In church yesterday, I closed the message by reading a phrase that I had penned and wanted to make sure I got right. It was that we far too often respond to serving in a church as a spiritual duty & obligation when it should be a spiritual privilege & opportunity. Often when I talk […]
Privilege & Opportunity Read More »
I thought I’d reprint the article that I wrote for the Antioch Magazine below. It’s funny how I keep coming back to these thoughts as if they were a compass. Here ya go!! “Don’t go to Antioch” Church, for me, was always a lot like kissing your sister… you could do it, but who’d want
Sometimes I hear things in the “Christian World” or in church planting circles that really bother me. Today was such a day. Its no wonder that what Jesus prayed for on the last night before his crucifixion (recorded in John 17) was unity. If we all naturally played on the same team there wouldn’t be
Someone sent me this quote today: “No local church can afford to go without the encouragement and nourishment that will come to it by sending away its best people.” – David Penman It echoes the mantra that we attached to the name of Antioch… that we would be willing to take the best of what
Last night I met with an elder board from another church in town and someone asked me what we do at Antioch to help people grow spiritually. The first thing I said was that I had messed up by under emphasizing small groups when we started and that there really wasn’t any other formal discipleship
I decided this week to launch into a three part in depth series on the church called “Mother Kirk.” Kirk is simply the Scottish word for “church” and Mother Kirk is a literary figure in C.S. Lewis’s allegory, The Pilgrim’s Regress. It’ll be fun as the series is built around the questions that people are
Lately, I’ve been revisiting the concept of church. I spent years while in graduate school thinking about the church, the structure of the church, the reasons for church, the benefits of church, the theology of church and ultimately a vision for church. Like all things that you over think, I gradually turned my attention away
Periodically, when something goes wrong with churches, I begin thinking that “church,” as a concept in America, needs an image consultant. It’s amazing to me how easily we damage people’s concept of church and how difficult it is for us to repair it. I don’t have it all figured out, but the thing that keeps
I’ve been thinking a lot about life since we are in the middle of a series on Ecclesiastes at church. The thing that keeps coming back to me is how wearisome life can be. It says that life can be wearisome in the book of Ecclesiastes and I see it all around me. It’s a
Ecclesiastes Thoughts. Read More »
I found myself in a conversation tonight where it became painfully obvious that too many people feel too comfortable or too confined to the sidelines of ministry and church. Such people feel forced to “watch” the game like an armchair quarterback watches and critiques his favorite team. Christians, however, are a part of the body.
