, ecclesiology, kingdom of God, missional | 1 Comment

trinity.jpgIn an excellent article in Word & World Journal titled “Rethinking Denominations and Denominationalism in Light of a Missional Ecclesiology” Craig Van Gelder discusses the significant developments in the past few decades in trinitarian studies regarding an understanding of mission, specifically in the area of ecclesiology. He highlights two streams within trinitarian studies that inform this conversation, and ultimately inform our understanding of the genetic code of the missional church. Here is a portion of the article: More>>

The Crusades & The Kingdom of God

February 15, 2007 | Filed Under church, gospel, kingdom of God, way of Jesus | 3 Comments

kingdom-of-god.jpg

Over the past several years I have had the wonderful opportunity to teach a course on the History of Christianity at a small college in Wichita. Just this last Saturday we dealt with “The Christian Middle Ages” which covers the time period from 590-1517. I was once again forced to struggle with the atrocities of this time period in the life of the church: the deep corruption within the church, the power grab between pope and emperor, and between pope and pope, the inquisition, and especially abhorrent the seven crusades. While in the past I usually tried to understand the misguided motivation behind the crusades by focusing on the corruption and power struggles that occurred as a result of the melding together of church and state, this time I reflected more on the misunderstanding that they (and we) sometimes have concerning the Kingdom of God.

There is no doubt that the reign, or Kingdom, of God was the central theme of Jesus’ preaching but this theme has been absent from the missionary message of the church for a very long time. There have been, and continue to be, many distortions and dilutions of this theme.  The most obvious, and applicable to the problems of the Middle Ages, was the idea that Christianized Western civilization from Constantine onward was, in fact, God’s Kingdom on earth. Therefore, to “extend” or “expand” the Kingdom by what ever means, made perfect sense to many. If the Kingdom is about physical, geographical reign then by all means “expand the borders.”

But has not that distortion of the Kingdom been replaced by more recent versions? Do we not sometimes understand the reign of God as a particular program of social or economic justice, which we are to “build” as God’s agents? But instead are we not called to “enter” and “receive” the Kingdom of God? (Those are the verbs that are used by Jesus when speaking about the Kingdom; never does He use “expand” or “build.”) We are called to enter into what God is doing in the world. We are called to participate in His activities. We are called to participate in God’s mission of setting things right in a broken, sinful world, and to restore it to what God has always intended for the world.