Mobilizing Everyday Missionaries
Disciplemaking and the Church at Laodicea
Isn’t Laodicea that lukewarm church we encounter in the Apocalypse? I never knew that Paul addressed those folks through a disciple named Ephaphras in his letter to the Colossians. Also, I didn’t know that the church in Hierapolis was in the New Testament. Being an aging Baby Boomer, we’re supposed to know just about everything…
Read MoreWhen Apparently Powerless
Let’s press into the issue of God’s power versus ours, especially in light of recent events in Asbury. The believers Paul addressed in Romans 16 were mainly slaves or people so poor that you might compare them to sharecroppers in the American South. However, there were people of means among them. Wealthier people…
Read MoreWhen Social Limitations Become Useful
We can learn a lot by examining the social limitations of the people Paul addressed in Romans 16. This handful of politically powerless and theologically divided Christ followers would grow into a launch point for forces formulating what we describe as Western culture. Understanding society and points of influence is crucial in spreading…
Read MoreMissionary Lessons from a Pastoral Letter
Teaching Romans as pure theology has hampered me in several ways. First, it comes across a little cold. And it misses the intended audience, teaching this way confuses Torah observant Christ-followers with first-century Jewish people. Finally, the doctrinal emphasis misses Paul’s obvious pastoral lessons. This is a pastoral letter. One false assumption…
Read MoreEvangelism: Grey Skies Will Turn…
Yesterday I spent a little time in my garden between storms. It’s winter in San Diego—our kind of winter, gloomy but not too cold. Most of our trees are scraggly and leafless, especially those that grow better in Hawaii than here. We need the rain, but a series of storms can get old.…
Read MoreA Workable Approach to Evangelism
Do you struggle to motivate your members toward evangelism? Is your “invite them to church” approach broken? You’re not alone. The program-based model is failing and never touched more than 30 percent of people still interested in Christianity. We need to equip and activate every Christ-follower as an everyday missionary. But…
Read MoreA Workable Approach to Evangelism
Do you struggle to motivate your members toward evangelism? Is your “invite them to church” approach broken? You’re not alone. The program-based model is failing and never touched more than 30 percent of people still interested in Christianity. We need to equip and activate every Christ-follower as an everyday missionary. But…
Read MoreWhy I Quit Pastoring
I’m not your pastor, and this is not a church. One Sunday in early 1984, I informed Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay that I was no longer their pastor and that we were no longer a church. Their church was their microchurch. Their pastor was their microchurch pastor. Were a convention of churches. My job was…
Read MoreBecoming an Everyday Missionary Network Leader
We live as “sojourners” in this world. Even as “strangers and aliens.” I find that alien word a little–well, alien. But we are outsiders to our culture. This positions each of us as everyday missionaries. My overseas experience suggests that we learn to address a foreign culture with humility and grace. We need to consider…
Read MoreWhy That Way and Not Another?
The great danger in a church is doing things because “that’s the way they’re done.” Worse is the tendency to rely on trends, copying someone else’s success while hoping to duplicate it—copying what you read often does little more than keep the Christian publishing industry alive. But what about you? Why do you do the…
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