Last week, I recieved an urgent update from our denomination asking for prayer for our Foursquare work near Virginia Tech, the site of last weeks tragic killing. Many students and university employees attend this church. I was greatful to recieve the update and to be in prayer. As I began to learn [...]
Archive for April, 2007
Ethnocentric Prayer?
Published by April 27th, 2007 in Global Christianity, Global Issues, Prayer and Western Christianity. 3 CommentsiFeedReaders
Prayers for my colleagues in Turkey
Published by April 27th, 2007 in Foursquare, Global Christianity, Global Issues, Kingdom, Prayer, Spiritual Dynamics, Spiritual Practices and Western Christianity. 0 CommentsiFeedReaders
I have been following with great interest the story of the Christian Church in Turkey as they respond to the brutal torture and murder of three of my colleages there. 5 young turkish nationalists ages 19 to 20 murdered one german missionary and two turkish christians working to distribute Bibles.
WORLD Magazine | [...]
Five Streams of the Emerging Church
Published by April 26th, 2007 in Western Christianity. 0 CommentsiFeedReaders
Long time reader Sarah and I used to joke about writting a post called “the emerging church for dummies” since there is so much urban legend out there. Thankfully, some one else already did a great job! Some time ago Scot Mcknight wrote the best short introduction to the emerging church that I [...]
It’s the end of the “rapture” as we know it…
Published by April 26th, 2007 in Theology and Western Christianity. 0 CommentsiFeedReaders
In a previous post I highlighted Tim Lahaye’s very high view his escatological assumptions. Here is another perpsptective. Farewell to the Rapture by N.T. Wright
The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated. Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of [...]
Giving the young people what they want? A perspective on mega-church and consumerism
Published by April 25th, 2007 in Western Christianity. 2 CommentsiFeedReaders
Dancing with Consumerism
The emerging church used to say mega-churches are going away. They’re not going away. They’re predicated on the metaphor of consumerism. And as long as consumerism is the dominant mode of our culture mega-churches will always thrive. Some are saying that this next generation hates that. They don’t. They love it.
-Shane Hipps
—Ouch…
God’s Hands are in the Mud
Published by April 20th, 2007 in Faith and Politics, Global Christianity, Global Issues, Justice, Kingdom, Poverty, Social Issues, Spiritual Dynamics, Spiritual Practices, Theology and Western Christianity. 0 CommentsiFeedReaders
The second chapter of Ray Bakke’s “A Theology as Big as the City” is titled “God’s hand are in the mud.” He takes this language from William Temple’s “Christianity and the Social Order” in which Temple unpacks the theological significance of the creation snapshot in which Gods hands form the human out of clay. [...]
Shane Claiborne: When Violence Kills Itself
Published by April 19th, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsiFeedReaders
Shane Claiborne: When Violence Kills Itself
…there is a common thread in many of the most horrific perpetrators of violence that begs our attention – they kill themselves. Violence kills the image of God in us. It is a cry of desperation, a weak and cowardly cry of a person suffocated of hope. Violence goes against [...]
Book Review: Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders
Published by April 19th, 2007 in Books, Leadership, Prayer, Spiritual Dynamics and Western Christianity. 0 CommentsiFeedReaders
As a part of my academic journey with Fuller Seminary, I will be doing a lot of additional reading. Since I need to review each of these books anyway, I thought I would post my reviews here for the benefit of readers who are interested in my synopsis of these resources. This weeks [...]
A Journey to the City
Published by April 17th, 2007 in Bible, Faith and Politics, Global Issues, Immigration, Justice, Kingdom, Poverty, Scripture, Social Issues, Theology and Western Christianity. 2 CommentsiFeedReaders
Chapter One of Ray Bakke’s “A Theology as Big as the City” is titled: “A Journey to the City.” Bakke begins by sharing his own story of “calling” (as a person born and raised in a rural environment) to life as a minister in urban Chicago. He describes the “theological crisis” he experienced [...]
Taxing the Poor for the Right to earn minimum wage
Published by April 15th, 2007 in Faith and Politics, Global Issues, Immigration, Justice, Politics, Poverty, Social Issues and Western Christianity. 0 CommentsiFeedReaders
Did God so love the world, or just the ones born within the borders of the U.S.A.? It is always intersting to me that people who are the most likely to appeal to the Bible as a guide to national policy on issues of same sex marriage or abortion are often unlikely to consider [...]
Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity
Craig Ott and Harold A. Netland, editors
Baker Academic
Globalizing Theology
“In our lifetimes, the centuries-long North Atlantic captivity of the church is drawing to an end,” says Philip Jenkins, historian at Pennsylvania State University. If Jenkins is correct, then this volume has come none too soon. Christianity [...]
“Persecution†and the bully in the schoolyard.
Published by April 11th, 2007 in Faith and Politics and Western Christianity. 11 CommentsiFeedReaders
I recently read an article about house church leaders in the Henan province of China who were being tortured brutally by government officials demanding information and identities of other leaders in the movement. China’s violation of human rights towards people of faith who choose not to be identified with the “Three Self Church” (government registered, [...]
Nondogmatic Specificity
Published by April 10th, 2007 in Global Christianity, Philosophy, Postmodernity and Western Christianity. 2 CommentsiFeedReaders
…the viability of Christian faith in the twenty-first century is not guaranteed by claims to power and declarations of strengths and doctrinal postures. This is not a slide into relativism but a commitment to nondogmatic specificity. We can tell the gospel story without resorting to competition, exclusivism, or elitism. –Barry Taylor
Enjoyed this thought [...]
Easter - Painting with the Colors of the New Creation
Published by April 8th, 2007 in Uncategorized. 3 CommentsiFeedReaders
Last night at the @ we celebrated Easter. And, for the first time in my life I preached an Easter message. Strange for a guy who has been a pastor for 10 years. I realize that most sermons I’ve heard preached on Easter are really Good Friday messages. (Christ paid the [...]
New Monastic Communities
Published by April 6th, 2007 in Global Christianity, Global Issues, Justice, Kingdom, Poverty, Social Issues and Spiritual Practices. 1 CommentiFeedReaders
Brief review of Scott Bessenecker’s book, “The New Friars: The Emerging Movement Serving the World’s Poor:The Capital Times
“I predict that the emerging movement to the world’s poor, powered by the new friars, will also bring renewal to the global church of the 21st century.” Bessenecker focuses on five groups that now are the launching pads [...]
N.T. Wright on the Mission of the Church
Published by April 4th, 2007 in Faith and Politics, Global Christianity, Social Issues, Spiritual Dynamics, Theology and Western Christianity. 0 CommentsiFeedReaders
Mere Mission | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction
For generations the church has been polarized between those who see the main task being the saving of souls for heaven and the nurturing of those souls through the valley of this dark world, on the one hand, and on the other hand those who [...]
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