Matt Mason is a singer/songwriter and I’m blessed to call him a friend. I’ve known him for most of his life. He’s a solid young man with a message to be heard. He has just launched an Indiegogo (http://igg.me/p/the-boy-and-his-ship-project/x/432285) to get his album The Boy and His Ship off the ground. I wanted to take a moment to pass this opportunity on to you.
Matt has previously released [click to continue…]
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For the past several years I’ve been wrestling with my vision of church. Often, pessimism wins out. And, although I still believe that the church is the hope of the world – when it is in Christ – I still struggle to see the beauty of the kingdom throughout the greater church at times.
I need to be careful here, because the temptation would be to act as though my church has it all figured out. In other words, it would be easy to talk up how “we are finally doing it the way Jesus wanted it done,” when in fact all churches are flawed all churches need additional grace.
Yet, because we have not entered the new age of the kingdom when Christ comes back to sit on the throne as king for all eternity [wow, that felt intense to read], it makes sense to discern which sort of community is best going to create space for people who are passionate about bringing the reality of God to their neighborhoods and world.
These days, although I am more interested in reconstruction than deconstruction, I find myself wanting to say a few things about the sorts of churches I personally would avoid (if I were searching for a new faith community). It is also important to know that I in no way promote the idea of “church hopping.” I think this reflects the unfortunate values of individualism in so many Christians today. It’s essential for followers of Jesus to in fact commit somewhere and invest their lives into something bigger than themselves.
With all of those caveats aside, I want to share 5 different sorts of churches that I personally would avoid if I were moving to a new city and were not a pastor of a church. [click to continue...]
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