Between the “Leadership in the New Parish” think tanks and the hundreds of parish walkabout Tim Soerens, Paul Sparks, and I have lucky enough to have engage over the last few years, we’ve identified 2 vital questions, and 10 practices
This year’s Inhabit Conference will be our fourth one, the first three all “Sold Out!” Hundreds of parish leaders gathered to celebrate the move toward a more embodied, participatory, and sustainable way of being the church. Our theme this year
Every December Christianity Today publishes its books of the year. This year in “The Church/Pastoral Leadership” CT awarded The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches are Transforming Mission, Discipleship and Community its Award of Merit! Writing of our book for CT
Inhabit: The Art of Parish Renewal April 19-20, 2013, Seattle, WA The last two years the Inhabit Conference “Sold Out!” Hundreds of parish leaders gathered to celebrate the move toward a more embodied, participatory, and sustainable way of being the
There is a tectonic shift happening under the surface of the church in North America. Parishioners are returning to the parish. The greater our individual mobility extends, the greater the world’s longing and need for a faith that can be
Navigating the cacophonous choruses of our culture’s religious and secular fundamentalists can be overwhelming. What does it mean for Christians to be salt and light in this acrimonious cultural climate? How might Christians live faithfully without colluding with partisan shouting?
Tomorrow, I have the privilege of facilitating at one of the pacific northwest most holistically, missionally focused churches: zoe: livable church. Paul Sparks is the pastor and he is fast becoming a dear friend. I can’t wait to hang out
A lot of folks have talked about, and even more of us have felt the paradox of loneliness while simultaneously being so well connected. The combination of text messaging, IM’ing, blogs, cell phones, email, even the speed of our snail-mail
Some more “relationality” recommended readings. For one of my prior lists, click here. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds Wendell Berry, What Are People For? Walter Brueggemann, The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant John
Duncan Macleod of Postkiwi.com re-posted a short excerpt from a “Seed Story” conversation I had with Spencer Burke of The Ooze. In the interview I offer a glimpse into my leadership struggle of dying to my “vision,” in hope of
“The day you die is better than the day you are born. It is better to spend your time at funerals than at festivals. For you are going to die, and you should think about it while there is still
I have always enjoyed reading Ray Anderson (Fuller). Recently I was rereading, The Shape of Practical Theology and his one of his phrases in chapter eight gripped me and I have been sitting with it ever since. “Obedience by itself
If you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend you invest a few moments looking some of the thousands of postcards posted on this site. Part of the reason I love it so much is that it reminds me that
One of my favorite books of 2003 was Conrad Gempf’s Jesus Asked. Gempf’s new book is titled, Mealtime habits of the Messiah: 40 encounters with Jesus. It is a glorious journey through Christ’s radically open table (though of course is
Bold Love, by Dan Allender Linked, by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi Holy Trinity, Perfect Community, by Leonardo Boff Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer Sanctorum Communio, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer Nexus, by Mark Buchanan I and Thou, by Martin Buber The Love of God,
Jim Henderson, Seattle-area evangelism guru, friend and director of Off-the-Map (not the Muppet guy – that was “Henson”) has a new book coming out on June 21st: a. k. a. “Lost”: discovering ways to connect with the people Jesus misses
After sitting with the question of “the nature of leadership” for some time, I find myself moving toward a very simple understanding. Is leadership is about conversation. Leadership has less to do with the clarity of vision, and much more
A Psalm of Life WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And
In one of the courses I get to guide this term, we’re using Michael Polanyi’s ground breaking text, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. As I’ve been preparing and revisiting Polanyi I am undone by his courage, as he stands
A few years ago I asked a few people to help me see myself as “pastor” and “leader”. Through the process of that three month conversation I made a number of commitments that I revisit often and fail even frequently.
The return of the parish appears to be an ecclesial movement sweeping Western Christ-communities. I’ve been thinking of it as the parish corrective. I would characterize this corrective as a local church move to embody “full life” or embody the
I continue to struggle with the growing use of the term “missional.” I’ve often used the term, yet I’m becoming concerned about what the cultural baggage hidden underneath the idea. I choose to emphasize embodied living (maybe even bodied living)
I continue to wrestle with what feels like a growing tension between the Missional and Incarnational approaches to life. I may be way of base here, does anyone else feel this tension? Is it just me? I guess when I
Michael Polanyi writes, “Since rules of rightness cannot account for failures, and reasons for doing something can only be given within the context of rules of rightness, it follows that there can be no reasons (in this sense) for a
Jesus preached the gospel but it wasn’t Jesus’ preaching that that made people take note. Jesus preformed the gospel – making the blind to see and the lame to walk but it wasn’t Jesus’ performance of the gospel that made
The other day I had a conversation with a woman who, though she may not have used these words, was challenging the notion of the church efforts to be fully present in a pomo/post-critical context. It doesn’t matter whether we
North American culture is changing. So is church culture(s). Some have suggested that culture is reinventing itself at a faster pace than ever before… while none of us have lived at another time something inside me senses that this may
