More significant takeaways from last week’s Q Conference: Steven Garber spoke of how vocation is integral to the mission of God. “Most of what God is doing in the world is being done through the vocations of his people.” This idea was reiterated by David Kinnaman of the Barna Group, who challenged the Church to… Continue reading notes from Q – pt. 2
Q really is pretty unique as far as conferences go. It’s about 4 things: Culture, Future, Church, and Gospel. And it studies our culture’s seven channels of influence: Church, social sector, business, education, government, arts & entertainment, and media. Q’s wide range of speakers address how we as believers can proactively and positively influence our… Continue reading notes from Q 2011
In the 7-week Lent series at my church we’re looking at the spiritual disciplines Jesus portrayed during his 40 days in the desert. This past weekend we talked about solitude. After a slightly scaled-back worship set, Pastor Gene Appel started his message… in silence, using the placards in the pictures above. The silence was several… Continue reading lent series week 2 : solitude
In yesterday’s post, I talked about the multi-site strategy as franchise church, and noted that Rick Warren’s Saddleback added a site in the same area as 3-4 existing local mega-churches. A commenter pointed out that Mars Hill Church of Seattle will soon be joining them all. Pastor Mark Driscoll on Twitter: “Planning @MarsHillOC campus launch.… Continue reading more multi-site church questions
On Monday I wrote a post critiquing a comparison of the modern-day local church with the beginning of the early Church. The comparison is often used to justify multi-site campuses as the new growth strategy for mega-churches. Aren’t multi-site campuses really just a super-mega-church dressed up in small-local-church clothing? And if so, is there anything… Continue reading mega-churches & multi-sites
Rick Warren says mega-churches are biblical. He claims that the first church was five times bigger than Saddleback, and grew to over 100,000 people in the first twenty years. “Where did the more than 100,000 people attending the first church in Jerusalem meet?…’They met in different courts,’ Warren underlined. ‘Notice: one church, multiple locations. One… Continue reading are mega-churches biblical?
You might not normally think of church, porn and football in the same context. But it’s happening this weekend as XXX Church’s Craig Gross intentionally combines National Porn Sunday with the Super Bowl. Craig recruited NFL players to appear in a video that will be played in hundreds of churches this weekend. CNN calls it… Continue reading church, porn and football
I recently came across this RSAnimate video about “Changing Education Paradigms,” which is quite thought-provoking. (Yes, I have embedding issues, but just play along.) It makes some insights about the dated structure of education, and it struck me that many of these draw uncomfortable correlations to the Church. For purposes of discussion, try substituting “Church”… Continue reading changing church paradigms
On Monday I posted about evangelical leaders who are changing their minds about women in leadership. John Stackhouse, Jr. posted an essay about his own experience of how he came to reconcile the spiritual and practical equality of men and women. While admitting how deeply entrenched the “gender scripts” are that men tend to follow,… Continue reading speak up
“How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership” is a new collection of essays on gender and roles by Dr. Alan Johnson of Wheaton College. It includes the stories of a wide range of scholars and evangelical leaders such as Bill & Lynne Hybels, who became converted to the position of biblical egalitarianism (biblical… Continue reading changing minds about women in leadership
