Dr. Mohler’s take

Bryan posted a link to this article in his comment to my recent church planting post. And I wanted to make sure everybody saw both Bryan’s comment and the article.
Al Mohler is discussing Fred Barnes’ article in the Wall Street Journal about being a part of a church plant. Dr. Mohler says:
The only [...]

young men adrift

Collin Hansen has a great article in Christianity Today today.
He first states the problem:
You know the guy. He somehow managed to graduate college, but he still lives with his parents. And he doesn’t plan to move out anytime soon. Or maybe he has a decent job. He lives with some buddies in the city. But [...]

laity at work?

John Chandler has a post up with some David Bosch quotes and discussion regarding the importance of regular church attenders (as opposed the role of paid staff) to accomplishing the mission of God. Its a great post and you should go read it.
here is the first Bosch quote:
A missionary encounter with the West will [...]

excellent Newbigin quote

Todd Hiestand has an excellent quote from Newbigin up this morning.
Here is the second half, but be sure to go read the first half too.
And we can also see that wherever the missionary character of the doctrine of election is forgotten; wherever it is forgotten that we are chosen in order to be [...]

Newbigin in the morning

I have been crashing on Newbigin this morning. Some deep thinking to get my mind going. A bracing shot of metaphorical cold water to the face as a wake up call.
I first re-read his 1985 article/presentation “Can the West be Converted.”. This was one of the things that woke me up back [...]

The Call

As believers in Christ, what is our calling? Jesse Phillips is asking a pointed question on the Catablog.
here is the issue and the question:
Some evangelicals believe it’s our duty to fight for righteousness in our nation, creating laws to help non-Christians follow God’s law. Other evangelicals believe that trying to restrain non-Christians or imposing [...]

The Big Give

here is an idea that a church of any size can do in its community.
We wanted to plan an event that was all about serving our community, so we planned this event where we would give away new backpacks full of school supplies, free back-to-school haircuts, free food, free photos/fingerprinting for the kids, and lots [...]

transitions

transitioning a conversation to the gospel requires the intention to do so and the opportunity. Joe Thorn has a list of eight topics from which the gospel is an easy leap. There are more in the comments.
Here are the first three to get you started.
1. Corruption, evil and sin.
Conversations about corruption and evil [...]

wanting the familiar even if it hurts

Here are two interesting items that I ran across and emailed to a few folks toward the end of June. The first is a series of youtube videos with Adrian Warnock interviewing Ed Stetzer about missional church planting etc that I got from this Timmy Brister post.
If you don’t have time to [...]

what he said II

what he said. I just finished Ed’s book, Planting Missional Churches. Very good indeed.

should I/you be a church planter?

20 questions to ask yourself from Acts 29 via Adrian Warnock

Culturally Relevant

here are some questions that a friend of mine sent a couple of weeks ago:

So, some questions:
What does it mean to be culturally relevant?  If you are actively engaged in the culture, how do you distinguish yourself while you are blending in?  How would this not be confusing to a non-believer?
I understand Paul saying I [...]