Category: Uncategorized

Accountability, when it’s external, can lead to religiosity rather than life. Most of us have been there: Adhering to the rules of our church community in order to be accepted or acceptable. Being diligent to do our part (and making sure others notice) as we work at the plan that the pastor/leaders are implementing for…

Simple/organic church folk might be key to the army God is preparing for needed global impact. Though progress is being made, some estimate there are still over 6,000 unreached people groups (out of 11,700 total people groups) in which less than 2% are believers.  To live within such an unreached group means that it is…

Church, by definition is not a building, not a place of worship, not an organization. As Neil Cole likes to say: “We are the church.  Where we go the church goes.” “God does not dwell in temples made by human hands.”  Stephen, before being martyred. Church is not a come-and-sit service to attend. “The church’s…

I asked some friends to help me compile the resources that were most helpful to them when they were first learning about simple/organic church life.  Some of them were kind enough to mention this blog as well as my book.  But this list represents ten other key resources mentioned in no particular order. Books: 1.…

Church gatherings arise out of the work of ministry, not the other way around. The old way: Gather a core group to start a church, then mobilize the church to go and reach out among friends and neighbors.  Finally, invite those you reach back to ‘the church.’ The new way: Invest in building relationships with…

“The most exciting time in my life was when I was part of an apostolic team serving God in a Middle Eastern country with others.”  My missionary friend was lamenting that, now that his assignment brought him back to the U.S., he no longer has that sense of being part of an apostolic team—and it…

Someone said: It’s one thing to get the person out of the institution, it’s another thing to get the institution out of the person.  It is difficult to get religious thinking out of our inner system.  But I want to work at this with the same fervency as Jesus who said: Don’t be like those…

Someone recently pointed out to me that it was others, not Jesus, who referred to him as a “friend of sinners.”  He never used those kinds of labels in referring to the people-in-need that he hung out with. In fact, Jesus did not classify them at all, except perhaps when he called them ‘sheep without…

Videos and More Running around Africa earlier this month, I ran into some of the people from I Am Second who are regularly doing good things in the least likely places. If you are not familiar with their videos and materials, this stuff is good and useful in every context for reaching, discipling, and gathering…

Discipleship is critical. Discipleship is the means by which it all happens. Unless we get discipleship right, whatever we intend to achieve through the rest of what we achieve in missional movement is never going to happen. If we fail in discipleship, it fails”Alan Hirsch. Defined correctly, I would even go further: Discipleship is the…