Worth Reading?

Here are a few good blog posts and articles I've read over the past week.

John Stott on Singleness

Hugh Halter on kids in the micro church - make sure you check out the photo.

Paul Tripp on what the gospel means to our life right now

David Fitch on the need for missional rhythms in our micro churches

This is Discipling

This is Discipling from The Foursquare Church on Vimeo.

God's Heart for Urban Education 2

And now for some good news...God is up to something in Memphis!

Before diving into what that "something" is, let's hit a couple of theological points. The Bible speaks of a God who is not only capable of doing extraordinary things, but also one who desires to do so. In other words, our God is not only strong but also loving. If you believe this, then there's another point that the Bible makes clear over and over, and it's this: God loves to do the impossible, and He loves to use weak, desperate and dependent people in the process.

Everybody knows that Memphis has some BIG problems. Several times it has ranked at the top of various "worst cities" reports. So what a great place for God to do something extraordinary! As David pointed out, the richest man in the world has given $90 million to Memphis schools, and the most powerful man in the world has given $500 million to Tennessee, much of which will make its way to Memphis.

Oh yeah, and it was just announced that this same most powerful man in the world will be heading to Memphis in a couple of weeks to give the commencement speech at Booker T. Washington High School!!!

David believes that the epicenter for urban education reform is our city. All of the education reform organizations are now making their way to Memphis, and the world is watching to see what will happen next.

And what about the Church? Well, we get the opportunity to be the subversive community that we were meant to be. As David reminded us, the Roman Empire came to believe that Jesus was supreme not because the Christians were the most powerful political organization. It was actually just the opposite. The Christians had no political clout. They had actually been persecuted for 300 years. Instead, they were living out their beliefs in radical ways. They entered into the problems and saw God do the extraordinary through them living their ordinary lives with Gospel intentionality.

Today let us too enter into the big problems of our city, and together dream God-sized dreams, and then let us watch God do what only He can do!

Let Go of Your Stuff

Below are some of the statistics that Sandy Wilson, pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, gives in his message, "Let Go of Your Stuff." The key text is Deuteronomy 14:22-15:23, which is one of the primary passages that helps us understand the Missio Dei (mission of God). In this passage he talks about the relationship between our money and the poor throughout our city and the world. One of the questions he seeks to answer is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The audio can be found here. Notes can be found here.

· If you make $25,000/yr, you are in the top 10% of the world's wealthiest

· If you make $25,000/yr, you are just above the poverty line in this country

· If you make $50,000/yr, you are in the top 1% of the world's wealthiest

· Two million children (mostly girls) will be traded in sex traffic this year

· There are more slaves in the world today than there have been in all points of history combined

· Women work two-thirds of the labor hours in the world, and they get paid less than 10% of the wages. And they own less than 1% of the property.

· There are 33 million refugees throughout the world

· The gap between the rich and the poor is growing. In 1820 the ratio was 4 to 1. In other words, the wealthiest person was four times as wealthy as the poorest person. In 1913 that ratio increased to 11 to 1. In 1950 it rose to 35 to 1. And in this last decade it rose to 75 to 1. So now, the wealthiest person is 75 times as wealthy as the poorest person.

· The biggest gap is found in China. The U.S. is in second place.

· The joblessness rate in the U.S. is now 10%. In the urban core it is over 30%

· The average church member gives 2.6% of his/her income. During the Depression Americans gave 3.3%.

· Just 2% of our giving goes overseas.

CA Article Getting Around

My pastor from our Nashville days just emailed me to say that our story is featured in a post at GetReligion.org.

From Community Groups to Missional Communities

Phase 3 of Community Groups at Neighborhood Church gets underway tonight. We began our first community group 14 months ago. It was a large one. Last fall we then went to two groups. We set before each group five values: Sharing life, sharing stories, sharing Scripture, sharing prayer, and sharing mission. Most weeks these groups discussed the previous Sunday's message, but we also wanted to begin developing true community. I believe that we were very successful in reaching that goal. One of the things I was most excited about was the way the kids were loved on and cared for by everyone in the group. I think we got a real taste of what community can be.

So that brings us to today. As much as I loved our community groups, I felt that they were too large. They left me wanting more, especially when it comes to the three journeys (upward, inward and outward). Many nights, just as we were beginning to go deep as a community, 7:30 would roll around and one of the kids would automatically go into meltdown mode. (In case you don't have children, that means the show is over and it's time to go home). Much of this was due to having so many in one group. The other issue centered around mission. It's great that almost everyone at NC is involved in a mission of some sort. Those folks are of course passionate about their missions, but this meant that it was often difficult to decide on a common mission.

Over the summer I've had conversations with several friends about where we're heading. One of the more helpful conversations was with Michael Stewart. He said that at Austin Stone they've helped their folks come to understand the difference between a team of missionaries and a missionary team. A team of missionaries is a group of people who all have a different mission but who come together for encouragement and prayer. On the other hand, a missionary team is a group of people who have a shared, or common, mission. That I believe has been the missing piece for me.

So in phase 3 we are centering around mission, believing that the best community we can have will be discovered through the context of mission. If you ask a person about their best experience of community, chances are that you'll hear a story about a mission trip. In order to do this we're having groups of 6-8 people.

Three couples from NC, including Mandy and I, have kindergarteners at Peabody Elementary School this year. For the next nine months we are all going to be investing a lot of hours into Peabody. This is our common mission, which makes us a missional community. And this is where I first starting putting this together. In February we had several families over who at the time were considering sending their kids to Peabody. As we were sitting around talking about our hopes and dreams, it all of a sudden hit me that this was my missional community. It didn't matter that only three of us were a part of NC. We had a common mission (public education through our neighborhood school), and the common mission was drawing us together like nothing else could.

I am very excited by what I see God doing in the lives of NC'ers. I think we're on the verge of seeing God do what only God can do, and I'm so glad that I'm on board for the ride!

TK Primer Study Begins

Our community groups have just begun going through the TK Primer, which was written by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, who also wrote the blessed book, The Tangible Kingdom. I'm really looking forward to seeing how God shapes us for mission through this study.

Weekly Links

Scot McKnight writes about homeschooling with, get this, a Germany and Memphis connection

Making lemonade out of lemons - found out about this movie on Seth Godin's blog. The idea is that sometimes the best entrepreneurial moments come out of times of crisis

Starting a Church Without Losing Your Soul - by Ed Stetzer

Audio & Video from the Acts 29 Church Planting Bootcamp in Raleigh

Ten Reasons why Churches Stall - Tim Chester

10 Tips for Missional Communities

Weekly Links

Matthew May helps us to ask the question, "Am I making the most of what I have to offer the world?" He writes, "The sad fact is that many people, if not most, would rather be doing something else with their life and instead spend their day in some way distracted in their work or feeling like they don't or can't bring their true and best self to work."

JR Vassar reflects on five years of living in NYC.

Hugh Halter describes Adullam's weekly worship gathering

Jonathan Dodson on introducing your church to others (on Sundays and on your website)

NY Times columnist David Brooks writes that the recent tragedy in Haiti is a poverty story rather than a natural disaster story. His first point is that we don't know how to use aid to reduce poverty.

Weekly Links

1. Gotta start out with this video. It's not everyday that something this awesome and unexpected happens.




2. When Helping Hurts - I heard Steve Corbett speak at CCDA and then purchased the book. Here is an article by the co-author, Brian Fikkert. I have to say that I had never heard anyone say these things, yet something resounded within me that these guys are speaking truth.

3. Another free ebook from Seth Godin - What Matters Now

4. Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church, responds to some of his critics. Almost finished with this book, and it is great.

5. Perry Noble's 7 questions that teams should be asking. This is very helpful if you are a part of a team.

6. Scot McKnight's brief review on Alan Roxburgh's new book makes me want to read it. Guess that's the point of book reviews, right. I think the three missional conversations that speak of are right on point.

Update on our Education Journey

Last week I responded to a post from a friend's blog on whether or not it's important for us as Christ-followers to send our kids to public schools. Below is that post. If you'd like to read more on this issue, and specifically, our journey, go here and here.

We moved to Midtown Memphis almost four years ago from the SF Bay Area. We had a six-month old at the time. We learned right away that most young families don't stay in Midtown long because of the school system. We felt called here to start a church, and believed that we needed to live here long-term in order to be effective.

We also learned that our neighborhood has a public elementary school, but the families in the neighborhood don't send their kids there. So we began our research. I should point out that my wife is an educator and taught in a Memphis City school our first two years here. This helped immensely. In April, 2007 we hosted a forum at our neighborhood school to determine if this was a quality issue or something else (racial, economic, safety, etc...). There was a large turnout, and the consensus at the end was that it's a great school. So something else is keeping families from sending their kids there. After the discussion, my wife was asked to be the Community Representative on the school's Leadership Team. Other parents (of not-yet-school-age children) have already begun to take leadership roles in school events as well. The principal is working closely with neighborhood families to see the school bridge the racial, economic, and academic gap.

Throughout the last few years, we have encountered dozens of people with the same heart cry as ours - for this to become a neighborhood school once again. Some of these we knew to be followers of Christ, but many would not identify themselves as such. Yet a community has begun to form, full of families with a common vision and mission.

Next fall our oldest will be attending Kindergarten at our local elementary school, along with several other children from this group, with dozens more planning on attending in the coming years. Over the last few years we have held this very loosely. We have prayed a lot. We do not want to sacrifice our child, and what we're doing is actually far from that. This is an excellent school, and he's going to have an excellent education, even beyond the academics. He will learn diversity, both racially and economically, and our prayer is that he learns to love others as God loves him.

At the same time, though, what we are doing is extremely intentional and strategic, and I know that it is a big part of why we're here. We never would have set out to integrate our local elementary school or attempt to change the school district, but when we pray, "God, do only what you can do" be ready to walk through the doors He opens!

We could have been called to a different neighborhood in the city, and though our process would have been similar, I recognize that the result may have been different. There are multiple bottom lines, but they all have to be prayed through and considered.

The Benefits of a Small Church

I like any pastor or leader wants the organization I'm a part of, in this case my church, to grow. I'd be lying if I said otherwise. However, there are some major benefits for being a small church. This weekend we had our first 24 Hours of Prayer in preparation for Advent. The awesome thing was that almost every person in our church took on an hour. We began at 5:00 on Saturday night and ended at 5:00 on Sunday night. Then we debriefed during our worship gathering. God met with us in a powerful way. It was wonderful listening as people shared about their encounters with God.

Here's the thing, though. Everyone knew that if we wanted to fill up 24 hours, they had better sign up. I wonder what the participation would have been like if we had double the amount of people. Would we have had two people sign up for each slot? I have my doubts. I imagine that many would assume that if they sat this one out, it would still be successful. With a small church, the value of participation is greatly increased. The same is true for discipleship and mission. We have almost 100% participation in Community Groups, Life Transformation Groups, and outward projects.

I love the DNA that is being created here. I do pray that God would continue leading folks our way, especially those with less than ideal church experiences, but more important, I pray that they would see this value of participation and get involved!

Catching Up on Some Links

Way behind on this, so I'm going to have two posts on some of the great things I've read online over the last few weeks. First, some great resources...

150 of Tim Keller's sermons available for free

Summaries from some of the talks at Catalyst this year

Free ebook on discipleship from Winfield Bevins. I'm printing it out right now and am looking forward to reading it.

Videos from The Nines

Video/audio from the Lead09 Conference featuring Tim Chester and Jonathan Dodson

Koinonia - A Deeper Meaning

Last night we finished up our vision series for Neighborhood Church. Throughout this series we've been calling people to move from participation to partnership, and last night I opened the message with a passage that includes this word "partnership." It's Philippians 1:1-11. The Philippian church held a very special place in Paul's heart, and he begins his letter by telling them this. He remembers what God has done in this city, and in joy he gives thanks to God. In verse 5 we see why. It's because of their partnership in the gospel.

Last week I looked up this word partnership. I was surprised to learn that the Greek word is koinonia. Most Christians have heard this word. One of the places it's found is Acts 2:42-47. We find the word in verse 42, and here it is translated as fellowship. Now think about this for a second. In our culture, and especially in our church culture, the word fellowship is very different from the word partnership. We desire true community. We desire to know and to be known. But it often stops there. Not for Paul, though. For Paul, true koinonia has an active component.

This is why mission trips are so powerful. Ask someone about their best church experience, about the time they felt a part of something, about the time they felt that they truly belonged - the answer is very often associated with mission. It's about being caught up into something greater than yourself. It's about having a common goal that takes the entire team's effort to pull off. This is why mission and community cannot be separated. And it's why true koinonia cannot be separated from partnership.

Luke 1

I'm planning on starting a teaching series on Luke's Gospel around Christmas, so I decided to blog my way through it as a devotional exercise, kind of like I did with Hebrews.

Scripture

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

Observation

John's role was to prepare God's people for what He was getting ready to do. This plan was truly going to be good news, but the way it would come about would baffle everyone. It would be truly subversive in nature. As I read this again, I'm astounded at the company that God keeps. He goes to a priest, yes, but it's a priest with flaws. This priest, Zechariah, cannot pass down his priesthood to a son. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have never been able to have a child, and at this point, they are too old.

I love Mary's visit to see Elizabeth. There is nothing special about these two, yet the Most High God decides to include them in His plan for redeeming the world. I think this scene is a great picture of the immanence and creativity of God. God is in their midst in a beautiful and profound way.

Application

John's father, Zechariah, was disciplined by God for not believing that his wife Elizabeth could become pregnant. This seems a little severe, but part of preparation for this plan was, and still is today, faith. Do we believe that God can do the impossible (Lk. 1:37)?

Neighborhood Church is going to participating in The Advent Conspiracy for the third year, and the tag line that resonates with me so much is "Christmas was meant to change the world." Christmas did change the world, and Christmas does change the world, but it's changed as God's people partner with Him in His plan of redemption.

Prayer

Oh Great God, how easy it is to miss what You are doing in our world. How easy it is to miss what You are doing in my life. You don't work the way I think You ought to work. You don't always use the people I expect for You to use. Help me to see things as You see them. Help me to see people as You see them. And help me to be prepared for the work that You are going to do. I don't want to miss it. Help me to believe with everything in me that absolutely nothing is impossible for You.

Links

It's been awhile since I posted links, so you can imagine that I've got some really good ones here. Hopefully that will prove to be the case.

Tim Chester on the differences between house churches and missional communities

Tim Kimmel, author of Grace-Based Parenting, is coming to Memphis in October. Hoping to take a great group from our church

A month or so ago I started doing a bible study on our identity in Christ. Today I see that Greg Boyd has beaten me to it. This is worth spending some time on. I want to teach on this at some point soon.

A key passage for our Acts series this summer was 1 Peter 3:15, which says that we as Christians should always be ready to give a reason for why we have hope. I remember first hearing Brian McLaren say that this implies that people are asking questions. So what questions are our friends asking?

I just ordered the TK Primer (Workbook). It's a follow-up to one of my all-time favorite books, The Tangible Kingdom, by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. I'm looking forward to going through this workbook.

How I Got Here - Missional Church

I mentioned in a previous post that I wasn't sure when I was first exposed to the term "missional," but now I remember. It was when my friend Dieter Zander suggested that I read Missional Church, the great book edited by Darrell Guder. It was one of his parting words to me during our initial trip to San Francisco, when we were deciding if we were going to go to Golden Gate Seminary. The funny thing is that I didn't read it until three years later, after seminary was over. But I remember devouring it over about a week. I would guess that it's a top 5 "shaping" book for me.

As I've said in other posts, the word "missional" took on great meaning for me during my time in seminary. I came to understand that the church is the called out and sent forth people of God. We are called to take the gospel into culture. This is what it means to be missional.

If you've heard this term thrown around but are still not exactly sure what it means, I would recommend an article by Tim Keller titled "The Missional Church." In just three pages he summarizes the what's, why's and how's of missional church.

More on Engaging Culture

I came across a short paper I wrote after first reading Resident Aliens and beginning to think about engaging culture. Here's what I wrote.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

How does the Church Engage the World?

First, definitions…

“Church”

• Called out ones
• Sent

“Engage”

• From “go” to “come”

Sometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh, new world began. When and how did we change? Although it may sound trivial, one of us is tempted to date the shift sometime on a Sunday evening in 1963. Then, in Greenville, South Carolina, in defiance of the state’s time-honored blue laws, the Fox Theater opened on Sunday. Seven of us – regular attenders of the Methodist Youth Fellowship at Buncombe Street Church – made a pact to enter the front door of the church, be seen, then quietly slip out the back door and join John Wayne at the Fox.

Resident Aliens, by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon

This morning (9/15/02), instead of “going to church”, we went to the Depot in downtown Mill Valley in an attempt to begin asking the above question. My journey began about six months ago, while I was on staff at (a local church). We had planned on using a “Man on the Street” video interview for the service. One of our girls had shot the footage and given it to someone else to be edited. He accidentally erased it, and on Saturday night called her to tell her the bad news. They decided that she would get to church early the next morning, go across the street to the café, and shoot more footage. An hour later, we were watching on the big screen what was going on across the street. As I watched, I couldn’t help wondering what those people would think about us watching what they were doing. I wondered for the first time why we weren’t over there instead of over here. Since that time, I have been wondering what it would look like for the church to be more preoccupied with “going” than with trying to get people to “come.”

We’ve come a long way since 1963. During those days, Sunday mornings were reserved for going to church. No stores were open; no one (maybe a few) was at the parks; very few were on the roads, except as they were going to church and then going to the restaurants for lunch. The world was good. Where have we gone wrong? Hauerwas and Willimon share that the world wasn’t perhaps all that good, and perhaps now the world isn’t so bad. People may not be interested in church as they have known it, but many are interested in the good news of Jesus.

How I Got Here - Missional Community

A year or so after reading the Cutting Edge article about Vineyard Central, I picked up the magazine again and noticed an article about a church that had been started in Washington D.C. in 1947. That church was called The Church of the Saviour, and the planters were Gordon and Mary Cosby. I guess I had skipped this article because I was so excited after reading about Vineyard Central. But I also think it was a timing issue.

Probably the biggest takeaway from this was the idea of Inward/Outward Journey. It's definitely influenced the vision of our church today. It was the idea that the church exists for God's mission. It's much bigger than simply coming together once a week. And it's not meant to be done alone. It was also around this time that I first heard the term "missional community". I don't remember where I first heard it, but I was impacted by it, and primarily so because of what I read from this church.

Here's the quote that I couldn't get out of my mind for a long time:

...the greatest impact on the world comes about by small, highly committed and disciplined communities of people focused on outward mission, inward transformation, and loving, accountable community.

This became a mission statement for me, and something that I desired to be a part of more than anything else.

Ordinary People/Gospel Intentionality

One of my favorite phrases from Total Church is "Ordinary people living ordinary lives with Gospel intentionality." It's a phrase I'm going to be using most weeks during our Acts study at NC. Anyway, here is a great series of Twitter posts from Steve Timmis (co-author of the book) on what this tangibly looks like.

• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … buying from local shops.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … frequenting a local coffee shop or pub.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … playing for a local sports team.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … always tipping generously in local restaurants.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … being the kind of neighbour everyone wants to have as a neighbour.

More.