imagining how the church can reorient around mission

By Holly read more

Missional Church

I started teaching my Missional Church class at Whitworth University again this week.  This is the 4th year that I have taught the course.  If I teach it again it will morph into a course entitled, "A Church for the World." One of my introductory exercises I use is asking them to give a one word description of the church and why.  Here are their responses (some were duplicates – 19 in the class):

Transforming, Alive, Colorful read more

I thought this was cute.  Seriously, it is cute.  Watch it and let me know if you don't think so.  Made me feel good – which I generally like. 🙂

Confession: I think I have had a crush on Zooey Deschanel since the movie Elf!   read more

It happens on facebook when I give the slightest indication the church is God’s instrument in the world. It happens frequently when I am speaking and assert that God has empowered the church to extend Christ’s presence in the world. It happens when I coach church planters that are missionally oriented and ask them when they gather for worship. It happens when I engage my missional friends on one of the variants of the formula “missiology precedes ecclesiology.” It happens each time I meet someone who has been abused by the traditional church. Each time there is a out-sized reaction against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church (this is especially true of the public worship gathering, or the ordination of clergy).

via www.reclaimingthemission.com read more

I was reading last night while lying in bed from the book entitled, Jesus, Paul and the People of God (I know,
nothing like a little light bedside reading). It’s a dialogical or responsive book that has to do with the theology of NT Wright. One of the chapters is called “The Shape of Things to Come? Wright Amidst Emerging Ecclesiologies.” In the chapter, contributor and theologian, Jeremy Begbie discusses the interesting notion of how NT Wright has been generally embraced by so many corners of the church, in particular the emerging church. Begbie writes, “Significantly, Wright’s heavy institutional involvement is largely ignored by the young ecclesiologist drawing on his work. Along the same lines, Newbigin’s claim that the local congregation is ‘the hermeneutic of the Gospel’ can be quoted enthusiastically in emergent writings, but his decades of work for visible church unity (sometimes in the most barren institutional settings) receive rather less attention.” read more

When we talk about the idea of being “missional” we have to include the entire story of God. That means the narrative from Genesis to Revelation. The story obviously begins at creation and it ends at the new creation. In the middle God chooses to use a people. The headwaters of that story are found in Abraham. The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1–3) The charge to Abram was to be a blessing. In Christopher Wright’s book The Mission of God’s People he writes, read more

I saw this video produced for Imago Dei in Portland, OR and was moved.  It is understated and elegant, yet pregnant with the image of the light of Christ going out into the world.  Take a look.

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Ok, I have a confession to make.  I do like snow.  There, I said it.  But there is a caveat.  I like it only on Christmas Eve.  This has been one of those remarkable winters so far here in Spokane.  The kind where we have had moderate, snowless weather up until today, Christmas Eve, the very moment I actually want snow.  So, I am writing this as I look outside and…you guessed it.  It is snowing.  Not just any snow, but the huge flake kind that looks like slowly descending clouds.  It almost looks like slow motion.  It is a gentle and elegant snow.  Almost like a nostalgic Christmas song.  Like the tunes that conjure fond memories of my childhood laying in front of my parents huge Magnavox stereo console.  Gosh, I’m getting all gushy!  read more