Category Archives: Missional

Church planting, Missional

Christmas Child Boxes

Last night (Friday) a group of us got together to assemble Christmas boxes for Samaritan’s Purse. These boxes will go to children in Third World countries, and will bless them with little things they would not normally have.

We decided that six boxes was a reasonable goal to set, so we divided up the contents and each of the five families attending brought assigned items: toothbrushes, wash clothes, small toys, soap, etc.

One of our four major values is service. Assembling these Christmas Child boxes gave attention to this value, and will be a continuing part of our DNA as a church.

To God be the glory.

Church planting, Missional

Revolution


I’m recovering from a flying trip to Seattle to attend the Revolution conference. Keynote speakers were Brian McLaren and George Barna. The attendees were pierced, tattooed, old, young, dreadlocked, coiffed, white, brown, black, doubting, and certain.

I have never attended a conference where there was such wide disparity in belief and experience, yet where faith was freely discussed and upheld. The theme of the event and all Off the Map events was that dialogue is permitted and encouraged. Not argumentation–dialogue.

One of the highlights for me was hearing the story of the Loyds who went to downtown Portland to start a church, undergoing voluntary poverty in order to do so. The church they started is prospering, and their church is filled with every sort of person imaginable.

I am happy I’ve gotten to know Jim Henderson who is the mind behind all of this. It is abundantly clear that he loves people and risks everything to show them the love of Jesus. Amen.

Church planting, LifeSpring Church, Missional

Ordinary Attempts

Last week I got an invitation to moderate the Ordinary Attempts blog at Off-the-Map.org. After I got the guidelines, I decided to think about it for a few days. This morning I accepted.

I really like the Off the Map folks. They are keenly evangelistic, but not in the usual way. Jim Henderson, the father of OtM, tells people that he’s trying to teach evangelicals to not be weird. I think that is a good description.

By weird he means the outrageous things that we sometimes do in the name of evangelism–things that totally turn off the unchurched. Ordinary Attempts are the commonsense, respectful, and caring acts done for another person, just because.

The interesting thing is that we now live in a time that is perfectly suited for OA’s. The knock-on-your-door, programmatic approach to evangelism simply doesn’t work for most folks.

OA’s require patience, but they produce relationships that are deep, genuine, and potentially the context for future discussions about Jesus.

If you want to read over my shoulder go to Ordinary Attempts and watch the conversation that goes on there.