Food For Thought: Getting Back In The Swing 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.
This week marks the return of me to blogging after letting that part of my life slide for a few weeks. I’ve had a chance to hang out with some of the coolest people who aren’t part of our house church recently. However that time spent has taken me away from writing, so I’m going to try and get back in the swing of things. This post represents the best posts from the last few weeks. Enjoy!
I think that Jesus is most frequently the part of community that we leave out when we begin to discect a Christian community. Alan writes about Jesus’ centrality in a way that makes his whole discussions on the elements of a church more palatable than most similar discussions.
Two Vital Needs of Every Disciple
One of the things that gets left out of most discussions about discipleship is the necessity of being able to make other disciples. Here Ray writes about the paradox of following Jesus and leading others into following Him.
Change the Atmosphere, Change the Culture
One of the shifts that I’ve seen help people move from a static church mindset into a movement mindset is discovering the spirit of multiplication that the apostles walked in. Here J.D. talks about how that happens with a group people who currently have no vision for reproducing churches.
One of the common misconceptions in the body of Christ is that house churches in the third world are effective because persecution happening around them fuels evangelism and discipleship. Actually persecution causes the church to return to her organic roots and when she does that, she spreads quickly and naturally.
With the house church movement in the United States as new as it is, little has been written about what mature house church networks look like. This post has an incredible visual that says volumes about how a network of house churches can function interdependently.
Photo Credit: Design Probes – Food for Thought by centralasian.
Food For Thought: New Media 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 thought I would try something new this week. I’ve always meant to include other media besides blogs on our “Food for Thought” posts. It just so happens that this week there are a couple of significant contributions from the organic church world that I think are worth taking a look at. Let me know if you find any of these helpful in the comments section, and if people find them helpful I may try to find more. Enjoy!
Plant a Church in His Projects?
Kieth @ the Subversive1 blog has been tearing up the internets with a series of articles on how to minister to the poor. Alan @ The Assembling of the Church references that post in this blog and he quotes a song by LeCrae that illustrates why church planting among the homeless and poor is absolutely necessary.
Pioneering Blog #6 Living with the Awesome Factor
Shawn is a prophetic voice that has been pioneering a church in L.A. amongst the creative community there. He’s been posting at Shawnbolz’s Weblog about the difficulties of pioneering, and this post talks about the difficulty of continuing to walk in breakthough throughout our everyday lives.
Guy @ The M Blog writes about the need for continual training as we pursue the establishment of God’s Kingdom. I think continual training is a must for anyone serious about Kingdom transformation. Don’t miss the excerpt from Curtis Sergeant’s “What We Can Learn from the U.S. Marines.”
Len at Next Reformation has been thinking deeply about Ephesians chapter 4. Here he quotes various authors’ and thinkers’ thoughts on the realities found in Ephesians 4. What I love about these quotes is how they tie weakness and vulnerability together with displaying the glory of Jesus.
Starfish Files Winter 2011 Edition
Starfish Files is an e-magazine put together by the leaders of the house church movement in Canada. Don’t miss the feature article: “Repenting of Dead Works for a Great Harvest of Souls.”
Neil Cole teaches on the true place of the five ministry gifts listed in Ephesians 4. I love Neil’s emphasis on Christ as the source of all the gifts. There’s a lot to be learned here.
Photo Credit: Design Probes – Food for Thought by centralasian.
Kingdom Leadership and the Future of the Church
We’ve been talking a lot in our house church about what the future looks like. What does it mean to be a church made up of more than one house church? What does leadership look like in an environment like this?
So this morning I ran across a post by Len at Next Reformation that captures some of the spirit of what I believe Kingdom leadership looks like in the days ahead. Here’s the quote:
“Brian McGaffigan writes,
The job of facilitator/change agent was described by Ifor Ffowcs-Williams when he asked the question: ‘Would you like a job that offers no formal authority; a high degree of uncertainty; no regular hours; and you will need to earn respect from skeptics; be proactive when the limelight fades; work with energy drainers; lead from behind – no ego tripping. The upside of the job is that you can break patterns; cross boundaries; build bridges across your community; be a hero finder uncovering talent; make things happen through others; influence people in and beyond the cluster; satisfy your hunger for Action; and make a dent in the universe?'”
Obviously there are a lot of character qualifications and Kingdom mandates left out of this description. But if you marry the kind of person Scripture says should lead with these characteristics, I think you get a much clearer picture of what Kingdom leaders look like.
What about you? What would you add to this list? How is this different than leaders you see in the world?
Photo Credit: Desert Leader by Hamed Saber
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 