Missional Course Correction
“Too often churches have understood themselves to be taking God to a godless world rather than following God into a world in which God is already redemptively present.”
George W. Stroup as quoted by Leonard Sweet in Nudge.
Food For Thought: A New Move of the Spirit Edition
Every week here at Pursuing Glory I try to bring together the best posts I’ve found that will equip the end-times church to operate in her God-ordained destiny. These are the best blogs, articles, books and other resources related to our purpose here at this site. Feel free to visit, comment, and make use of the resources found at each site.
I’m super excited for this week’s Food For Thought. I found a blog by Kevin Matthews who we’ve featured here before that I feel captures the essence of what we’re working towards here at Pursuing Glory. I don’t know that I’ve seen a prophecy like this anywhere before and its accuracy is amazing. You can read more about the man gave the prophecy here. The spirit of the prophecy, I believe, is the aim of all the posts featured here and what we contend for here at Pursuing Glory.
A New Move of the Spirit Kevin and Lorna’s Daily Devotional features a prophecy by Smith Wigglesworth about a move of the Spirit after the charismatic movement and the church planting movements. It describes exactly what we’re believing for.
Tim Keller on Movements Steve Addison @ Movements That Change The World does a nice job of condensing a post by Tim Keller on the nature of movements. Any serious movement should wrestle with his thoughts.
Thursday is for Thinkers: Rice Brooks on the Evangelist and the Missional Church Missional guy and evangelism guru Ed Stetzer hosts a guest post on his blog by Rice Brooks about the necessity of evangelists to the missional church. Much needed wisdom at Ed Stetzer’s blog.
Why Simple Churches Don’t Work #7 Ross spends a post looking at how lack of apostolic ministry hinders house churches. This issue needs addressing. You can see this and other hindrances at thejesusvirus.
Why compliments help in planting a simple/organic/house church Felicity Dale looks at the Luke 10 principle of pronouncing peace on houses you enter. This is an often missed part evangelism in the West. More at SimplyChurch.
It’s Not Rocket Science Katie @ Backseat Driver looks at the centrality of family to our definition of church and explores how it can transform our congregational life.
Photo Credit: Design Probes – Food for Thought by centralasian.
You Were Made To Reproduce (Why Are Multiplying Churches Necessary? Part 2)
You can check out Part 1 of “Why Are Multiplying Churches Necessary?” here.
“Jesus lives on in an apostolic Mission that advances by Church multiplication.” – Wolfgang Simson
While there a lot of reasons that multiplying churches are necessary, the fact that it’s necessary because it’s in your DNA isn’t probably the first thing you think of. But if you stop for a moment and consider it, one of the most horrible things that can happen to a couple is that they are unable to have children. A couple can be healthy, popular, wealthy and successful, and yet miserable because they are unable to have children. They show us a fact the Bible already tells us: We were born to reproduce.
This reality goes all the way back to the very beginning of creation: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28).
There are two powerful concepts that are at play here, I’ll start with the most obvious one and then move the more subtle one. First, when God created a man and a woman in the Garden, He did not put them there just to enjoy Paradise. His commission to Adam and Eve was to carry the very life of the Garden to the furthest reaches of the planet. This wasn’t to be done by them living forever and trekking across the entire planet (though they did live for almost a thousand years). God’s plan for Adam and Eve to subdue the Earth was really quite simple: be fruitful and multiply. It was that easy.
The second principle is just as powerful. These two humans were to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the Earth, not because it was just the easiest way. In reality, this reproduction that God called Adam and Eve to was a facet of God’s nature. It is like God to reproduce Himself. And because it is like God to reproduce and He has put His likeness in us, we must reproduce because we are patterned after Him.
This is why Paul, the church multiplying king could write about the nature of Christ and say things like, “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all,” (Ephesians 1:22-23) Notice that it’s the nature of Christ to fill all things with Himself and He manifests that nature through us, His church.
How does this apply to us? Multiplying isn’t something foreign to us as a church. It’s part of our natural and spiritual DNA. Just like the barren couple we started talking about, we will be frustrated in our lives and callings until we see successive generations of believers walk in the things Jesus called us to. But if we multiply ourselves, if we multiply leaders, and if we multiply churches, we become true to the very DNA Jesus sowed into us from the very beginning.
Photo Credit: Mountain view with sheep by Julie_Berlin.
Cluster Map
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