World Christian Podcast – Click here to listen RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS and ACORNS (Note: This material is largely based on the work of Gerlach and Hines, cited at the end of this article.) Something that fascinates many people is the idea of movements and how they form, and how they are generated; in fact, I’ve decided [...]
If you raise funds for any kind of non-profit venture, you will no doubt have noticed a sea of change in how people give. I am not talking about the “I give online” movement – that’s a change in methodology only. I mean, “What are people willing to give to these days?” The predominate shift [...]
(This article just appeared on Move Further) In 1999 I stood in the midst of an unusual cemetery. It was a collection of bodies that were not buried but rather stacked in rows on a field, with police tape surrounding the area. These bodies were to be used as evidence in a United Nations investigation [...]
I feel that I spend much of my time thinking about church planting from afar and maybe it’s time to change that. As a cross-cultural church planter I felt a very strong call to my role. Since then I have moved stateside and have worked more on the mobilization of others to do cross-cultural church [...]
I was reading the Missions Catalyst (sign up here) and came across an article on Muslim demographics in Papua. What struck is the following note, taken from the original source on the WEA website: “According to Dr Elmslie, highland Papuans who allegedly have gonorrhoea are being treated in UN-funded family planning clinics — but not [...]
We need leaders. You hear it all the time. In our office we had a recent call for some to step up to the plate and lead a team in a mission critical task: to serve breakfast to the office staff. We used the following criteria to pick our leaders: “What kind of leaders are [...]
I have been reading and enjoying (very much) the book, “The Shape of Things to Come,” by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. I highly recommend it. One of the issues that Hirsch focuses on is the definition of the church and its relationship to mission. He ties in many different themes, from those espoused by [...]
Note: A few weeks ago I wrote an article for Business as Mission Network. Since a few weeks have gone by, I think I can post it here without raining on their “content parade,” so here it is: There has been a lot of talk in the past few years about Business as Mission (BAM) [...]
I have been criticized a bit for my own criticism regarding “rock star pastors.” These are the “bug guys” that have the huge churches and staffs. From my perspective, celebrity pastors are a blind spot in evangelicalism. Sinking to new lows is this web site selling “I Watch Joel Osteen” fish pins. No wonder the [...]
I have been thinking a bit lately on the missional/emerging (M/E) church movement and its implication on cross-cultural missionaries. I have a couple of observations that I would like to bounce off of you and get your feedback. I have been reading “The Shaping of Things to Come†by Hirsch and Frost. It is a [...]
Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity by Mark A. Noll
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