Yesterday I spoke with a local missional pastor and he asked me about The Origins Project, a new organization that will focus on missional work in the 21st Century. I hope you take a good long look at the site. I encourage you to join The Origins Project, pay attention to announcements, and think about helping us make The Origins Project viral. More to come on local groups. Also check out the blog posts at The Origins Project. Read more

Hey, Scot, other than chipmunks, what did you find this week? Here are some things I found: Karen has a wonderful reflection on death and heaven and being here. Weekly wisdom from Jim Martin: say the appropriate thing. Brief reflection by Don. An illustration of God’s guidance by John Stackhouse. Tamara on the importance of relationship. Nancy Beach‘s candid and compassionate words about the struggle some women experience in ministries. Join The Origins Project. Check out the blog posts at... Read more

Hey, Scot, other than chipmunks, what did you find this week? Here are some things I found: Karen has a wonderful reflection on death and heaven and being here. Weekly wisdom from Jim Martin: say the appropriate thing. Brief reflection by Don. An illustration of God’s guidance by John Stackhouse. Tamara on the importance of relationship. Nancy Beach‘s candid and compassionate words about the struggle some women experience in ministries. Join The Origins Project. Check out the blog posts at... Read more

I have to admit I prefer his dancing (and leaning) in Smooth Criminal. When Kris and I were teenagers the Jackson Five songs were hits. When our kids were young we watched the video of “We are the World” with our kids, and we sung that song often. His larger than life personality and life deconstructed and it was sad to watch. I think of Johnny Cash, whose life was from one extreme to another but who seemed to come... Read more

One of our most faithful readers and commenters, dopderbeck, blogs and this is from his site today: In Missional Theology I, we were required to write  contemporary paraphrase of the gleanings laws in Lev. 19:9-10 and Deut. 24: 19-22. Here is mine: Now when you develop ever more sophisticated global communication networks that facilitate creativity and trade, when you discover new medicines, when your lands produces the abundance resulting from advanced farming and husbandry technologies and genetically modified stock and... Read more

…that Christ has set you free Call it the misguided passion of a young church worker, but I’ve always been both challenged and excited by scripture’s seemingly unconditional claims about our freedom.  I have yet to hear a good exegetical engagement with the idea of freedom in Christ.  It is mentioned, celebrated as an abstract idea, and then dismissed as anything resembling a truth about the world or our lives as Christians.   So I want to ask the blogosphere... Read more

I found this article by Don Tapscott at Edge: The Third Culture through a tweet by Brad Boydston, and want to throw it out here for a conversation. Essentially, he argues the idea that the current generations learning style, absorbed as it is through internet culture and learning, at variance with current teaching styles. If you can wade through his incredibly misinformed stereotype and simplistic alternatives, he does get to the bottom of some serious issues. Universities are finally losing... Read more