'The entire nation of Israel operated on a Sunday to Friday calendar. Saturday was the Sabbath - no work, no play, and no good works. Saturday was the holy day, and all who would give homage and honour to God would keep the Sabbath holy. Right out of the gate, the church moved the holy day to Sunday. On the Sabbath, Jesus was still dead. On Sunday, He rose from the dead. I have to [...]
so this morning we had an Oikos gathering at Seattle coffee shop in Century City where all good Oikos gatherings happen - basically the idea is for an informal setting for people passionate about Jesus (yet maybe not so passionate about church or struggling with church in its current form and style) to have a space to talk openly about loving God and loving people and struggles with church and new exciting books or ideas [...]
this is an article/letter by one of my modern day heroes - a guy called shane claiborne who wrote one of my top three books 'The Irresistible Revolution' which was basically a search for any Christians who actually believed and lived out the stuff of the Bible - highly recommended if you have not read it yet - and who i got to hang out with for a bit at a surfers conference two years [...]
another excerpt from Erwin McManus 'an unSTOPPABLE force' - just buy it already! 'And though i'm advocating our need to become a movement, I would like to encourage you to give up on keeping up.' then a little later: 'The first-century church didn't keep up with its time, didn't spend its energy keeping up with its time. The first-century church changed time. It rewrote history. It radically impacted culture. The church was the forerunner, not [...]
that i am grappling with lately: one of them is taking the incredible life-transforming simple-gospel stuff we are reading about in books like Shane Claiborne's 'The Irresistible Revolution' and Erwin McManus 'an unSTOPPABLE force' and Rich Stearns 'The Hole in the Gospel' and even going back to the legen....dary Keith Green's 'No Compromise' story and not just being excited and 'challenged' and 'changed' by it, and not just talking about it and maybe looking down [...]
some more Erwin McManus from the book 'an unSTOPPABLE force' - From the chapter ‘Friction Traction’ On Multiculturalism: ‘The gospel, as presented in our time, has been crafted in such a way that would only bring Christians to Christ.’ ‘Evangelism for much of the church has not been among unbelievers but focused on receivers – people who already accepted our worldview.’ ‘The “great sociologist” Rodney King once said, “Can’t we all just get along?” The [...]
"When those who hold positions of leadership in the church of Jesus Christ stand opposed to the very heart of God and refuse to submit their lives to His Word, it is the death of life in that church." [Erwin McManus, an unSTOPPABLE force] that is just so true. i have seen it and i have been on the receiving end of it. and it always comes down to "me me me me ME me" [...]
so i guess in some small part it was thankx to a stalkery type australian girl that me and tbV started thinking about what we eat and then started No-Meat-Thursdays which has actually been quite a rad extension of our lives and only occasionally interfered with 'normal' life - so every Thursday we don't eat meat just as a small small step in terms of meaning one-day-a-week's less meat needing to be there i guess [...]
'"We're looking for a church that meets our needs." It seems like I've heard this one a thousand times. The phenomenon of church shoppers has profoundly shaped the contemporary church. The entire conversation is not about relevance but convenience. The focus is not in serving the world; the church itself became the focal point. Our motto degenerated from "We are the church, here to serve a lost and broken world" to "What does the church [...]
I finished reading 'Mister God, this is Anna', on the weekend and REALLY enjoyed it a lot. Has a tendency to get a bit new age all-roads-leads-to-God in some of its murmurings but part from those there is some very solid God truth hidden amongst the pages and a jolly good read... Mister God, this is Anna – Fynn (pg 180) ‘Then she went on: “Why do we go to church, Fynn?” “To understand Mister [...]