Movements That Change the World: Five Keys to Spreading the Gospel by Steve Addison (A Book Review)

April 19, 2012 by 1 Comment

While this book has been around awhile (orig. publication 2009, revised 2011), it should remain “timely” for quite some time to come for anyone interested in the church as a “missionary movement”. Steve Addison has packed this very quick read with a lot of descriptive history of movements that were successful in spreading the gospel. [It’s a good thing this book does read quickly—I found it very hard to put it down.] He aptly distinguishes the movements that succeeded beyond merely spreading the gospel and bore fruit for successive generations by “making disciples”. [Read more…]

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Viral: How Social Networking Is Poised to Ignite Revival by Leonard Sweet (A Book Review)

April 12, 2012 by 7 Comments

Only a few pages into this book, the thought struck: Leonard Sweet is a Renaissance Man for this generation! His breathtaking mastery of multi-disciplinary knowledge, powers of observation, and analytical skill in assessing the traits, tendencies and trends of this culture have been brought to bear in this newly released volume. Sweet has done his research and waded deeply into the waters of change—a “Gutenberger” immigrating from a tribe of Enlightenment-influenced navel-gazers into a country populated by relational, tech-savvy “Googlers”. [Read more…]

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Viral Jesus: Recovering the Contagious Power of the Gospel by Ross Rohde (A Book Review)

March 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

What is preventing the Gospel from spreading in Western Christendom like it did in the first century—and like it did in China when the Cultural Revolution virtually shut down the institutional church by taking control of it? What is stopping a contagious Jesus movement today?  We proclaim that the Gospel has not lost its power, and yet… [Read more…]

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Like Living Stones

August 29, 2011 by 5 Comments

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. __1 Peter 2:4-5 NIV

Why, after nearly 2000 years, don’t more people who profess to follow Christ look more like Christ? Could it be because church-as-they-know-it has failed to teach them how Jesus sees the Church-as-He-builds-it?
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A “Heretic’s Apologetic”—Not an Apology!

August 16, 2011 by 4 Comments

Curiosity  got the better of a friend who said, “I like your blog. You seem to be well-grounded in Scripture (she must mean My Other Other Blog).  But…why do you call yourself a ‘heretic’?”

Off the cuff, “It’s a JOKE.”  Serious answer—it’s really NOT a joke.

I’ve spent my entire life living in the Bible Belt.  A lot of folks here will actually tell you, “You’re going to go to hell if you don’t go to church!” To their mind, it seems, you can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and be knowledgeable about Scripture, but if you don’t “belong to” or “go to” a “church-as-they-know-it”, you’re going to hell. In the Bible Belt, if you don’t “go to church”—in some cases that means every time the door opens—you risk being branded a “backslider”.  I commit “heresy” by challenging their traditional view of church-as-they-know-it.
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