“Years ago, I stood before my congregation to make a heartfelt confession. It was indeed difficult to do, yet it would prove transformative for our entire faith community. More than a decade has passed since that day, but I still remember it clearly. Against a backdrop of pindrop silence, I asked the congregation I served to forgive me. Not for sexual impropriety or financial misconduct, but for pastoral malpractice. I confessed I had spent the minority of my time equipping... Read more
It’s a game we often play. We jockey for position based on what we’ve accomplished – and not just for the social prestige, but also for our self-esteem. Some of us have come to believe what American society has told us – those who really matter have titles that impress, degrees from prestigious institutions, careers as high-level corporate leaders (or, in the current trend, as entrepreneurs), or thousands of followers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest. Christians are not immune.... Read more
There is an irony that might be missed by those who have embraced the APEST typology advocated by Alan Hirsch, Mike Breen, and others in the Missional Movement. In our desire to overcome an overbearing leadership structure that was found in putting so much power in the Shepherd-Teacher, we are in danger of creating yet another overbearing leadership structure but with different leaders. We worry so much about the destructive nature of institutionalism that we shift the focus from 2/5... Read more
In our day, we know that work can often be frustrating. We get together with friends after a long week of work and moan, “Work just sucks!” But that was not always the case. While we know that work is currently broken in various ways, we must remember that work was once part of the very good creation. A major part of the good news of the gospel is that work has been redeemed and can also be redemptive! “The... Read more
So, I was going through my Facebook feed and came across a post on April 12 from Brad Briscoe, the director of strategic development for Forge America (the organization that Alan Hirsch founded when he first came over from Australia) that stated, “I am convinced that if a person denies or discounts the importance of #APEST in Eph 4:1-16, they simply haven’t dealt with the topic in a serious manner.” I was astonished at that bold statement, so I had... Read more
We have been led to believe that the only thing that the shed blood of Christ accomplished is our personal justification. Perhaps, like the churches and seminary I attended, the focus of your church was very much on the Book of Romans. I had come to the conclusion that all I need to know about the shed blood of Christ on the cross is found in Romans. Romans is, after all, the primary document of the New Testament, spelling out what... Read more
What is the Mission of God? And what do we humans have to do with it? I agree with Christopher Wright in his book The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission, that the missio Dei is “The story of how God in his sovereign love has purposed to bring the sinful world of his fallen creation to the redeemed world of his new creation…It is a vast, comprehensive project of cosmic salvation.” The mission of God... Read more
“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him” (Mark 6:3). Tom Nelson writes, “As I slowly pondered these words, I began to reflect on the significance of Jesus spending so much of his time on earth working with his hands in a carpentry shop. Here was the Son of God sent to earth on a... Read more
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. As God created everything in the cosmos in an orderly way, we read in Genesis 1 that “God saw that it was good.” After God made it all, we read, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) Think about it. It was very good! How dare we think that our sin can nullify that which God has made! But that is exactly the implication... Read more
Oh, Mondays! As you get ready for work, you realized, “Ugh! I have to work with that boss again today!” Perhaps your boss yells at you or your boss demeans you with passive-aggressive behavior. I’ve had both kinds of bosses. One guy acted like his team was in the military and he was a drill sergeant – he actually thought he could motivate us by yelling at us. It just made me shrink up into the fetal position in my emotions, no longer... Read more
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