Disciplism – Part 5 Thankfully, the church growth movement is now undergoing a serious self-assessment. It started with Willow Creek’s REVEAL study when the church began to look at themselves and said, “Wow, we’re good at getting decisions for Christ, but not so great at making disciples.” As far as I am concerned, I say … Read more
Disciplism – Part 4 Let’s go back to the Great Commission itself, lets look at it with fresh eyes, and see if these verses are actually talking about evangelism: And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all … Read more
Parenthood is not easy. Don’t get me wrong, it has immense joys, but it’s also hard work. My wife seems to take it in her stride. Not me. There are times when I play with my 4 children, but also times when I lose my temper. Getting it right seems so difficult. My eldest, Lilly, … Read more
Disciplism – Part 3 Now I need to give you some context for what I’m about to say in this chapter. You should know that I have spent most of my adult life being reasonably obsessed with trying to unlock the codes of what makes for highly transformative missional movements—those kinds of movements that really … Read more
Mike Frost shared at a recent Simple Church Network online gathering the idea of the church as a round table. He spoke of the community of faith connecting their life and faith in both action and reflection, working for justice for those marginalised by society, and welcoming all as fellow sojourners in God’s mission. Mike … Read more
Disciplism – Part 2. While I do believe that a comprehensive understanding of what authentic discipleship is has been all but extinguished, we can still observe some residual aspects of discipleship in our churches. And even though these “vestiges” are reductions of the kind of discipleship we see in the pages of the New Testament … Read more
Finding a person of peace has one of the topics that has kept coming up in missional circles over the 10 years. But what does it really mean? A person of peace is from Luke 10 where Jesus sends out his followers. He tells them to look for peaceful people who accept their message in … Read more
Disciplism – Part 1. Over the years, I have found myself having to talk about a distinctly missional understanding of discipleship. I actually find this a bit odd. The very fact that we now have to put qualifications on the word “discipleship” again signals how far we have veered from a biblical understanding of discipleship. … Read more
I knew God’s name as a kid. It was Howard. It was right there in The Lord’s Prayer – ‘Howard be your name.’ I never questioned why we called him God instead of Howard, after all, I knew my Dad’s name was Colin but we just called him Dad. Only Jesus called God Howard. I … Read more
The town of Gloucester in my state ran out of drinking water about at the start of the year. Since then trucks have been delivering water to the people living there. My friend, Ty Soupidis, is a pastor at Church on the Hill at Gloucester. I spoke to Ty the previous October about the drought … Read more