Today’s church has a strategic problem and a missionary problem, say Dave Ferguson and Alan Hirsch, authors of On the Verge: A Journey Into the Future of the Apostolic Church.
|
|
On July 31st, 1917, the Allied Forces launched a ten day artillery bombardment using 3,000 heavy guns and 4,250,000 shells.
|
This photo was taken from across the St. Lawrence River, from St. Antoine-de-Tilly viewing Neuville, a few miles SW of Quebec City. Stayed in a wonderful B&B there on the south shore.
|
My longing is that we may see in local churches join in the creation of a missional movement, comprised of new mission-shaped atmosphere and ethos.
|
What if denominations were clusters of churches bent on being part of a missional movement, part of a new mission-shaped atmosphere and ethos. To 'get there from here' will involve ch
|
Rural churches have always known that they cannot survive by themselves.
|
Rural churches have always known that they cannot survive by themselves.
|
So, perhaps really just trying to break the ice, I said: “Well, I see that your church sanctuary could seat about 300 people – but somehow you have managed to ‘grow’ it down to 30.
|
In the immediate context, Jesus says: Nobody who puts foot to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven . . .
|
|
|
If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat (or church building for that matter).
|
Sculpture inside St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy
|
An ancient chant of Eucharistic devotion based on words from the book of the Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk (2:20) - "Let all the earth keep silence before him."
|
When Dallas Willard was asked: 'How do you do “evangelism-discipleship?' he responded with the following: "My short answer? You ravish people with the blessings of the Kingdom.
|
How is this new clan and community - called the Church, to be part of God's answer, in Christ? Here's the response of St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesian Church:
|
1. The Issue of Guilt –In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die . . .
|
C. S. Lewis once observed that "there exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence.
|
Can one local church possibly reach, reflect and respond to all the different kinds of people around it?
|
If we're just really busy running our churches - can we possibly have time and energy left to be missional ? Does one discount the other? . . .
|
What does it mean that in following after God's purposes for our lives, we remember that as Jesus was sent to our world, so are we?
|
Houses come in different shapes and sizes, of course, and are very different from land to land and culture to culture.
|
We need to beyond the goals of having good leadership and healthy churches to an enabled ministry that actually transforms the communities in which we live and serve.
|
In several of Toronto's 'gateway communities' - places of entrance to life in Canada (such as Regent Park, Thorncliffe Park Village and St.
|
I am pleased to note the many new and emerging expressions of Christian faith and community.
|
There’s got to be a point or a ‘so what?’ aspect beyond our having good leadership and healthy churches.
|
Any saint with a dream for your part of the nation ?
|
The 'modern age' assumed that we could control, predict and pressure into conformity all that we wanted to be and to do, pressing foward as we have been toward preferred outcomes for the life, meas
|
What kind of church is helpful, relevant, noticed, needed in its community?
|
It's difficult for us Christians to actually live Christianly, incarnationally, seeking Kingdom values, trying to follow and work with Jesus in building community in our neighbourhood.
|
How can denominations and Christian leaders intentionally help local churches in their primary and privileged mission task of being with and working with Christ as He transforms neighbourhood
|
Walking through Ephesus (in modern day Turkey), recently, was an incredible experience. It is ‘up and down’ terrain, situated in a long sloping valley between two mountains.
|
