Sound Bites – Missional Synchroblog

These are statements and phrases from the missional synchroblog posts that I would like to remember.  For the Cliffs Notes version, see the summaries at Subversive Influence.   Those interested in a micro-tour of the synchroblog might enjoy these sound bites.
My apologies to my friends who are experiencing missional saturation.
Feel free to skip [...]

Who Can Make the Shift?

One thing that came up during the missional synchroblog is the ability or likelihood for existing congregations to become missional.
Alan Hirsch says that the organizing purpose of a missional church is mission.  Brother Maynard says it is their raison d’être (reason for existing).
The organizing purpose of most churches is the organization itself and the Sunday [...]

What Is Missional? This Is.

This article by Darryl Dash describes what Sanctuary, a missional community, looks like.  It explains many of the ideas that I was trying to get across in my defining-missional post.  I will share a few quotes, but I am sure you will be encouraged and inspired by the entire article.
In not Out
As we talked, we [...]

Shifting into Missional Gear

Making the Paradigm Shift
As my contribution to the What Is Missional? Synchroblog, I want to explain a few simple, yet vital, tweaks in the way that we view ministry that are needed in order to overcome the dualistic, condescending, and separatist mentalities of mission and ministry that hinder truly missional expression.
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What Is Missional? It is…
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Out [...]

Missional Mommies

There are several mothers of young children who are heroes of mine in the missional conversation.  As bloggers, they tend not to be the most dominant voices.  Perhaps because they “spend a fair bit of time talking about themselves, their kids, and what they did that day.”
Yet it is the very fact that their missional [...]

One At a Time

That is how you write 500 posts.
According to my blog stats, this is my 500th post.
I could not imagine writing 500, or 500 more.
Sometimes I can’t imagine writing the next one.
So I don’t. For awhile.
And then, I don’t know why, I just keep writing.
~
(A little trivia for the statisticians:
The 500 figure does not include [...]

Two Perspectives

Ed Young defends his position on the video clip that is now posted at Out of Ur.
“See the laymen believe these people, because laymen, they’re always going to believe the victim. They’re not going to believe the pastor. We’re all about the victim.”
Too bad that he invalidates and dismisses the views of entire [...]

I Can Only Imagine, or Can I?

I have a few thoughts swirling around about imagination, memory, identity, and potential for change. Just to be clear, this isn’t an angry or bitter rant. I am just thinking out loud and sharing some not-fully-developed thoughts.
Cindy asked in the previous post, “What now?”
There is important and necessary work happening in the conversation [...]

Measuring Success

Let’s take a look at some of the factors that contribute to the success of a church organization. I am not an expert but it seems to me that these are the things that are viewed as marks of success among church organizations.
Number of members
This is the most obvious measure of how [...]

Post-critical?

Not yet.

In the Why Are An Orange? post, I wrote:
I am so disillusioned with the end results of the organizational and programmatic aspects of church that I cannot seem to see beyond that.
At the moment, church as business seems to permeate everything that I read.
Ben Gray wrote a post entitled The Church Today Is Big [...]