Top 8 for 2008: Everything

Who was I kidding? There’s no way I’m going to find the time to write a series of ‘top 8 for 2008′ posts between now and the end of the year so instead I’ll simply cram them all into one post. So here you have it, my top 8 for 2008 of everything!

Top 8 things I did or experienced in 2008:

1. Got married! (October)
2. Got engaged! (March)
3. Started planning and implementing a church plant (All year – but especially last three months)
4. Heard Piper, Driscoll, Chandler and Mahaney at the Resurgence Conference at Mars Hill in Seattle, spent time at the Journey Church in St Louis and met a whole lot of great peeps from Acts 29, and others, in the States (February)
5. Was taught Deuteronomy by Gary Millar – the best Old Testament teacher I’ve been taught by to date (September)
6. Road up Sani Pass – my first real 4×4 experience behind the wheel (October)
7. Decided to stay in Cape Town long term – gotta love this city (March)
8. Had my thinking about the gospel deepened and enriched ten times over by Tim Keller through numerous mp3s, articles and the odd blog comment (throughout the year)

Top 8 Blogs I followed in 2008 (See my 2007 list here):

1. Church Planting Novice – Jonathan Dodson. A newcomer to the list, this blog has been perfect for where I’m at in my thinking at the moment. So much wisdom and insight from a guy on the ground.
2. Between Two Worlds – Justin Taylor. Last year’s number 1 drops down one place – but still a great blog.
3. Tim Chester. Up from last year’s number 7 spot. Tim’s writing never stops enlightening, challenging and encouraging all at the same time.
4. John Scheepers. Give it up for the Saffa bloggers! John is a friend of mine who writes a great blog and brings a welcome voice to the South African Christian blogsphere.
5. Drew Goodmanson. Down from #2 – sorry Drew. Drew doesn’t post very often, but when he does its almost always worthwhile.
6. Justin Moffat. Another newcomer to the list. Justin writes an informative and challenging blog with an Anglican slant – I’ve enjoyed it a lot this year.
7. Michael Jensen. Michael drops down from last years 3rd but still turns out great post after great post. Plus he sent me a copy of his new book which I’ll be reviewing here shortly.
8. Jason Allen. Jason was one of the first people I became ‘blog friends’ with when I started blogging. I’ve always enjoyed his blog and the sanity he brings to some current trends that rage through the church blogging world.

Top 8 Books for 2008 (books I read this year – most of them are older than 2008 – please note that the books are a little one-sided topically because most of my reading this year revolved around my dissertation):

1. Total Church – Steve Timmis and Tim Chester. Ok so I first read it in 2007 but I’ve read it several times this year because of my dissertation and I still think its the most important book I’ve ever read on ecclesiology.
2. The Reason for God – Tim Keller. The first apologetics book that I feel comfortable giving to my friends.
3. Planting Missional Churches – Ed Stetzer. Great book with practical insight. Really helpful for where I’m at.
4. The Forgotten Ways – Alan Hirsch. Really good yet at times frustrating. I’m on the same page as Hirsch with a number of things – I guess I’m just a bit more conservative on one or two others.
5. Breaking the Missional Code – Ed Stetzer and David Putman. Another great help on all things missional.
6. On the Incarnation – Athanasius. I delved into a bit of church history this year and thoroughly enjoyed this one.
7. The King of God’s Kingdom – David Seccombe. Dr Seccombe (Doc) was my New Testament lecturer this year and so I got a chance to have a crack at his book. It’s a great overview of Christ in the gospels.
8. Jesus and the Victory of God – NT Wright. Vintage Wright – I don’t agree with him at every point but this is an important book.

Top 8 places I visited in 2008

1. Seattle, Washington, USA
2. St Louis, Missouri, USA
3. Castleburn, Drakensburg, KZN
4. Sani Pass, Lesotho
5. Lost City, Sun City, North West Province
6. Franschoek, Western Cape
7. Betty’s Bay, Western Cape
8. Durban, KZN (my old stomping ground)

That’s my year in a nutshell. It’s been the year with the biggest changes in my life to date. Not only did I get married but we decided to stay in Cape Town and plant churches here rather than in Durban. Things have come a long way in the last 12 months – here’s to an equally exciting 2009.

Merry Christmas all – have a great one!

Created for Community

I’ve posted the sermon I preached on Sunday morning at The Message Church in Mowbray, Cape Town, entitled ‘Created for Community’. If you want to know what I think about the concept of community and its relation to the Christian church then have a listen. Please note that my ideas are not really all that original – I’ve borrowed a ton from people who have influenced me like Tim Chester and Steve Timmis as well as, I think, simply saying what seems obvious to me in the Scriptures. Some feedback would be great…

Bish, Chester & Leeman on Church, Individualism & Song of Songs

Dave Bish has a great little post, with the help of Tim Chester and Jonathan Leeman, on how our anti-authoritarianism, and not necessarily individualism, has caused us to misread Song of Songs and undervalue the role of the church in the gospel.

Paul Tripp on Community

In preparing to do a talk on the subject of ‘community’ in two weeks time I came across this great article by Paul Tripp entitled, ‘Created for Community‘. It’s well worth a read.

BTW – Paul Tripp is in South Africa at the moment and will be preaching at St Stephen’s this coming Sunday evening.

That thing Called ‘Church’: A Mid-Year Update

In January I posted about my desire to interact with the issue of ‘church’ over the course of this year. ‘Matt the Knight’, a friend of mine, suggested that I give a mid-year update as to where I am in my thinking about some of the questions I set out to explore. So here’s some of the answers to the questions so far:

According to the New Testament what do you have to have, as absolute minimum, for a church to exist?

I’m thinking you need people who have been regenerated by the gospel, living under the consistent proclamation and teaching of the word of God, worshipping in a community by serving, caring, speaking, teaching and loving both each other and those outside. I found a recent study I did on Luther’s view of church quite helpful in part and I’m still blown away by Timmis & Chester’s ‘Total Church’.

What is the relationship between the church and the Kingdom of God?

This one is difficult. I’m still not sure if I have it nailed down (or if I’ll ever nail it down). In light of this a did a study and wrote a paper on the concept of the kingdom of God as found in Luke’s gospel. You can read it here.

What is the relationship between the church and social concern (as opposed to the relationship between Christians and social concern)?

Still not clear on this one either. I know all the various arguments out there and I’ve read quite a bit but I’m not sure I’ve read anything that directly answers this question in a way that looks at individual Christian responsibility and the corporate church’s responsibility.

What is the relationship between the church (local) and culture?

Daniel 1. I have a brilliant talk by Vaughan Roberts on Daniel 1 that answers this question beautifully. Unfortunately I don’t have the rights to post it. I haven’t checked if its available elsewhere so have a look around and I’ll tell you if I find it on-line. Basically his thesis is: Don’t run away from culture but don’t compromise either – and be humble and generous as you figure out this tension.

Is the Knox-Robinson view of church too narrow?

I’m struggling to figure out if its the actual theology that’s too narrow here or the way people practice it in church life. Do I believe that the earthly gathering of believers is the embodiment of an already existing heavenly gathering? Yes. I just think there’s more to ‘church’ than ‘the gathering’.

What does over-realised eschatology look like in the church?

A church that neglects gospel proclamation because its too busy trying to make the new creation happen now.

What does under-realised eschatology look like in the church?

A church that only ever does evangelism and forgets that God’s agenda is the renewal of all things.

How do the above two questions relate to the plausibility of the homogeneous unit principle?

This is tricky. Most people who write on this issue, that I’ve read, write from predominantly mono-cultural society whereas things in South Africa are a lot messier. I’m still working on this one.

What do those same two questions have to say about the depth of gospel community a church should be attempting?

It should be deeeeeeeeeeep. The one thing I’m becoming more and more convinced about in my studies is the need for authentic community that extends beyond the structures.

Are multi-site churches theologically viable?

I don’t see why not. But I also think they can be a breeding ground for a number of different sins: like pride for example. There is also the chance that they can turn the church into not much more than a market commodity – not good. But then again the whole arena of multi-site is quite diverse.

Myth of the Mega and the Missional Community

I commonly hear pastors of churches that range in size between 80-300 being quite critical of mega churches because of the lack of intimacy and community. Some pastors are concerned that they’ll lose that personal touch with the congregation if they get any bigger than 300. My concern is that by and large these pastors have already lost that personal touch with their congregations – sure they might be able to greet everyone of them at the door by name, but that’s as far as it goes. I fail to see how one can maintain a strong sense of Christian community in a congregation of just 80 people never mind 300.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that authentic community is impossible without being under girded by smaller communities. And so recently I’ve become increasingly interested in the concept of ‘missional communities’. I’ve heard some describe them as ‘more than a home group, less than a house church’. For definition purposes Michael Foster has links to a number of sessions on ‘missional communities’ done by Soma Communities in Tacoma, US. Soma Communities are one of the few churches out there pioneering ‘missional communities’ from a conservative theological background (see also: Kaleo Church in San Diego, US, and The Crowded House in Sheffield, UK). I’m beginning to think that whether you opt to go mega-church, stay in the 80-300 group or go even smaller your community would do well to be made up of a network of ‘missional communities’.

Community is the key context for gospel learning, gospel growth and gospel expansion. The New Testament is clear that right from day one small group meetings were the bread and butter of the Christian experience, there were bigger meetings and I’m always open to allowing for plenty of pragmatism with regards to size and style of meetings but I really think we need the core missional communities to cement the Christian community. We’ve tended to see holistic small groups as something of an add on to the bread and butter Sunday meetings which in reality rather turns the New Testament picture on its head. God is calling out a people for himself, not a programme. Our church experience should reflect that.

My Little Experiment – Part II

“It’s pointless shining the brass on a sinking ship“

That’s a sentiment that many evangelical Christians have applied to social justice, mercy ministry, racial reconciliation, transformation, upliftment, work and calling, environmental issues and a whole lot of other issues relating to this current world and its inhabitants. The ship is going down so don’t bother. The alternative? Well, just do evangelism, that’s all that really matters – in other words – get people into the life boats. Now based upon the many answers to the first post I must take issue with a philosophy of evangelism only. Surely Christians do not continue their existence in this world simply to evangelize the lost. I think we can see this if we draw an analogy from the previous post.

Many of you gave answers, some of which I might not necessarilly go with, but I’m not here to sort out your doctrine of personal godliness, rather I want to make an analogy. Consider the following answers that were posted:

“We are already righteous before the Lord if we are Christians because of the cross and if that is our status we should be living like God’s holy people, striving to live out our status.”

“God has brought you out of darkness into light: therefore live as children of the day.”

“We are to pursue godliness despite attaining it in this world because (1) it serves as a proof of the initial work God has begun in us; (2) God is in the business of redeeming us now, and while we await our final redemption/salvation, it has been inaugurated in a unique way on the cross and through the resurrection (and by the Spirit)”

“I am just trying to live out the reality of who I am, “in Christ”.”

“I am a child of God, therefore it is my desire to live as a true child, not so I can get a big reward, but purely because it is who I am through the work of Christ.”

“Because the grace of God teaches (instructs or trains) me (with the intent of forming proper habits of behaviour).’(Titus 2:11-12 with additional comments from Louw & Nida). Sometimes I put in very little effort at all, I’m simply being propelled by the good news concerning Jesus.”

There’s a common thread running through those comments. It is the idea of living in the light of future expectation – and its a certain expectation. Be holy because you are holy and you will be made holy. We’re very good at applying this to personal godliness and so, like me, you can probably count off hundreds of sermons that you’ve heard about personal praying, reading your bible and displaying the fruit of the Spirit. Be patient, be joyful, be kind etc. etc. The only time spirituality seems to become other person centered is when the sermon is on evangelism. I’m often left wondering if there isn’t anything more to the picture. Does being gospel-centered equate doing evangelism and personal godliness? Or is it more than that?

What if we were to explore our future expectation and discover that God has more in store than simply making us completely righteous in his sight and whisking us off to heaven? What if God’s plan rather was to institute an entire new creation that exists in complete submission to his lordship? What if this new creation was made certain by the cross? What if Colossians 1:20 really means what it says and that God is in the business of more than just redeeming individual souls? What if we’re leaving out large parts of the gospel?

Residence in the new creation is secured for those who trust in Christ (how that will eventually work out I have no idea), surely that must change how we deal with social justice, mercy ministry, racial reconcilliation, transformation, upliftment, work, enviromental issues and a whole lot of other issues relating to this current world and its inhabitants now. My guess is that as we do this there will be plenty, if not more, opportunities for evangelism and the public proclamation of the gospel which is the only thing by which men are saved as far I’m concerned. But we must do it if we are to live in light of our secured future expectation. We shine the brass in the current creation because we are secured residents of the coming new creation – and so shine we must.

What do you think? Is this a fair analogy?

Gone and Back Again…

Load shedding is seriously encroaching on my blogging habits! Not only is the power out for a number of hours when I’d love to sit down with a cup of coffee and read and write posts but it also resets my wireless router every time and I don’t always have access to it to reset the configuration.

Anyway – I’ve also been away for a few days and so I wasn’t always here to enjoy the load shedding (what a shame). But since I’ve missed quite a few days of blogging I thought I’d start by pointing to a few interesting posts that I pulled from the glut in my feed reader.

Michael Foster talks about his church going the missional community route.

Abraham Piper points to all his posts regarding the recent Pastor’s Conference in Minneapolis. Check out the links to talks by D.A. Carson.

Tim Chester posts a paper written by Christopher de la Hoyde entitled “Atonement: Engaging with an emerging theology“. Looks interesting.

But the post of the week goes to Gordon Cheng who points out how the Sydney Anglican Bishops, who recently declined to attend Lambeth, might better spend their time.

That thing called ‘Church’

During 2007 I had interactions with numerous church pastors and planters, both in the flesh and on the web. Through these I’ve become convinced that I need to get my ecclesiology clear in my head over the course of 2008. So I’m going to concentrate my studies in this area. Here’s a list of some of the questions I want to have a look at (feel free to point me towards literature that deals with any of the questions below):

According to the New Testament what do you have to have, as absolute minimum, for a church to exist?

What is the relationship between the church and the Kingdom of God?

What is the relationship between the church and social concern (as opposed to the relationship between Christians and social concern)?

What is the relationship between the church (local) and culture?

Is the Knox-Robinson view of church too narrow?

What does over-realised eschatology look like in the church?

What does under-realised eschatology look like in the church?

How do the above two questions relate to the plausibility of the homogeneous unit principle?

What do those same two questions have to say about the depth of gospel community a church should be attempting?

Are multi-site churches theologically viable?

I think these questions are crucial to not only ponder but begin to give solid biblical answers to if a new group of young leaders aim to plant and grow fresh expressions of church that reflect the pattern of the New Testament.

Come here often? Prt 2

This is a follow up on some thoughts i have had after posting previously on visitors in our churches.  In those posts it was helpful to look at church services from the actual view point of the visitor, instead of trying to guess what they might think and feel about coming to church.  One theme of the two posts that i picked up on was the desire for the visitor not to embarrass themselves!  That really got me thinking because some of the horror stories coming out of the article about “hugging churches” made me cringe…a lot…a lot.  So in a sense it seems that for many, visiting a church means being unseen and yet also feeling welcomed.  For some of the journalists who had a good experience it boiled down to a sensitive Christian community that did not ignore them but made them feel welcome.  Easy, right?  Not quite, as i said before there is no formula because we are dealing with people and as much as humans exhibit the characteristics of the legendary lemmings, we cannot predict how people will react when they come into our meetings.

 Yet, i think we need to start with what i mentioned earlier, sensitivity to the visitor. This is key as i think for many churches we may have fallen into the trap that we are not expectant of the visitor, particularly the sceptical visitor.  Maybe we have stopped asking friends, maybe we have stopped listening to the world’s questions, or maybe we see services as times for Christians and should in no way should cater for the visitor.  For the Christian? Yes, first and foremost it is a time for us as Jesus’ disciples to meet together, encourage one another, hear from God’s Word, prayer together and generally fellowship.  But, our scheduled meetings are not some mystical time where God’s people are meant to meet “behind closed doors” ignoring the outside world.  Paul says to the Corinthians that there will be outsiders in their midst (cf. Paul’s assumption of the presence of unbelievers in the congregation in 1 Cor 14) and so as a church who meets together we need to be sensitive to this fact. Here’s an example that i know got me every time when i first started going to church meetings.  For instance, the service leader may tell the congregation that later we will “hear the Word of God” from the “preacher” who will come up and explain the Bible.  Now, try and put yourself in the visitors shoes and imagine what they might think of language like that? This takes us back to a questions i had in the previous post; What then is the purpose of our meetings?

Paul has one goal for for the public gathering of believers: to build one another up.  As Christians do this in love, it becomes a massive witness to the outsider.  However, what ever we do in our meetings needs to be intelligible and helpful for the outsider in order for them to simply understand what is going on.  This seems pretty obvious…until you think through the various practices we have at our Church meetings that we understand, but for outsider is completely irrelevant. 

Which leads us to the question: how much should the outsider’s perspective shape the way we do our church services? (or do church as a whole?) Is it just an issue of the language we use? or does it go even further to mindsets?

Here’s my take for what it is worth: sensitivity means understanding that there will be outsiders in our midst.  The cultural and perspectival gap between the believers and non-believers will be massive, that gap needs to be lessened.  So yes, the outsider should have a definite say as to how we do our meetings in order to make it relevant, fresh and missional.  If it becomes a “locals” club for Christians with only their preferences then how are going to connect with the unbeliever?

Lets try and be sensitive to the outsider and purposeful in bringing them in!

The Quest for Authenticity

Its no secret that I’m often quite fed up with many contemporary expressions of the church. My big issue is authenticity or lack thereof. I want authenticity, I want to be involved in living breathing communities committed to the Gospel in a fresh but authentic manner.

I want to meet with Christians who ‘let it all hang out’ so to speak. I want to meet Christians who understand that they are rebellious sinners, who understand the broken nature of this world – but that also live with the tension of being instruments of proclamation and blessing. I want to meet Christians who want a real Jesus, not a soft sissy who loves everyone so much that he’s lost his moral compass and can’t judge sin for what it really is. At the same time I want to meet Christians who realize that Jesus isn’t just handing out ‘get out of hell free’ tickets but is actively teaching what it means to love and live like residents of the New Creation. I want to meet Christians who struggle to die to self everyday and acknowledge it. I want to meet Christians who know what God’s will is for this planet and don’t run around all day long chasing ‘peaces and fleeces’. I want to meet Christians who take what God has said in scripture both seriously and with humility and don’t use it as a power tool to make their own selfish and megalomaniac alterations on society. I want to meet Christians who love outside of church and home group meeting times. I want to meet Christians who think past guitars and drums when I mention the word ‘worship’. I want to meet Christians who fail but are big enough to run back to the Cross of Jesus and beg for real mercy. I want to meet Christians who know that if they don’t have Jesus then they have nothing – and this is worth fighting tooth and nail for.
I want to meet these people and live with them. I want to see others be transformed and become these people. I want to see myself transformed and become ‘these people’.

Why I DON’T Want to be Involved in Church Planting

(Following on from my last church planting post – this a list of reasons as to why I’m absolutely terrified about getting into church planting…)

I’m terrified that my work ethic is pathetic and that church planting requires people who work to the max.

I’m terrified that my life will on be on display to an entire body of Christians – I don’t want to let them down.

I’m terrified of the responsibility of having to teach the Bible with the deepest integrity every single week.

I’m terrified of displaying authentic orthopraxy.

I’m terrified of loving people, especially those who tick me off.

I’m terrified of all the massive social concerns our country faces.

I’m terrified of working with other Christians who don’t agree with me.

I’m terrified of trying to balance out a humble orthodoxy.

I’m terrified of the possible limits to which my body, mind and emotions will be stretched.

I’m terrified of building my own empire.

Total Church Arrives…

I finally got my grubby little paws on a copy of Steve Timmis and Tim Chester’s book Total Church. I know I’m a bit behind the times here but in South Africa the books don’t always get to our stores quite as quickly.

Now the really big problem that I have is to find the time to get into this exciting book. Hopefully there’ll be some blog posts sharing a bit of what I’m enjoying from the book along the way. Stay tuned…

Love for God IS Love for People

In Mark 12 Jesus is confronted by a teacher of the law who had evidently been sitting in and around the conversations that we’re going on between Jesus and the other religious authorities that day. He’d noticed how Jesus had skillfully avoided their theological traps and turned numerous questions around so that the other religious authorities scrambling desperately for answers. This teacher was impressed and so wanting to see what Jesus was really about at his core he asked, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’

Jesus answers by quoting the ‘Shema’ from Deuteronomy 6 and outlines what he’s about by basically saying, ‘God alone is God, therefore love him with everything you have.’ What is striking is that he doesn’t leave it there, instead he adds another commandment, ‘love people as you love yourself’. The teacher only asked him for one but he gave two – why? Surely it must be because loving God is intricately wrapped up with loving people in this world. Whilst loving people is not all there is to loving God it is so closely connected that Jesus connects the two. Very simply, we cannot love God and not love people.

On Saturday I sat at a lunch table at a homeless shelter with a young guy from the Cape Flats, a Zimbabwean refugee and an elder Xhosa man far displaced from his home desperately looking for work. They were all very different from me, and to be honest conversation was hard and awkward, but Jesus says I have to love them, becuase I claim to love God. May we pray that God would give us the love for all his people that his Son so evidently displayed when he walked this earth.

Gospel Conviction: What We’ve Missed #5

Links to Part I, II, III, & IV

The average member of an average western evangelical church (MRC) needs a mindset change in order to overcome the compartmentalization that we’ve already talked about in Part IV. That mindset revolves around the idea of envisioning oneself as a missionary in the surrounding culture. This concept has been the cornerstone concept of what it means to be ‘missional’ all along. The question is: What motivates us to adopt such a mindset.

Some might feel we need to adopt this mindset after looking around at the evangelical church and noting how its failed to engage culture effectively with the gospel – especially cultures that have postmodern tendencies. However whilst this failure should spur us on to improve the situation it cannot be our basis. We are not simply ‘re-actionaries’, we are first and foremost ‘actionaries’.

Some of us might be adopting this mindset because its ‘cool’ to be missional in the new trendy church climate – sipping wine, wearing Crocs and discussing new church forms in low-key small groups meetings (okay maybe skip the Crocs part if you live outside of Gauteng). This is completely inadequate and we need to check ourselves on this one.

What drives us and motivates us to adopt a missionary mindset is first and foremost a deep conviction of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God is at work reconciling an alienated people to himself. That has to be our basis for motivation in becoming missional. We are not missional because the generation before us wasn’t, we are missional because God is reconciling people to himself in Jesus. Now this might sound like a simple point that doesn’t really shatter the ground you’re standing on. Yet I think that whether or not we will actually adopt a missional approach to ministry and life hinges on whether or not we have deep convictions about the gospel.

Being involved in the whole missional conversation has temptations of its own, we get caught up with the fads and ‘cool-speak’ of being missional and lose then basis of why we’re being missional in the first place. If all we’re ever doing is blogging about this, attending conferences, reading books, drinking coffee and meeting in trendy small groups then we’ve bought into ‘being missional’ without the basis of the gospel.

What is your basis for ‘being missional’?

The Kingdom in the Church

When it comes to loving and caring for people the majority of the texts in the New Testament seem to be primarily concerned that God’s people be concerned with each other. Whilst many of Jesus’ statements can be taken more generally, there is precious little in the epistles regarding love and concern for those outside of God’s people, outside of the church. This is a bit of an intriguing phenomenon that begs further study. Here however is a starting thought which you’re welcome to agree with, disagree with or expand upon:

God’s kingdom is about the rule of Christ, that rule will only be consummated completely when Christ returns, is declared to be lord of all and every knee, willingly or unwillingly bows in submission to him. At the moment though Christ rules by his Spirit which is to say he rules by his church, the one place on this earth, where his Spirit dwells. His church then are to display the kingdom of God to a watching world who have rejected God’s dominion.

So when Christians love and care for one another with selflessness they display the kingdom to the outside. Hence the writers of the epistles are at pains to call Christians to love and care in community. Whatever the Christian’s call to social action, doing justice and showing love and mercy, it must begin with the church – that much is absolutely clear I think.

Don’t Forget Entailments: What We’ve Missed #3

The missional church places a high premium on the entailments of the gospel – things such as living in community, social concern, doing justice etc. I think its still important that we make a distinction between ‘the gospel’ and its entailments (and you can see why here) but at the same time that doesn’t mean we ignore the entailments.

Does this undermine the proclamation of the gospel? No, it shouldn’t. I think a lot of people think in terms of percentages of church effort. So you might say the church aims to do 60% gospel proclamation and spend 40% of its efforts on the entailments – this way the entailments get some sort of recognition but the church rightly keeps gospel proclamation as the main thing. Now whilst the concept of keeping gospel proclamation the main thing is an admirable concept I think the outworking into percentages is flawed. As I see it a faithful reading of scripture would have us place 100% effort into gospel proclamation and 100% effort into the entailments and not pick and choose like we tend to do, often ignoring the entailments. If you take the proclamation away you’ll either get legalism or a social gospel. On the other hand if you take the effort away from the entailments you end up with a powerless and beggarly gospel.

I do want to argue for an order however. I’m convinced that the only thing that will keep us persevering with the entailments (and let’s be honest – its hard work) is a right understanding of the gospel. We will never faithfully answer the call of things like social concern and doing justice if our hearts are not completely gripped by the love of Christ displayed to us in the gospel. Without it our works turn into a legalistic system of religion. Where many of us have forgotten or neglected the entailments the missional church provides us with an opportunity to put the balance right in this area – let us lift high the gospel and all of its entailments with zeal and dedication.

Goodmanson on Transforming Cities

This a post by Drew Goodmanson on how he and his church, in partnership with others, are seeking to transform San Diego with the Gospel of Christ. What astounds me is the sheer comprehensiveness of their ministries – take a look. Could we pull off something like this in South Africa?

Goodmanson on Training

Drew Goodmanson has some great thoughts on the type of leaders we ought to be training. He’s evidently picked up quite a bit of his stuff from the Crowded House guys. Its great to see UK guys influencing US guys concerning missional church.

Authenticity in Community

If you’ve been following the recent discussion on one of my posts you’ll have read the ongoing dialogue with an athiest that’s been taking place. Being involved in this sort of dialogue has got me thinking about the authentic witness of the Christian community and how important it is. While I was thinking along these lines I read Michael Tinker’s blog and saw this great quote from Tim Chester and Steve Timmis’ new book, ‘Total Church‘:

“In view of contemporary culture, we should not underestimate the need for authenticity among the people of God… People have rejected the gospel word in part becuase they have not been exposed to credible gospel community. Churches have often stood aloof from society. Evangelicals have tended to run away from marginalized urban areas to populate more comfortable suburbs. Christians are often perceived as irrelevant and self-righteous. If these perceptions have any basis, we should not point the finger too quickly at people’s spiritual blindness. Jesus gives the world the right to judge the sincerity of our profession on the basis of our love for each other. In other words, we should face with humility the challenge of unbelief. Our response should be one of repentance and faith resulting in lives of authentic corporate existence lived boldly before a sceptical and apathetic world.” p. 63-65

Now that’s what I’m talking about.