Archives for category: church

Lent: To Fast Is To Gain

March 22, 2012 //

A Place at the Table

During this Lenten season, our church community has been journeying through A Place at the Table, by Chris Seay.

I love the heart behind this movement: That our fasting would draw us near to God and join us to His redemptive purposes in the world.

Fasting

A few words about fasting that I shared with our church (for more, you can visit our church community’s site):

Fasting is a spiritual discipline that has been practiced by followers of Christ from the beginning of the church. In fasting, we withdraw temporarily from food — a good gift from God — to remind ourselves that God Himself is our soul’s greatest hunger.

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Categories church, faith, family, food

Lent: Ashes and Hope

February 22, 2012 //

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the Lent. I’ve posted a little bit of background on Lent, along with some resources, over at our church community’s website.

Kye Chung offers these great insights:

It’s a day that we remember that we are mortal. That we are nothing without the breath of God. We are just dust and we’re going to die. And yet, it’s a day that we remember and eagerly anticipate the resurrection of Easter, the good news that because we are in need of a Savior, Christ is risen. The ash represents mortality, the cross represents hope.

On this day, and for the next 40 days, remember your mortality and your need for God … so, that when Easter comes, you will celebrate the new life that God has given you.

The way of the cross is difficult, sometimes impossibly so. And yet, the way to life is through the cross.

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Categories church, faith, family

Book Review: The Unlikely Missionary, by Dan King

December 13, 2011 //

I met Dan King (perhaps better known as @bibledude) through the Idea Camp, a unique tribe of idea-makers who collaborate for good in their neighborhoods, and around the world. Dan’s love for his family and for the church to rise up and become the force for good that God intends stood out to me as we shared a meal together.

The title, The Unlikely Missionary: From Pew-Warmer to Poverty-Fighter, captures the essence of what Dan seeks to do with this book — to move people from lukewarm church attending to passionately following Jesus to serve those He loves. For a more in-depth conversation on why Dan wrote this book and what he hopes to accomplish through it, read this interview I conducted with him for ChurchLeaders.com.

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Categories books, church, faith, family, leadership, ministry, missional, reviews

Pastor, Present, Future

September 30, 2011 //

This is the second of a two-part series, reflecting on the news of a handful of well-known pastors leaving their churches.

As a pastor of a local church community, I have often been asked, “So, what, exactly, do you do during the week?” This lack of clarity about the pastorate as a vocation extends not only to curious congregants, but ministers seeking to be faithful to God’s call as well.

As Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes,

Our vocation is facing something of a crisis. Many pastors aren’t sure how to describe their calling or explain why it matters to the rest of the world.

My wife and I have served together in vocational ministry as pastors for the last eleven years, but neither of us would claim to have even begun figuring this thing out. Far from being a systematic treatment, here are a couple of my thoughts on pastoral ministry:

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Categories church, communication, leadership, ministry

Tweet This!

September 26, 2011 //

News of author and pastor Rob Bell leaving the church he founded, Mars Hill in Michigan, has set off another round of tweets and updates in the Christian blogosphere and Twitterverse. While this particular flare-up doesn’t seem to carry the particularly nasty tone of the whole Love Wins controversy, a few prominent church leaders have already taken to their keyboards with harsh words (which I won’t be quoting here).

While the cynic in me wants to wipe the dust of this latest Christian dust-up off my feet, particularly in light of some of the important national and geopolitical happenings this week, this news raises some significant issues for the Church and how we’re called to be the people of God together Read the rest of this entry »

Categories church, communication, culture, leadership, ministry