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In George Barna’s latest research he notes that "house churches are moving from the appraisal phase into the acceptance phase."  Here are some excerpts from his recent article: “The house church now appears to have reached ‘critical mass’ in the United States,” commented Barna. “Analysts typically find that once a new tool or institution reaches…

Jordan Cooper quotes Ron Sider in an excellent Next-Wave article: The heart of the matter is the scandalous failure to live what we preach. The tragedy is that poll after poll by Gallup and Barna show that evangelicals live just like the world. Contrast that with what the New Testament says about what happens when…

I have been reflecting on a recent comment from a previous post in which Rhonda wrote: "It’s very difficult to leave an institutional church. There are so many facets to the process and it took me over 2 years to do it. I look at the whole thing as more of growth than the IC…

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We may never resolve the tension between doing what we are called to do and the necessity of being who we are meant to be.  We all know what we are called to do because our churches and culture have trained us to be effective do-ers.  Most of us have a fairly significant list of…

Dawn Ministries has been stepping up their efforts to provide coaches for simple church planters.  They desire to develop a large number of skilled coaches who would "walk with the emerging simple church network leaders (i.e., church planters)." They explain it this way: By “coaching” we mean a very specific attitude and skill set.  Some…

The issue of people, as in Christians, being disconnected seems to be a hot one. Barna, in his book Revolution, has caused many to worry that he was encouraging people to disconnect from "the church" or from meaningful community altogether. I recently received an email from someone who is seeking consistent community with others but…

Rhonda Servine sent me a paper she wrote for Fuller Seminary on Wheatley’s book Leadership and the New Science.  I posted a couple of times on this book here and here. Rhonda was kind enough to allow me to post her paper here as downloads (see below).  The paper is worth the read.  Here is…

I will attempt to share some additional– insights garnered from Margaret Wheatley’s book, Leadership and the New Science.  She does a wonderful job of describing how living systems–and their structures–require a constant cycle of disintegration in order to move into the natural process of growth and self-renewal. Our tendency, looking at the world from a…

There’s a fun article (at Next-Wave Ezine) that takes off from a typical list of "10 Keys to Effective Church Planting."  Here are a few excerpts starting with #4 of the 10 keys: 4. Determine your target audience. I guess on this one I would just say- Look in the mirror. Expect that the people…