Recommended Reading/Learning/Development

I haven’t done this on “this blog”, nor on my alternate one for a long time… But there are some reads you might want to consider….

A comment from http://missionalchurchnetwork.com/ shares:
Right Here, Right Now: Everyday Mission For Everyday People is a great new book released this week from Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford. I hope to post a full review later this week, but for now here is a short excerpt where Alan and Lance both speak on the importance of mission being the organizing principle of the church.

A comment on this work from http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/ shares: I found this book to be a lucid unfolding of the confounding traps pastors fall into as they continually try to grow their church. As a result, we end up looking at church upside down and repeatedly end up working against participating in God’s Mission. In this book, Roxburgh helps us untangle these traps and helps us see what we are doing to ourselves! He has a wonderful exposition of Luke 10 that can be used to teach and expand the imaginations of our congregations for what God is calling us to be “in the neighborhoods.”

Finally, my top recommendation, written by a friend:

An Amazon review says:

The Anabaptists are beginning to make more and more sense to a world that is increasingly aware of the emptiness of materialism and the ugliness of militarism. Anabaptist logic is rooted in the wisdom of the cross of Jesus, which Scripture says confounds the wisdom of this world. It seems the world is poised for a new Anabaptist movement, and The Naked Anabaptist may well be the spark that lights the fire. –Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution

I am finding a growing hunger for a more authentic whole-life faith that makes a difference in the lives of others. Many are discovering their answer in the Anabaptist witness, as I did 30 years ago. The Naked Anabaptist is a treasure for those who want to become more faithful followers of Jesus in our troubled world. Stuart Murray compellingly explains how the Anabaptist witness calls us to take Jesus seriously in every area of our lives and in response to the urgent issues of peace and justice that fill our world. –Tom Sine, author of The New Conspirators

Product Description

Anabaptist Christians have been around for almost 500 years. But what does Anabaptism look like when not clothed in Mennonite or Amish traditions? Writing from Great Britain, Stuart Murray peels back the layers to reveal the core components of Anabaptism and what they mean for faith in his context and ours. It’s a way of following Jesus that challenges, disturbs, and inspires us, summoning us to wholehearted discipleship and worship. Read this book, and catch a vision for living a life of radical faith! Available April 1, 2010.

You can find more on this book at:
http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Anabaptist-Third-Way-Collection/dp/0836195175/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294246724&sr=1-3

2011 Challenge to “the church”

We suffer from a lot as the church. From affluenza (consumerism & materialism governing our lives and defining a person’s worth based upon what they can do/get/own); addiction to culture, celebrity, prosperity and a warped idea that bigger is better, and that God works efficiently and is more concerned with ROI than He is with trusting Him, following, loving and obedience. We think God has to pass our rule of pragmatism, reason and rationale. We are an institution, organized as corporations, defined by events that one attends, versus being a people on a journey. This is tied into our affluenze where we treat God as a commodity… what can God do for you, as you live life for you, and mediate a contract with God to do something for me/us… we add Jesus on, living our culturally defined idea of success and life – never once considering that God might actually want us to sacrifice our lives of reason, success and comfort and security (two idol gods we worship along with consumerism and materialism). We think anyone who acts outside of our cultural mandates of success to be crazy.

All of this is scary and no surprise we are anemic as God’s people in having any impact in our society – from lack of conversions, lack of discipleship that transforms life, lack of true piety amongst His people, lack of any more health in any cultural statistic than the rest of society, behaviors that reflect the same lack of ethic as the rest of the corporate world.

Are we really surprised the world doesn’t respect or hear what words come from us?

The challenge for 2011, as politics become ever more polarized, that we become God’s people, not an organization or political force; that we actually act, think, feel, proact and react like Jesus, not like Fox News; that we sacrifice and give ourselves away rather than defend “our rights” …. anyone notice our ‘merican rights over ride our ethos and value of being Jesus’ people… Phil 2.5ff is a good start for what our character should be like.

A challenge is that we actually stop consuming “some God” each week to make life work and sustain control, comfort and safety and we lay all of our lives on the alter and consider He might actually want us to live counter (not anti) to the culture.

A challenge that we love the world and stop judging it… let’s just humbly love and let the Spirit do the judging. Let us speak truth with grace, humility (because we don’t have a lot to be arrogant about lately) and in the context of trusted relationships.

May be know and be known before we presume to have something to say on any subject that winds people up.

I've been saying this for years...

A friend of mine, Matty'O, sent the below cartoon... he knows we've laughed on this for a while.... enjoy...

D&D and Fantasy Football are related... Fantasy Football is for people who used to play D&D, but are too embarrassed to admit it. :-)

Love to ya, Jonathan! :-)