imagining how the church can reorient around mission

You don’t have to say everything you know 

Jesus was emphatic when he stated that the prime objective for every one of His followers was to love someone else. read more

I've been writing the last couple of weeks about the discipline of listening. I must again admit that I'm a novice at this discipline.

This week I've been trying to put into practice the spiritual discipline of “Indifference.” “Indifference” doesn't mean anything like “I don't care” or “It doesn't make any difference to me,” but has more to do with the idea of holding things lightly. As Ruth Haley Barton puts it, read more

Here is a liturgy I wrote for our new group, Immanuel to attempt to put into practice what I have been talking
about the last two days.  Enjoy!

Note: I passed out the
texts in advance to others so I was not the only one leading. read more

As
I mentioned yesterday the idea of listening for God's direction in ministry and
mission is something that is critically important, but quite difficult.

In
thinking about how we are to listen it seems like there are three components
that have to be grappled with. read more

I have started on one of those “Read Through
the Bible in a Year” programs for 2013. I have done this annually for many years but
have dropped the practice in the last few for a variety of reasons.
Nonetheless, I believe it is vital to get the full scope of Scripture and there
are no shortcuts in getting there. You just have to sit down and read. I
believe that the Gospel is found in the entire Bible, not just in select verses
that evangelicals have hyper-focused on for the last several decades. It was
NT Wright and a few others who have asked the poignant question: Do we actually need
to read the whole of Scripture to arrive at a clear and full understanding of
the gospel?” Sadly, most will unequivocally say that you need to engage the
full corpus of Scripture, but in real time their lives deny the fact. 

Okay, to my point… while reading through the
Pentateuch I was once again arrested by the narrative of how God led the nation
Israel with a “Pillar of Cloud and a Pillar of fire.” These two images represented God’s
presence for the people. To simply state the scenario, God firmly instructed
them that their role was to unreservedly follow Him in fire and the cloud. When
the cloud and fire moved, they all were to “Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies” and follow (sorry, I could not resist the temptation to quote a Neil
Diamond song). When it was stationary, the nation pitched their tents and
hunkered down. Pretty simple, right? I am being serious when I say that my dog
Buckley could track with those commands. Buckley come! Buckley stay! Bam. This
is easy stuff. read more

 “Confronted with the mystery of God, the creature must be silent; not merely for the sake of being silent, but for the sake of hearing. Only to the extent that it attains to silence, can it attain to hearing. But, again, it must be silent not merely for the sake of hearing, but for that of obeying. For obedience is the purpose and goal of hearing. Our return to obedience is indeed the aim of free grace. It is for this that it makes us free. It is for this that it confronts us as mystery” – Karl Barth (Church Dogmatics II/2: The Doctrine of God. Edited b G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. Translated by T.H.L. Parker

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I seriously love this quote. I got it off of Eric Blauer's blog.  The act of listening prayer is such a lacking thing in leadership…heck, in me. I would like to tattoo this on my heart.