Month: April 2005
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Christianity Mushrooms Outside the Walls of Institutional Church
John mentioned to me an article about a book by James Rutz called "Mega Shift." Here are some excerpts: What is the fastest-growing religion on Earth? Most news reports suggest it is Islam. But a new book makes a compelling case it is a new, or, perhaps, old form of biblically inspired evangelical Christianity that…
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Wolfgang Simson
I’m hanging out with Wolfgang Simson this week in Long Beach. Actually, he’s sharing and I’m listening. In case you’re not familiar with him, he wrote Houses That Change the World. He’s a very forthright speaking German. He doesn’t mince words, and he has some very strong opinions about church structure. These are not exact…
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Why Non-Institututional Church Is So Needed
"Significant increase in out-of-church Christianity." Barna This was sent to my by Andy Zoppelt, some of which was printed in Charisma: A nationwide survey conducted by the USA based Barna Research Group indicates that the number of unchurched adults in America continues to grow by nearly a million people annually. Interestingly, many of these unchurched…
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House Church: Every Person Participates
Some comments on a recent post inspired me to think about house church and participatory gatherings… how difficult they are, yet how essential they are. These comments brought up the issue of spiritual gifts. John writes: "It's tragic that so many shun spiritual gifts or simply fail to embrace them…." St. Valdez comments: "the people…
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It’s Not About the Form
Andrew wrote this as a comment to an earlier post. I love comments that shake us up and keep forcing us to THINK and RE-THINK. It is our western mindset that keeps wanting to take what God is doing and form a box around it. The result is never life in the Spirit. Andrew’s comment:…