Andrew Jones upgraded the Blogger's Prayer he wrote five years ago:
Our Father
who lives above and beyond the blogosphere
Give us this day a life worth blogging,
The access to words and images that express our journey with passion and integrity,
And a secure connection to publish your daily mercies.
Your Kingdom come into new spaces today,
As we make known your mysteries,
Posting by posting,
Blog by blog.
According to Barna's latest research "house churches are more satisfying to attenders than are conventional churches". The difference is about 15-20 percent. Barna describes a "house church" as "a group of believers that meets regularly in a home or place other than a church building. These groups are not part of a typical church; they meet independently, are self-governed and consider themselves to be a complete church on their own... not associated in any way with a local, congregational type of church."
"Christ of the Wilderness, hear our confession.
We are MacDonald's, we confess our sin,
This is our temple, where we eat our fast feasts,
We are ready to enjoy a happy meal, but not to eat a meal of sadness for injustice.
HUNGRY GOD - HAVE MERCY ON US."
Andrew Jones explains what a 'Cruelty-free Christmas' is all about, and why Jesus followers should support a standard of animal welfare. He will be happy to know that the Netherlands now has an Animal Party in Parliament, of which the leader was elected 'political animal talent of the year'.
Is Paul's approach to forming communities universally prescriptive or inspirational? Did Jesus in his life model the 'DNA' of Church as He intended it, or not? To what extent do the Kingdom and Church overlap? Important questions, and I posted a few comments addressing this on Matthijs' blog (here and here), partly responding to Youth for Christ missional workers, who seem to be a bit hesitant to call their communities 'church'. Roland Allan also has some good things to say in this classic work 'Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?'.
Btw, over Christmas I read Daniël de Wolf's excellent book 'Jesus in the Millinx. Words and Actions in a Poor Neighborhood in Rotterdam' (Dutch only) in which he challenges the existing church by applying an unconventional incarnational approach in one of the most notorious city areas in the Netherlands.
"Do you know how difficult it is to be a pastor in a traditional church?" asks John White, who works as a house church coach with Dawn Ministries. "I do. I was one for over 25 years." Consider these statistics from Resurgence:
- In the US 1500 pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention in their churches.
- Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
- Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
Peter de Kraker mailed me the link to these four funny YouTube movies, a parody on the Microsoft PC versus Mac commercials. They say it all. The 'Christian No More' series originates from Christian Community Church in Naperville, Illinois.
It's a question that has popped up over and over in discussions over the past few years: what is church? Is there something like an 'ecclesiological minimum' or 'maximum'? I formulated some thoughts as a comment on Matthijs' weblog. Sorry, only in Dutch this time, but here is a post in English along the same lines.
Lammert Vrieling has an interesting post on Rodney Stark's book 'Cities of God', in which he states that the appeal Christianity had on women in the Greco-Roman world is one of the main factors why this 'new religion' conquered the urban centres of its time. It makes you wonder what happened down the road, as today wicca has much more appeal to women than Christianity. And on Andrew's blog a discussion is going on why even in 'organic' and 'emerging' circles most church planters seem to be men. Not so in Korea and China, where 80-90 percent of small groups are led by women. So perhaps especially the Western church has a problem here?
I came across some interesting blog posts and articles on organic/emerging church: Recentering on Christ (Steve Hill), Barna's Bungle (Scott Friderich), Apostolic migration (Simson at Simplechurch), Ancient voices (Neil Young), Ough! (Mirko Sander), Sorry (Philip de Cavel), Speak up or shut up (Andreas Wolf), Monologue or dialogue? (Gijs van der Neut). Websites/blogs: The Crowded House (UK missional church), Male Spirituality (Richard Rohr), Let's put the kettle on (Lisa Borden).
Today in the news: the Swedes have more trust in IKEA than in the church. Not really surprising. Although I would suggest it's still easier to plant an emerging church (especially without definition) than to assemble an average piece of IKEA furniture. But that's another story. In Copenhagen, in the light of Martin Robinson's missional challenges, I pondered on the question what we should do with our church buildings as we won't be needing them in a post-christendom age. This is what I came up with, again in a simplified PPT slide.
Download what_to_do_with_your_church_building.ppt
