The Cart and The Horse
What is the relationship of evangelism to church planting?
In a recent post titled, “Dr. Wagner’s Cart Has Been Pulling the Horse for Too Long”, Neil Cole (author, Organic Church) writes about this relationship. Continue reading »
Join us at Kensington Community Church (Troy, Michigan) on October 13-14 for a 2-day conversation on the future of the church in the post-Christian and Trans-human 21st century west.
Neil Cole (Organic Church)
Alex McManus (M Network)
and You.
Who is the Human Event for? Forward thinking, missional activists, thinkers, and leaders. If you think that may be you, it’s you.
What Now? Click on one of the links below.
REGISTER Immediately and Save
The Fancy Website for more info
This week:
The four turnings are these:
- A turning to Jesus Christ as Lord
- A turning to some form of Christ following community
- A turning to the Scriptures – Part 1
- A turning back to the world on mission
We been talking about the 4 Turnings of the human heart that lead to the kinds of people Jesus needs in the 21st century. The third of the turnings is the essential turn to the scriptures. (Remember, these turnings can happen in any order).
Contexts and Trajectories for Faith
In my last post in this series, I wrote that the scriptures give us both context and trajectories for faith. I touched on how the scriptures provide historical context for faith. Today I want to touch on how the scriptures give us trajectories for our faith.
The canon, as I mentioned in the last post, is not revelation. Neither the canon nor the Bible are authoritative in and of themselves. But the collection of documents that have been passed on to us as the Bible do provide trajectories for a more human future.
When I speak of trajectories for the future I don’t mean a “Left Behind” kind of map to what will happen in the future. I mean a description of the human world we are called to create. Continue reading »
In 1991 or so, George Hunter mentioned, during a presentation in East Los Angeles, the 4 turnings –repentances — of the human heart that help create the kinds of people the Kingdom needs.
This week:
Here are some of the questions that were addressed at HUMANA 2.0.
Welcome back. You belong here.
There is a spectrum of approaches for creating community with and among unreached people. Let’s draw from the world of technology for an anology.
Technologies exist on an opacity/ transparency spectrum. [Hat Tip to polymath and wordmaven Dean Sharp for the find].
An OPAQUE technology is one in which the technology being used is cumbersome or is
“in the way.” Posting a photo to your website using HTML is opaque. The HTML stands
between you and the task you’re seeking to accomplish. In a sense, you can’t “see” through
the technology to the photos you want to post. Opaque technologies require skills and capacities that do not come naturally to the user. For a more TRANSPARENT technology, think of using “Point to and click” technology to drag the photo of your choice into the page you’re creating. Using your finger to point is more natural to the user than typing HTML.
A transparent technology is one in which the technology is invisible. Continue reading »
Welcome back. You belong here.
In PART ONE of this Two Part post titled, The Mega Church and Home Church Networks: Twin Trajectories and Why We Need Them Both, I wrote the following:
The first [Mega Church] trajectory needs excellence and resources to launch and heart and hospitality to succeed. The second [House Church Network] needs heart and hospitality to launch and resources to succeed. [More on this in my next post].
One of the reason corporate leaders and corporate churches don’t get mission to the emerging culture is Continue reading »
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There seem to be two leadership trajectories in the west. The first seems to be characterized by the recent phenomena of mega churches in the world. The majority of church conferences today are focused on this reality. The essence of these conference experiences seems to be a kind of corporate leadership guide for aspiring Executives of Corporate churches. Each conference introduces a new inductee to the role of mega church pastor-hood.
The excitement this type of environment creates for some makes others yawn.
Continue reading »
Welcome back. You belong here.
Alex,
I need your advice. I have a friend who is going to another extreme.
He feels that all churches teach legalism, all pastors have their own
agenda and churches should not have walls but “engage the darkside”.
For this reason, he has decided to not attend church at all. He has no
plans or possibly even no desire to seek out a church to be a part of
but he realizes he needs a mentor and he needs community, fellowship
with other believers.
