The journey started over a year ago…the move from one part of the world to another.  There were countless obstacles to be overcome…and one by one we moved closer. The calling remained the same…be on mission….but everything else changed.  And now…we’re here….

The bags are unpacked…language classes start soon…we’re starting to feel comfortable getting around….now what?  So far in our overseas experience we’ve always joined existing teams…with existing strategies…with histories.  This time….we’re the first. Starting a movement is thrilling and exciting and also overwhelming.  Whether you’re in the US or overseas…what did you do to start things off?  What did you research?  How did you map things?  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Hi blog…I’m Grady.  So sorry I have neglected you the last few months.  I’ve been kind of busy…and well….you had kind of become a drag on me.  You see…mr. blog although I’m grateful that you allow me to say whatever I want…I sometimes take advantage of this.  The result is that I can quickly become jaded and negative….and neither is what I want to be.  So….

I’m going to give this another try…and try to take it another direction and see what happens.  Alot had changed over the last few months…we’ve been in the US and returned to a totally different field.  I’ve moved up into leadership and worked through alot of issues.  So with that I say thanks blog for waiting for me….let’s give this another try….

Here are 5 questions Tim Keller presents that he says face the American church. Here’s his outline:

1. The opportunity for extensive culture-making in the U.S.
2. The rise of Islam
3. The new non-Western Global Christianity
4. The growing cultural remoteness of the gospel in our society
5. The end of prosperity?

Here are 5 suggestions he gives about how to answer. Here’s that outline.

1. The local church has to support culture-making.
2. We need a renewal of apologetics. We also need to read J.D. Greear’s new book, Breaking the Islam Code. (JD added this one)
3. We need a great variety of church models.
4. We must develop a far more robust theology of suffering.
5. We need a critical mass of churches in the biggest cities of the world. (Thus, we need to emphasize church planting… for @SummitRDU people, here’s how we do that and our next strategic cities we’re focusing on!)

click here for the full post

TOMS Shoes & charity:water are partnering on a new shoe! Now you can give a child shoes & build a well in one shot – kill two enemies of the developing world with one stone.

Proceeds from the TOMS Shoes for charity: water sales will raise money to build a clean-water well in the village of Sekura in North West Ethiopia.

Sekura is home to 540 residents and among the largest Ethiopian villages to not currently have ready access to clean water. The hand dug well will provide villagers with safe drinking water for the next 20 years.

BEST OF ALL, everyone who purchases a pair of TOMS Shoes for charity:water will receive details on how they directly contributed to building the well, the impact it has in the lives of the Sekura villagers and pictures of the project once it is built!

click here for more info

Wherever we go in the world we usually take on the role of teacher.  We teach English, we teach health-care, we teach people how to start small businesses….we do a lot of teaching.  What if instead we became learners?

Think about it….let’s say you’re going into a new culture as a farmer.  Normally you would immediately start developing relationships so that you could teach…..what if?  What if you devoted a year to learning? What if you worked a set of fields with a farmer…from prep to harvest?  What if you devoted the entire time to simply learning?  You would gain volumes of experience about farming, culture and language. And it would level out your status…which is more conducive to communicating the Gospel.

In the US we could do the same thing.  Let’s say you want to teach English…what if you studied Spanish for 6 months first?  An amazing thing happens when we become learners…first of all we actually learn. By learning we actually become more effective teachers because we’ll have greater insight and understanding of their culture and language.  It also helps to change the way we’re seen…not as experts with all of the answers but as fellow-learners.

What if we became learners?

Donald Miller asks….

If a church decided to go a period of time without a sermon, a sunday school teaching or a seminar or “traditional” Bible teaching of any kind (sitting down to study the book in a classroom style) how would you teach people about God and how would you teach them right theology?

What would you do?  What would happen?

read the rest of Donald’s post here

One of the trappings of being in the “ministry” is that we can allow it to become our profession.  Each quiet time is milked for sermon nuggets…each relationship quickly turns into us selling our goods (whether it’s Jesus, our church or ministry)….and the joy of the relationship is lost.  This is where I’ve been.  We’ve been in the US for a few months and honestly…I’m just tired.  I’m tired of the way we’ve turned the passionate story of Jesus into a brand…into an industry.

Over the last few months I’ve tried to scale back my relationship with Jesus to the basics…less blogging…no reading besides the Bible…few conferences. The result….He’s become real again.  He’s not a product we’re selling, He’s not a item to be branded and twittered.  He’s more than all of this…He’s not corporate, He’s organic. He’s not a product, He’s the Savior.  As I’ve progressed on this journey of returning to the real Jesus I’ve found myself at odds with an unlikely obstacle….the US church.

For so many things it’s obvious when they “Jump the shark”. Jump the shark is an idiom that describes the moment of downturn for a previously successful enterprise. It happened to Happy Days when Fonzie literally jumped a shark on water skies.  It happened to Saved by the Bell when they went to college. The Brady Bunch jumped when they brought on Cousin Oliver. It can also happen to organizations…like when Starbucks started selling music and marketing movies….they jumped the shark.

I’ve had a hard time attending services…cookie cutter “hip” worship leaders, pastors sitting on stools, video venues, coffee bars, big campuses…often bigger egos.  I’ve been questioned as to why I don’t want to attend church….but never once if I am being the church. We live in a society that cares less and less about church and yet we’re still making Sunday morning the centerpiece of our strategy.  I walk away from most Sunday morning services thinking more about how trivial the service was instead of being in awe of Jesus and His Kingdom.  Is this the way it should be? Has American Christianity jumped the shark?

He is Risen!  He is risen Indeed!

If you’re one of the first 10 down the aisle you get a free bike!

This is the approach that Bay Area Fellowship is taking to get a crowd on Easter Sunday.  Wow…seriously?!?  The day that we celebrate Jesus coming back from the dead…the day that we celebrate sin no longer having power over us…the day that we celebrate God’s amazing grace…and they’re offering door prizes????

I honestly thought the article was a joke…but sadly..it’s true.  So I guess you get them to visit on Sunday…give them some stuff (a bribe) and hopefully they’ll like your programs so much they’ll have to come back.  Forget making the focus the beautiful grace of God….make it all about getting more stuff.

What do you think about it?  Good idea?  Would Jesus embrace it or avoid it all together?

check out the whole article

Imagine the couple coming to meet you at church.  They’re in a committed relationship….they share bank accounts, life insurance policies, mortgages….they’re in love and committed to each other.  Now they’re interested in becoming believers and joining the church.  The only issue is….they’re lesbians.  What do you do?

Most churches won’t ever have to deal with this because…well most churches don’t cater to the segment of society where homosexuals live.  As Alan Hirsch has pointed out most contemporary, modern churches cater to people that are pretty much like them anyway.  This is one of the key marks of the modern church growth movement.  It all started with Donald McGraven who said that “people like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers.” Rick Warren used this principle to develop his target of Saddleback Sam and most modern churches have followed this lead, even if they didn’t intentionally create a target such as Sam.  Hirsch also points out that these churches typically reach people who share the same values (minus Christ) outside of the church.  The issue in the US is that this number of people is currently around 25-30% of the population and shrinking.

So the question has to be asked….what about the rest of the US?  What about Sandy and Sally?  They aren’t two horny, experimental teenage girls but two women in a committed relationship.  They share a true love for each other….and they’ve built a life around this love.  Where do they go to connect with God?  If they come to your church can they hold hands?  What if they’ve adopted a child together?

The traditional churches don’t struggle with this because they’ve boycotted and protested the homosexuals…and the homosexuals get the message.  The contemporary church has sent a similar message by creating a vanilla group of homogenous worshippers.  Does the emerging, missional movement have the potential to reach Sandy and Sally?

**I define emerging as any church not being traditional or contemporary…including house churches and simple churches.

I wasn’t sure what to expect….I’ve been living overseas for a few years….during this time the US church has changed and so have I. In many ways Velocity was exactly what I expected…big names, church-growth vendors, lots of book (self) promotion. A lot of people go to conferences just looking for the latest tips on methodology and to see who is doing what…so they can copy it. What I’ve been thinking about in the days since is what I saw that I didn’t expect.  There were a few speakers that stood out….and whether or not the average church planter listened to their voice…they had good things to say.

Here are a few quotes from a few of these guys…

Missiology is not a subset of ecclesiology; missiology produces ecclesiology. – Alan Hirsch

People are always drawn to the Good News. If people aren’t drawn to your church, it’s not their fault, it’s yours. You have not yet captured and presented Good News to them. – Hugh Halter

When planting churches, if you grow crazy fast, you are not reaching the culture, you are transferring Christians. – Hugh Halter

You can impress people from afar. You can only impact people up close. – Dave Gibbons

“You cannot sell a Christendom approach to a post-Christian world. They are anti-Christian.”  ~ Alan Hirsch

I was especially shocked by what I heard from Hugh Halter and Alan Hirsch. Both of these guys have great stories to tell and I look forward to posting more over the coming days.  Here are a few guys you should follow on twitter if you don’t already…

The Upstream Collective
@theUpstreamC (Twitter)

Larry McCrary
@LarryMcCrary

Caleb Crider
@CalebCrider

Michael Carpenter
@MicCarpenter

AlmostM
@AlmostM

Rodney Calfee
@RodneyCalfee