Here are several very good articles to add to your reading this week.
Drew Goodmanson’s “Shared Values of Missional Church Communities.”
Scot McKnight’s first four installments on the wonderful “Mission of God” by Christopher Wright: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.
Tom Davis and “Why Christians S**k.” If you are not familiar with Davis check out a couple posts on his book Red Letters. If you are not sure what the Bible says about God’s heart for the poor check out this list of Scripture.
Brian McLaughlin at Triangular Christianity offers a good reveiw of the first five “new realities” from Reggie McNeal’s Present Future.
Consider Len Hjalmarson’s “Feeding the Beast.”
If you are reading this and have some vested interest in a community of faith – whatever your flavor, old-school or new-school, emerging or submerging – do yourself a favor and stop caring about the following things:
1. The number of people in your church. Really, it doesn’t matter.
2. The “relevancy” of your common worship.
3. How often or if ever a new person shows up at one of your common worship times.
4. The size of your church budget, building, or paid staff.
5. What any other church in the world is doing – good or bad or otherwise.
And please start caring about the following things:
1. Actively looking for the evidence of God’s kingdom – where what he wants done is done – at work, at home, at Starbucks (heaven forbid), at the beach, and anywhere else you might find yourself in the course of living your normal life.
2. Simple, honest worship.
3. Having friends that don’t give a rip about your church. Maybe you might just rub off on them.
4. Giving away money to people who need it; using existing, familiar (and free) spaces for common worship such as homes, restaurants, parks, or community centers; flattening the organization’s need for paid leadership and support roles.
5. Go on a unique, unreproducible journey with a group of people and rejoice with other groups of people who do the same.