broken//stained//glass

A good challenge: follow the Spirit

"We do not want you to copy or imitate us. We want to be like a ship that has crossed the ocean, leaving a wake of foam, which soon fades away. We want you to follow the Spirit, which we have sought to follow, but which must be sought anew in every generation."

-First generation Quakers at Balby, York, late 17th century

Missional in Suburbia Seminar

The Well in Feasterville, PA is sponsoring a one-day seminar next month called Missional in Suburbia.
I highly recommend this seminar on Saturday August 9th.
It's only $25 and includes lunch.

Download the flier below for more information and registration instructions.
Download suburbia-ad.pdf

The Books of the Bible

A few weeks ago, the good people at the International Bible Society sent me a new format of the Bible.
At first I was skeptical, but lately I've really been digging it.
Someone at IBS caught wind of something I wrote on the blog last August and thought I might be interested in seeing this new product.
It's called The Books of the Bible, a TNIV translation that reads, well...like a book.

Study Bibles are great (I have a few that I love) but this is the opposite end of the spectrum.
No chapters.
No verses.
No cross references in the center column.
No footnotes provided by scholars.
A single-column reading of the text.
Just the name of the book and the text itself.
Even the books are ordered differently in order to help the reader grasp the breadth and continuity of the entire Story of God and Man. From what I understand, the intention is that the people at IBS want Scripture to read like it did for the original intended readers - like an entire book to be read in one sitting.

I'm finding in my time in the mornings that I am reading much more than I did before. Instead of coming to a chapter break and unconsciously feeling as though I am "finished" I find I am caught up into the story much more, that I want to read further, know more.
It's quite refreshing.

I've talked with several people that have expressed their desire for Scripture to read more like an exciting novel than an academic textbook.
This might be a helpful tool to move in that direction.

Viva Chipotle!

Text message 9:56 am:
hey
u gonna b at chipotle today?
store opening
free burritos!

Voicemail 11:34 am:
"Dude - Chipotle opens today and they are giving out free burritos all day. Not sure if you heard...maybe I'll see you there. Peace"

Text message 1:14 pm:
im sure u know already...
chipotle free burritos all day
just so u know

Email 2:53 pm:
Hey man,
I'm sure you know, but Chipotle in Montgomeryville opens today and they are giving out burritos 100% off today! You should go!

About a dozen of you text messaged, emailed and/or called to inform/remind of the grand day today.
Thanks for letting me know.
I've been waiting for a Chipotle to be in the region for a few years.

Did we go to the grand opening today?
Is the pope Catholic? (And, I am sure he loves Chipotle, too).

Here's a picture from my cell phone.

The line was long, but worth it.
Carter was even given a silver mylar balloon in the shape of a burrito.
The only thing better than a Chipotle burrito is a free Chipotle burrito.

Viva Chipotle!

Chipotle in Montgomeryville: Life is Burritoful

If you haven't heard yet, Chipotle will begin to enhance people's lives in the Northern Philadelphia region by officially opens its Montgomeryville restaurant doors - tomorrow.

If you've never had a warm, aluminum-wrapped burrito of love from the Big C you won't be disappointed.
I highly recommend you check it out.
And if you have had one (or more likely, several) before, you know what I am talking about...

Someone asked me if we decided to start Renew in the Lansdale area because we heard that Chipotle was opening up a restaurant in Montgomeryville.
Not sure if they were serious or not, but...um...no that didn't come into play on the decision.
However, it sure is a nice bonus!

Back from Maui

We're back from Maui - well, at least our bodies are.
Our heads are still somewhere over the Pacific.
Jet lag is really kicking the snot out of us right now, but we're recovering slowly.

Teaching the students in the Discipleship Training School (DTS) at YWAM-Maui was an incredible privilege and proved to be a very fruitful week. I was extremely encouraged by our time there. We also had plenty of opportunity to spend time with the staff. In their early and mid-twenties, this group of two dozen staff are extremely passionate about God, responsible and have a tremendous heart to serve the Lord. We had quite a few chances to shepherd them, listen to and pray for the YWAM staff, which was an unexpected but significant time of ministry during our time.

I taught on the topic of Understanding our Identity in Christ and Laying Down our Rights.
God's spirit was truly at work in the lives of the students as they wrestled through this essential topic of freedom in Christ.
At the end of the week, many of the students said it was the most challenging/difficult week of training thus far, and yet they also said it was the best week, too. I think that's a good sign.
I thoroughly believe that if we truly understood our identity and the freedom that exists in Christ it would absolutely transform us...me included! I think Stuart Briscoe was right when he said to a room full of pastors, "If we taught our people who they are, we could stop telling people what to do."

We also did have a opportunities to see the island and explore Maui. We spent time reading at several different beautiful beaches, watching the sunrise on top of a 10,000 foot volcano, cliff jumping over waterfalls, hiking through a Bamboo forest and watching surfers and wind surfers at Ho'okipa Point, the wind surfing capital of the world.

We had a terrific time but it is good to be back.
We missed Carter and our friends tremendously and there is plenty to do right now.
However, if YWAM Maui ever wanted to invite me back, well, they wouldn't have to twist my arm.

Counting Attendance: A Missonal Perspective

I remember hearing author and church consultant Reggie McNeal at a one-day church leaders conference several years ago share a story about the way God counts attendance.

Reggie and his wife have three grown daughters. When the oldest one went off to college the family helped her move into her new dorm, met her roommate and got her settled in before pulling away in the family minivan. The family drove home together and sat down at the dinner table to eat dinner. Reggie was used to seeing the five chairs around the dinner table occupied, but now he looked around and someone was missing.

Only four chairs were full. He started to pray for the meal.
He opened his mouth and the words got stuck.
He just couldn't. He started to cry.
He missed his oldest daughter so much. He realized that the family was not complete without his oldest daughter being there...and it broke his heart.

For Reggie, it hit him: this is how God counts attendance. God sees who is in attendance at our churches, but he grieves over who isn't there that could and should be.
He went on to say that God is the God of the empty chair.

Reggie could have sat there and said, 'Well, look at this. Having four out of five seats full at the dinner table ain't bad. That's 80% capacity. We're doing pretty good for our little family, aren't we?" But instead, he noticed who wasn't there and he couldn't get over it.

Imagine if we counted attendance the way God counts attendance?
Imagine if we counted who wasn't at the table of the family of God but should be - the lost, the hurting, the elderly, the younger generations, those who have been cast to the fringes of society.

When we learn to count those not in attendance - and want to do something about it - we begin to have a more inclusive, more holistic kingdom mindset.

Imagine if we grieved over those who weren't at the table.

It only takes a spark

"A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it. It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.

This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?"

-James 3:3-12, The Message

Christianity every 500 years: What now?

We are in a time of enormous change.
We've all heard that before.
Every generation could argue that this has been true.
However, it seems that right now it may be more true than we realize.
Christianity is in an incredibly crucial period right now. We're not fearing extinction (Jesus promised that would not happen in the gospels) but we need to anticipate change.

Author and speaker Phyllis Tickle spoke recently that there is an uncanny occurrence that the winds of change blow through Christianity approximately every 500 years. "About every 500 years," Episcopal bishop Mark Dwyer says cheekily, "the Church feels compelled to have a giant rummage sale and right now we're having one."

Here's what he means...
If you look at history 500 years ago from right now the Great Reformation officially started on October 31, 1517 when Luther nailed 95 Theses on the door of the Church of Wittenburg.
500 years before that was the Great Schism in 1054 when the East and the West of Christianity kissed each other goodbye and Western Christianity became the dominant form of faith that we follow.
500 years before that you have Gregory the Great, the Pope who oversaw the destruction of Rome and the birth of Monasticism as the dominant form of Christianity.
And 500 years before that we hit the time of the Lord, the Messiah Jesus who turned the world upside-down.
And 500 years before Jesus any good Jew would tell you that was the time of the Babylonian Captivity.
And 500 years before that was the end of the age of the Judges and the coming of the Davidic Dynasty - which paved the way for the coming of the Messiah.

So, here we are, smack dab in the middle of another anticipated shift in the ecclesiological tectonic plates, if things continue on this trajectory.

We are in a time of enormous change.
It's futile to sit on our hands and do nothing about it.
Which has made me ask two important questions lately:
(1) What could this significant period of time birth for Christianity?
(2) And what is our part to play in it? 

WWJB?: The more appropriate missional question

We all remember the rage of the WWJD? bracelets a few years ago.
Started with good intentions off of the terrific old, classic book by Charles Sheldon called "In His Steps" it was intended to encourage people to ask the question at all times "What Would Jesus Do?"

Unfortunately, even though Sheldon's book of over a hundred years old, about ten years go it turned into a overdone Christian marketing activity. I'm not slamming those little bracelets at all (In fact, unknowingly, I even contributed to it. In high school my friend Stephen and I used to sell them at Christian concerts even before it became the national rage). I know many people benefited from those little bracelets. But it kind of lost its meaning and significance.

Interestingly, a few years ago in an effort to push the green agenda Christian environmentalists attempted to push the WWJD? thing to a new level and announced that the acronym now stood for "What Would Jesus Drive" in an effort to have consumers purchase gas sippers rather than gas guzzlers.

But WWJD? is a hard question because it can be abstract for us as followers of Jesus in the 21st century attempting to follow a man who lived in the 1st century.
What would Jesus do at college? Well, there were no colleges in the 1st century so its hard to say. 
What would Jesus do with music? Would he have an iPod? No way of knowing because it was 20 centuries before Steve Jobs was even born...
What would Jesus drive? Probably a donkey or a small colt if he were lucky.
These questions are not impossible, but they are hard and abstract to translate over into contemporary life.

I was talking with a friend recently about this and he suggested that the better question is probably WWJD: Where Would Jesus Be? That seems to work a bit more and help our Christian imagination run into the direction of living out the ways of Jesus.

A missional approach to ministry in essence, simply states that "they don't come to us; instead, we go to them."

Where would Jesus be?
Physically, geographically, emotionally, spiritually - where would he be?
Where would he spend his time and with whom?
Well, where did he spend his time as recorded in the gospels? 
With the hurting people. Where are those who are hopeless and homeless and seemingly useless to society.
With th disgraced. Those living in poverty.
That's probably where he would be.
And as followers of Jesus that's where we should be, too.
As a follower of Jesus does that reveal where I spend my time?

We know we need to serve the poor, but do we even know one person who lives under the poverty line that we interact with on a weekly basis? Do I even have one friend who would be considered poor?

We really want to chew on these questions seriously with Renew because how we answer them will be what - and where - we're called as Jesus followers. And that will require a lot from us - a change of our schedules, priorities, budgets and relationships.

I think my friend is right: WWJB? is the better question for the missional imagination in the 21st century.
But please, don't put them on a bracelet and sell them.