Quick links

Brain McClaren is one of the top 25 most influential evangelicals according to Time magainze.

GodBlogCon 2005 a convention for the Christian blogosphere is in October in Mesa Arizona.

Hugh Hewitt has recently written BLOG (understanding the information reformation that's changing your world)

A generous orthodoxy indeed.

I recently have read through a Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McClaren. A Generous Orthodoxy is one of those books that stirs up sentiment in dramatic ways. It is one of those books that is either loved or hated.

Without going into huge detail about it's contents I found a review that I thought was really fair and along the lines of my own thinking. Check out Craig Bloomberg's review from Denver seminary.

Did I love the book or hate it? The answer is yes to both. It's a book that challenges current paradigms of Christianity, I loved that part. It is a book that stretches the boundaries of traditional Christianity which is distressing. Overall it is a book that should make a person think and not be afraid to ask questions. No, Brian doesn't have all the "right" answers and I think that is one of the points of the book, noone does.

Whether love or hate, you should read A Generous Orthodoxy.

For even more info you can check out the blog.

God's kingdom is the destination

Two quotes I liked from a recent conference examining the emerging church held at Fuller seminary.

, Reggie McNeal called the church to celebrate the "last gasp of the renewal movement of the modern church," with its emphasis on "programs, methods, and systems," and recognize that the emerging church in the 21st century is about "nations, tribes, and movements. Church is not the destination--God's kingdom is the destination. This is what it means to be 'missional' in the world today. Church starts with the world, not our church refuges."

Ryan Bolger in his summary: "In the old modern world, we understood the gospel to mean 'you're sick, and God wants to fix you so you can come be like us," Bolger said. "Churches are no longer seen as places where people go, it's movements of people out, declaring a message that 'A new day is coming and you get to participate with God in the redemption of the world,' and invitation to join God's story."

Those guys know how to grieve

When Jacob died, the Egyptians mourned for him 70 days, then Joseph and his brothers took Jacob to be buried in the land of Canaan. There Joseph mourned for his father 7 days and the company with Joseph which was a mob cried in loud voices. They lamented bitterly. Grief is a lost art in our American consumer culture. We do suffer loss, and loss messes with our souls. May we learn again how to grieve, maybe then we wouldn't be tempted to medicate ourselves to kill the pain.

Reading through the word

I have found recently that I like using the One Year Bible online for devotional reading in the morning. You can change versions you are reading. I like NKJV and NASB but it is nice to look at a verse in others renderings also.

This morning I read:
^{Proverbs 4:23}

Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life

I am reminded that I have to be intentional about watching over my heart, there are so many noises that want my hearts attention and will crowd out the voice of the Almighty.

Emerging Stories

There has been a renewed commitment with myself this year to be a connector for emerging church people. With that in mind I started emerging stories. Emerging stories is a blog with tons of links to emerging stories around the globe.

My intention with this blog is not be all encompassing. So hold any criticisms about who and what is included at this point. I just want to have a place in the blogosphere where you can get a ton of pathways into the emerging conversation. And hopefully if your new to the conversation, you can get a heavy dose of exposure here.

Let me know if you have any suggestions and feel free to send me links and recommendations about the blog.

Indie Allies

Indie Allies was pretty casual this month. More than overall conversations, we had many scattered dialogues.

The Alvis family is wifi

We have finally entered into the world of wifi. We wanted to have two computers in the house that had internet. The kids need to do research for school projects and even mom wants to get on the internet from time to time. I bought a linksys Wireless G router. The setup was simple. The PC's are connected, the next step is figuring out how to get the Macintosh connected.

Simplicity in Identity

Paul begins many of his letter telling the reader that he is an apostle called by God, not by men or of men. He is a bondservant. Paul knows his identity. This gives him purpose and focus. There is a simplicity found in knowing our identity. It gives focus and clarifies direction.

This past year and a half has been about deconstructing identity for our community Resonance. My sense is that the next season for us is one of building a God given identity. Three areas for focus within Resonance this coming season are:

1. Building healthy community:
For us that means being connected on our journeys together and encouraging one another in our pursuit of God as a community.

2. Being a support to Foursquare:
We want to lend ourselves to serving the Foursquare denomination and their vision. It isn't that we think Foursquare is implicitly more correct than other denominations, but it is the family God has called us to support.

3. Being a support and encouragement to the emerging church movement:
As Foursquare is a representative of the traditonal church, we also believe we are to be part of the emerging church movement. We want to encourage, support, and lend ourselves to encouraging emerging church leaders and communities.

As a church we are not an either or type of group but a both and. These three facets of our dna should help us find focus as we launch into 2005.

The Emerging Church: a definition

Check out the defintion of Emerging Church at Wikipedia. There are also some good links to peer at.

Wikipedia is like the open source encyclopedia. Anyone can edit and it is free.