church(2/2)
Christ never commanded his disciples to plant churches
Christ never commanded his disciples to plant churches, because it’s not what He wanted them to focus on. Focusing on the church to be planted leads to church starting, whereas focusing on the Great Commission itself leads to church planting.
Discipleship done biblically is always in community
I think a lot of these things rest in the issue of discipleship… Discipleship done biblically is always in community. It’s never just one-on-one. I think that’s a big mistake that Western individualists make. I’m sure that Jesus did one-on-one with his people, but you never get a view of it anywhere in the scriptures. It’s always in groups. (in answer this question from Josh Johnson, “Can we as people caught in the walls of the church, can we reorient ourselves into a place where we can have true, authentic community that’s not just a Sunday gathering?…
The church must learn new forms
The American Church is not growing. The new people in the pews are almost exclusively either transplants from another church or people returning after a period of separation. When churches close their doors in your neighborhood, it’s too late. Closures are the inevitable result of our failure to add any unchurched people to our community for many years, not just the past one or two. As with business, danger signals are outside customer base.…
Kingdom manifesto
How does Jesus' Kingdom community organize? Is the Sunday gathering primary? What are ‘micro’ groups? These are the sort of questions that keep me up into the wee hours of the morning. Will you join me in an exercise to loosely structure a Kingdom community? Definitions First, what the heck is ‘Kingdom community’? Don’t you just mean church? Certain words have baggage from long practice. Church attendees agree that the church building !…