Okay, so we don’t really mean it when we say our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. That’s too hard — too demanding. We don’t want anything that might make us break a sweat. We want easy church — nothing that will […]
I have been reading both Bruggemann and Block (The Word That Redescribes the World and Community/Abundant Community) and have been challenged in my thinking to a great degree about how we live together in healthy Christian community. Both books press a very simple, yet signficant distinction between two Cs: consumer […]
I received an interesting email from a pastor today who “followed my advice” and raised questions about expectations and accountability in the church. He asked the “what is the church?” and “what is the church for?” questions, and zeroed in on what our membership vows really mean. He was shocked […]
We’ll take anybody. We don’t even require membership classes anymore. Nobody has the time, and most of the people who join our church are coming from other churches, anyway. We ask at the end of every service if there is anyone who wishes to join, they come forward, and we […]
The United Methodist Church… wants to… what? This is a question I asked for years when I worked for the General Board of Discipleship and travelled across the country. I let people fill in the blank, then pressed to be sure I understood what they meant. I came upon a […]
“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” What a brilliant turn of phrase. Not where the heart is, the treasure will be, but what we count and pursue and value indicates what matters most to us. Genius. So, based on this premise from scripture, what does The […]
The tragic results of this spirit (looking for quick and easy shortcuts in our faith) are all about us: shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic […]
“Naughty” is a great word. Today it often means risqué, improper, bad or inappropriate, but in its origin it was an all-purpose word that could mean bad, evil, worthless, of no value, unhealthy, unpleasant, disagreeable, adversarial, contrary, difficult, improper, or hypocritical. At its heart and essence was the sense of […]
We’re old. We’re dying. We’re decaying. We’re declining. We’re ineffective. We’re irrelevant. Doesn’t that motivate you to do better? Come on, be honest. Don’t such messages just fill you with energy, vigor, passion and hope? Sure they do, otherwise why would we dwell so constantly upon them? Why waste time […]
When did “evangelism” become “marketing?” At what point did the church rise up and say, “You know? Evangelism doesn’t have to be personal. We can phone (email, billboard, television, webcast) it in!” The shift from relational evangelism to representational evangelism is almost complete in some areas. At the School of […]
United Methodeviations 