Archive for the ‘Church planting’ Category
Best Links of the Week
The End of Church Planting? Interesting article that isn’t as provocative as the title. Definitely worth a read and a place at the table for missiological theory of church planting, challenging the dominant paradigm of the entrepreneurial paid pastor/planter.
How to use rewards/frequent-flyer credit cards to create a self-fulfilling profit loop (buy certain gold coins, get rewards/miles, deposit gold in bank, pay off credit card with gold deposited into bank).
Third Millennium Ministries has its own iPhone and Android apps. The content of ThirdMill is truly top shelf. I am of the opinion that Third Mill is probably one of the most important ministries of our time and all on a shoestring budget. If you care at all about the Gospel and the future of the church you ought to donate to them. I am thankful that there are actually some forward thinking strategists that are creating excellent scalable content capable of penetrating that glaring lack of theological training of pastors worldwide.
The Decline of the Nuclear Family. Some pretty staggering statistics and commentary on the status of family in the U.S.
Mayim Bialik (Blossom, Amy Farrah Fowler) of Big Bang Theory is actually a PhD and published in Neuroscience (HT: BL)
Mortgage companies are still ‘robo-signing’
Centrist Tom Coburn has an interesting debt proposal – I was definitely not expecting a proposal from one of the ‘Gang of Six’
77 year old Congressman confronts gun wielding intruder
An interesting piece giving some provocative thoughts regarding the Cosmological Argument
There are several layers of awesome to this Pepsi ad (coming from a staunch Coca-Cola fan):
Best Links of the Week
The Economist has an excellent article entitled “The Disposable Academic: Why Doing a PhD is a Waste of Time”
Delightfully lengthy article in GQ about Mossad’s somewhat botched assassination of a Hamas leader in the city of Dubai. (HT: Phill)
Fascinating article that makes a compelling case that the Stuxnet worm that has disrupted Iran’s nuclear program originated ironically from China (and not the U.S., Britain, or Israel).
50 cent makes $8,700,000.00 off one tweet. As a corollary to this article, there is way more money in self-branding in the entertainment industry than there is in the entertainment industry. I also think it is ridiculous where people will take investment advice from.
I watched Ted Haggard’s little special on TLC last weekend. I won’t delve into analyzing the state of his soul but Carl Trueman does a pretty decent job.
When you hang your head in shame, the last thing you should be thinking about is whether the camera has caught your good side.
“The Lazy Slander of the Pro-Life Cause”
BBC article on the impact of the King James Bible on the English language.
No other book, or indeed any piece of culture, seems to have influenced the English language as much as the King James Bible. Its turns of phrase have permeated the everyday language of English speakers, whether or not they’ve ever opened a copy.
2010 Los Angeles County bill tab for illegal immigrants in public schools was $600,000,000.00.
Utterly appalling story of abortion doctor in Philadelphia. There had been no inspection of the clinic since 1993.
Gosnell “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord,” Williams said.
Patients were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society, where Gosnell performed dozens of abortions a day, prosecutors said. He mostly worked overnight hours after his untrained staff administered drugs to induce labor during the day, they said.
Best Links of the Week
Google NGrams Viewer – charts book searches over time. Above is an example of a search for “inerrancy.” (HT: MQ)
This has to be one of the craziest stories I have ever read: after police did nothing a father in Germany castrates a 57 year old man who was having relations with his daughter… with a breadknife. The man is on trial for attempted murder, his only comment was, “I saw it as my duty as a father.”
Free Sufjan Stevens Christmas music.
Ron Paul to head up oversight committee of the Federal Reserve. Awesome.
Mark Dever gives some wonderful reflections on the life of the late Roger Nicole. Justin Taylor also has a nice writeup here.
Infographic of Facebook relationships. (HT: Scott B.)
Some interesting interactive demographic city maps from the NY Times.
Some good commentary from Paul Tripp on false Gospels.
Soft Drink Infographic map: “Coke”, “Soda”, or “Pop”
There have been mounds of interesting gems mined from the WikiLeaks embassy wires, one of them is some commentary on Cuba’s coming insolvency.
NPR’s top 50 albums of 2010. Either I am pathetic and out of touch or NPR’s listeners are all esoteric snobs (more than likely the former). I have only heard of maybe 5 of the artists on this list.
Really fascinating video behind the scenes of the Mars Hill video guys from pre-production to distribution. They have a pretty minimal set of gear (a Red, and a few 5Dm2s and 7Ds) and do a lot with it in terms of a coherent aesthetic that matches the message.
20 Things that will be more expensive in 2011.
U.S. Navy test of railgun:
Some cool stop-motion:
Best Links of the Week
Provocative piece entitled, “Artists Build the Church.” Aesthetics without a doubt have been marginalized in the church. Another work that should be brought into this discussion is Hans Urs von Balthasaar’s Trilogy on “The Glory of the Lord.” Shame on Protestants for letting a Catholic write probably the best treatment of aesthetics (alongside Wolsterstorff’s work). God’s holiness and God’s glory are at the core of God’s character. Hence, art and aesthetics are at the very center of our Christian faith.
4th Amendment Underclothes – metallic print protest clothing. For those of you unaware the 4th amendment to the U.S. Constitution states the following:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Department of Homeland Security commandeering domain names.
It takes Iran over 30 years to notice Star of David placed on roof of their national airline’s (Iran Air) headquarters. The building was designed by Israeli architects.
Which Cashback credit cards to use at which retailers/websites. This was rather helpful.
A number of top shelf scientists publish a cautionary letter regarding the new X-ray machines that has some good scientific concerns that dispel a lot of the misinformation regarding the safety of the new machines. I think some more substantial science is in order here particularly for the elderly, children, pregnant, and those prone to various cancers on or close to skin (testicular, breast…).
If you haven’t heard yet, there were more WikiLeaks documents released of roughly a quarter million wires principally between emabassies. Of interest is a large amount of security intel, policy, military strategy, and embarassing details about world government figures. Of interest, it seems that North Korea did in fact provide Iran with the missile vehicles to launch nuclear warheads. This is very disconcerting as it means that North Korea likely has the nuclear bomb and rockets to launch them in.
Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens debate whether Religion is good for the world or not. I am inclined to think that religion, in the conventional sense of the word, is not good for the world. I am also unsure what is meant by the word, “good” as well. I would argue from different angles and presuppositions than Hitchens but likely arrive at similar conclusions. I would be very happy if every religion based on human self-righteousness would permanently cease. I don’t think anything is “good” apart from Christ, hence I think that all non-Christocentric religion is bunk.
Flexible, Disposable E-readers?
“Should MIT Teach Poetry?” I have already ranted on here about the affects of removing the Christian worldview on higher education (see post on UCF scandal). The point is that our Universities have become trade schools. Further, these trade schools are increasingly more expensive (astronomically expensive compared to inflation rates) while becoming less effective at producing marketable laborers. For many employers experience is > or = to education. If one’s education were limited to such a narrow sub-field of a field within a faculty within a college within a University… there is no foundation for the knowledge/building to stand. Of course MIT should teach poetry.
Congressman Mike Coffman (Rep. Colorado) writes a cogent piece on why not to raise taxes during a recession. (HT: SB)
Best Links of the Week
Chuck DeGroat has one of the best pieces I have read in a long long time called, “What’s Wrong With Your Pastor?” Orthodoxy without orthopathos is orthoworthless.
Tim Tebow writing a memoir about ‘faith, family, and football’ entitled Through My Eyes, and can be pre-ordered in hardcover and Kindle.
Marvin Olasky is resuming full-time duties at World Magazine.
Kansas State nutrition professor loses 27 pounds over two months while eating a diet of Twinkies and Nutty Buddy Bars, while lowering bad cholesterol by 20% and raising good cholesterol by 20%.
Company creating an app and cell phone plug-in device to test for STDs. I am not sure if this is exceedingly strange or a good idea… or both.
iPhone app of the week: MileBug – creates IRS compliant travel logs simply and easily and you can email yourself the reports in both Word or Excel formats. If you don’t want to pay the $2.99 they have a Lite version that allows you to create 10 trip reports before having to email yourself. Also, it allows you to take notes and add parking, toll, or food expenses to each mileage report.
Pretty crazy trick play in a Middle School football game:
Women solves Wheel of Fortune puzzle with just one letter:
Best Links of the Week
“Advice for Theological Students” and “More Advice for Theological Students and Pastors” are both absolutely fantastic gems gleaned from Kevin DeYoung.
“Developers Trying To Treat Houses Like Copyright; Want A Cut Of Every Future Resale” and even worse than this, the financial firm pushing this garbage is in the process of securitizing these hidden ‘resale contract covenants.’ No offense, but it is greedy morons like these guys who got us into the whole sub-prime mess. I am all for free-market economics, but I really hope the free-market (particularly the hedge funds) decides to vote ‘no’ with their feet.
“A List of Important Sermons and Articles Worth Reading” (HT: JT) – this is an excellent excellent list. There are a good number of these that I have not read. I am particularly excited about those that I have not read that have multiple commendations.
Nancy Pearcey dissects the affect of secularism on America and its’ disability to provide a cogent response to radical Islam.
Here is also a really good interview with Nancy Pearcey on her new book “Saving Leonardo.” Coincidentally she also weighs in on James Daveson Hunter’s new book (see next link)
James K. A. Smith’s review of James Daveson Hunter’s “To Change the World”
Excellent article in The Atlantic from Jeffrey Goldberg analyzing the likelihood and aftermath of an Israeli preemptive strike against the Iranian nuclear program.
Typewriter robot art… very Philip K. Dick-esque
Self-assembling biological photovolatics
Canadian PhD student creates human powered aircraft with large flapping wings. One of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.
Pacman with 111 human pixels:
Best Links of the Week
Some cogent thoughts on church planting by Ed Stetzer (see video above)
Tim Tebow Documentary coming out soon: Trailer Here
Excellent piece in Vanity Fair by Michael Lewis entitled, “Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds”
WSJ article on Obama pushing for a tax cut and a tax hike?
Further Seems Forever reuniting with Chris Carabba. I am hope that the new music is substantive and layered.
HDR video using two Canon 5D Mark ii‘s
Very-well written piece utterly dissecting Lady Gaga (and by corollary the generation that has made her famous) in an article entitled, “Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex.”
Interesting debate in Israel over daylight savings time and theology.
Tennessee Volunteer football coach has to coach up players on how to take a shower properly after a series of staph infections amongst players.
Popular Science gallery on 30 Awesome College Labs (classes).
Stanford creating seriously peer-reviewed rival to Wikipedia.
Infographic on who is in the blogosphere. (HT: Challies)
“How to block abusive or unfriendly email on Gmail”
Fidel Castro reportedly saying publicly that Cuban model of government and economics does not work… then states he misspoke and meant to say “capitalism doesn’t work.”
Really strange soccer goal (HT: Uri)
Why the Chinese economy is expanding – efficient production. Note – the video has not been sped up
My Two Caveats for the Missional Church
I recently attended the Advance 2010 conference on Contextualizing the Gospel in the New Urban South. The content of the conference was excellent and the speakers were Gospel-centered and Christ-saturated. In the interest of full self-disclosure, I would willfully self-identify as being a part of the missional church movement. While steeping some of the teaching receieved, I am left with two potential pitfalls for the missional church movement.
I think the obituaries have already been written and the eulogies given for both the church growth movement and the emergent church. Hence, my first concern for the missional church movement is that it will just be another fad within evangelicalism. I’ve chronicled before the very fickle fadish-ness nature of American evangelicalism. We have the strong inclination to let our pendulums swing wildly, rarely finding any semblance of balance. If history is any predictor of the future, the missional church movement will gain steam, others will jump on the bandwagon, then the movement dies because many identified with the movement not for its intrinsic principles, but rather for its pragmatic ends. Nothing will kill a movement like the evil trinity of inauthenticity, superficiality, and pragmatism.
My second concern for the missional church movement is actually legalism. This may actually come as a surprise of anyone who saw/listened to any of the Advance 2010 material. Rightly so, Tyler Jones, Tullian Tchvidjian, Ed Stetzer and others railed against the quaint moralism (or think of Michael Horton’s, moralistic therapeutic deism) of the South. Here is how legalism could creep into the missional church movement… and it is really subtle and nasty. In your call to missional movement and mindset, create an implicit caste system within your church. In this caste system reward those who are ‘more on mission’ vs. those who are ‘less on mission.’ In this caste system the way to earn God’s favor is by doing the works of the mission of God. I don’t know if this kind of legalism is better/worse than any other form of self-salvation. Remember that legalism is one of those nasty sins like pride, that can literally manifest themselves in even the most counter-intuitive or even contradictory places (ie. one can be proud in one’s humility). We must be careful to still remind ourselves and others that our standing with God is not changed by even our greatest Gospel efforts or lack thereof.
In my view, we must guard the missional church movement from those who would see it as the next “it” way to grow your church (after shaving their soul patch and ceased showing movie clips). We must also guard against guilting people into being on mission. They must desire to be the church because of the Gospel not because it is the new way to rise in the legalistic caste system in your church.
Your thoughts?
3 Month Introspective
Introspective
So, I’ve been blogging consistently for three months. This is the week of Christmas and I’ll be all over the place. I thought I would briefly summarize the 3 months of blog series on here:
Blaise Pascal: We took a look at Blaise Pascal’s thinking, its use of aphorism and its relationship to both tri-perspectivalism and presuppositionalism. We also looked at his use of aphorism and his warnings against deism and atheism.
Thoughts on Evangelicalism Past, Present, and Future, Parts 1-7: We defined the term evangelical. We looked at its historical roots in the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, and its ties to celebrity culture, democritization of knowledge, and modernism. Then we looked at the roots of liberalism, the Protestant split and suburbanization, and defined and outlined evangelical populism and their game plan for reaching America. Finally we assessed the current status of American evangelicalism and then made some predictions of future trends.
Introduction to Apologetics, Parts 1-7: We looked in broad strokes at the various schools of apologetics. We then took a more in-depth look at: Classical Apologetics, Evidentialist Apologetics, Presuppositional Apologetics, and the specific apologetics of Blaise Pascal and Alvin Plantinga. Finally, we employed the three phases football as an analogy for the different apologetic schools and I likened Tim Tebow to the presuppositionalists.
Thoughts on Evangelicalism Moving Forward, Parts 1-10: We looked at some analysis of some shifts evangelicalism will need to make moving forward: Doctrine, Worldview, Urbanization, Globality/Mobility, “Post-Modernism,” American Culture(s), Contextualization, Balance, and Final Analysis.
Top ~10 Books by Topic:
Top 10 Systematic Theology Texts
Top 10 Books on Science and Christianity
Top 10 Books on Christian Biography
Top 15 Books on Status of American Evangelicalism
Top 10 Books on Church History
Top 40 Books to Read While in College
Top 10 Books on Missions, Discipleship, and Evangelism
The 25 Most Destructive Books Ever Written…
Top 10 Books on Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
Best Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms of the Christian Church
A Comprehensive List of Top 10 Book Lists of 2009
Up Next: We will be looking at some thoughts on the economy and investment and then delve into the mind of Friedrich Nietzsche…
Top 10 Books on Missions, Evangelism, and Discipleship
Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper
These books are books that are excellent concerning Missions, Evangelism, or Discipleship.
1. Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper [y, l, e, p, s]
This classic elevates worship as the goal of missions. It is an easy and enjoyable read.
2. The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman [y, l, e, p, s]
Coleman takes a thorough look at Jesus’ method of discipleship. A short and easy must read.
3. From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions by Ruth Tucker [c, y, l, e, p, s]
Missionary biography is fascinating and oftentimes hilarious. See my previous write-up here.
4. Tell the Truth by Will Metzger [y, l, e, p, s]
Great book on evangelism written from a Reformed perspective. Metzger challenges people to tell the whole gospel to whole people, causing you to ask the questions, ‘what are the essentials of the Gospel and people?’
5. Operation World by Johnstone and Johnstone [y, l, e, p, s]
Operation World is essentially several dossiers on the remaining unreached people groups, giving analysis on how you can pray for them. Also, Window on the World is like Operation World for kids.
6. A Faith Worth Sharing by C. John Miller [c, y, l, e, p, s]
Jack Miller lived a pretty crazy life. These are some of his stories. It is a short, encouraging, and easy read. Also, Miller’s, Heart of a Servant Leader is excellent – it consists of letters he has written to various people under his care throughout his ministry. Really valuable wisdom.
7. Transforming Mission by David Bosch [p, s]
This is a deep, dense, and thorough look at missionary paradigms. It is not an easy read but patience will be rewarded with excellent deep thought.
8. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement by Ralph Winter [y, l, e, p, s]
This is the classic introduction to the task that lies ahead for the worldwide church.
9. Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community by Ed Stetzer [l, e, p, s]
Stetzer is quite knowledgeable on how to create church cultures that have real Gospel impact on their community. Also, Lesslie Newbigin’s, The Open Secret, and Darell Guder’s (editor), Missional Church are excellent.
10. Re-Entry by Peter Jordan [c, y, l, e, p, s]
Going from living in one culture back to your culture can really mess you up (just think of the stereotype of the socially awkward and/or out of touch missionary who comes back to give a powerpoint presentation to your church). Long-term missionaries invariably find themselves in a cultural no-man’s land as they have adopted many of the redeeming aspects of the people they are ministering to, while putting off many of the deplorable or unfortunate aspects of their former culture. There is also the question of where is home? The people you are ministering to or the place where you grew up? Re-Entry is a helpful guide for the returning missionary.
Update: Highly Recommended
Church Planting Movements by David Garrison
I have heard this book recommended several times (including the comments from this post), so I thought I would put it up here.
(c=children; y=young adult; l=lay leader; e=elder; p=pastor; s=scholar)
Modern Pensées 