She passed away one year ago today. She was 49. When my publisher, John Bucher of Gray Matter Books, indicated that the book’s official release date would be August 31st, it didn’t quite register. But it’s exactly a year, to the day. Barbara Tonti was like a big sister to me. In fact, to say she was “like” a big sister really misses the mark; she was my big sister. A close and supportive family friend since I was little, Barb actually came to live with us... Read more
God’s intention was to make known to them just what rich glory this mystery contains, out there among the nations. And this is the key: the king, living within you as the hope of glory! He is the one we are proclaiming. We are instructing everybody and teaching everybody in every kind of wisdom, so that we can present everybody grown up, complete, in the king. That’s what I am working for, struggling with all his energy which is powerfully... Read more
The word “Pentecostal” carries a metric ton of baggage. From snake-handling country folk to health and wealth swindlers to deliverance ministry exorcists, there is generally a big, giant cultural turnoff when it comes to all things Pentecostal. Very few younger evangelical leaders would dare claim the label, though folks like Jonathan Martin and A.J. Swoboda provide notable exceptions to the rule. Regardless, the tongue-speaking, spirit-slaying stereotype is a tough one to shake. It’s not much better for the more sanitized category of post-Jesus-Movement “Charismatic.” Gaudy word-faith-churches with husband-and-wife co-pastors sporting his and hers Benz’s... Read more
This blog has become a place for me to flesh out something of a transition that has been happening in my understanding of ‘missional’ over the last year or so. I’m sure there’s a ton of repetition in the posts under the ‘missional church’ category, and probably some contradiction, too. There is, no doubt, evolution. But in the very least, I feel like the Lord is bringing me to a more spiritually mature (not in a cocky way) grasp on how missional can be a true, deep, and lasting paradigm... Read more
Today I preached the sermon time at Dwell with the intention of imparting some of my experiences this week from the Ecclesia National Gathering in DC. I figured I’d share a bit of the manuscript here. Keep in mind that it’s a tad out of context, and I hope to provide more context on the conference this week. The sermon text was Acts 12:18-end, the story of the vindication of the real King of the Jews over the sham Herod Agrippa. It’s also... Read more
Last year, I began a personal discipline/tradition based on the growing influence of social media on our daily lives. Once a year, I Reboot. Specifically, I enact the full deletion of my Facebook profile. Poof. Gone. And while for some that may seem insignificant, for me, a bonafide 21st century digital boy, it is significant. And if thisrecent article (and many others like it) are any indication, then it is significant for lots of you, too. (For the reason why I don’t delete my Twitter or... Read more
I know, I know…what topic could be worth FIVE parts. What is this, Roots? But it just didn’t feel quite done…didn’t feel quite clear enough, complete enough. And then I tweeted the last post to missional blog hero Dave Fitch, and he responded in the comments section encouraging me to flesh out the ‘fresh expression’ form stuff. The last post (and, I thought, the series) ended with the idea that the missional form “must be a fresh, incarnational expression, centered to move.” So,... Read more
So, it’s taken me a bit to get to this fourth post in the series, but I’m kind of glad it has. I’m mainly glad because in the ensuing time between one and four, a really interesting conversation flared up between missional theologian David Fitch and megachurch leader/practitioner Alex McManus. It began with Fitch asking the world to STOP FUNDING CHURCH PLANTS and Start Funding Missionaries, and it eventuated in part 3 of McManus’s response in Missional Vs. Mega. Fitch finalized things here. In a way,... Read more
The first two parts of this series have explored the unfortunate obsession with form that has left the word “missional” devoid of real meaning, and the need for a missional theology to be our primary focus in order to regain and preserve the meaning of missional. My motivation in writing this (in case it hasn’t come across) is my love for and overwhelming belief in the missional movement as the most powerful answer to the crisis moment the western church... Read more
In 2008, NT Wright appeared on the Colbert Report to promote his popular book, Surprised by Hope. This was a pivotal moment for me and for our embryonic missional community, the community that would become a church called Dwell. That is to say, from the beginning we were cutting our teeth on a theology. We were theologically inclined. We were basically obnoxiously nerdy. Our first study track as a freewheeling living room community was Romans with Wright’s epic commentary as our guide. Also, from the beginning we were... Read more
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