Two days after I posted my series “Beyond Evangelical?”, Milt Rodriguez – who I took to task in that series – wrote his own blog which helps close the gap, so to speak, that I was addressing. Here’s some follow-up thoughts.
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Jesus at the Fringes
February 4, 2012
6 Comments
It’s amazing how Jesus takes root in the fringes of society when you empower Christ in folks rather than trying to bring “church” to them, take them to “church” or do “church” for them.
Read more A Multilingual Jesus
January 16, 2012
1 Comment
God speaks to some subjectively, and to others objectively, and each often forgets that Jesus is multilingual.
Read more Planting Churches
January 3, 2012
7 Comments
I’m not sure why we make planting churches so complicated. It really isn’t. Here’s a recent story from the local jail.
Read more Room at the Inn
December 24, 2011
0 Comments
This Christmas, the question yet remains: Is there still no room at the inn? Take a chance. Embrace the Joseph’s and Mary’s of our age.
Read more Ekklesia as Escapism
December 19, 2011
10 Comments
Too often, we say it’s all about Jesus, when in reality we create Jesus in our own image – shaped by our hurts from the wrongs we have suffered – and use Him to justify our safely-ensconced retreat into self-constructed cocoons.
Read more Old Covenant Church
November 25, 2011
5 Comments
Why are most churches Old Covenant, rather than New Covenant?
Read more The Road to Grace
November 21, 2011
11 Comments
For the religious, the road to grace is the toughest journey they’ll ever face. But slowly, I’m finally starting to find it.
Read more The Question of Leadership
October 31, 2011
2 Comments
We do it all backwards. We expect fellowship to emerge from leaders. In God’s providence, leaders emerge from fellowship.
Read more Going Organic
October 27, 2011
4 Comments
Going to enjoy a sermon and the worship team in an institutional church is like going to McDonald’s, while forming community and participating in organic church is like cultivating and enjoying a healthy, wonderful garden.
Read more Crossing Jordan
October 24, 2011
5 Comments
For many who leave the institutional church, there is a season where we react to things not out of freedom, but rather out of not wanting to to be like the institutional church. When we remain in a reactive mode, however, we remain in bondage to our institutional church experiences.
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Understanding the Seven Motivational Gifts
January 2, 2011
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This PowerPoint presentation looks at the seven gifts listed in Romans 12, and the motivations and ways that different people use those differing gifts.
Read moreChurch, Community, Faith, Fellowship, Gifts, Grace, Leadership, Mercy, Prophetic, Virtue
Diverse Gifts and Church Meetings, Part 1: The Motivational Gifts
December 19, 2010
1 Comment
It’s one thing to embrace Paul’s metaphor of the church being the Body of Christ, where everyone participates and ministers one to another according to our unique spiritual gifts. It’s quite another thing to figure out how to do that in practical terms, especially when we meet together and abstract principles hit cold, hard reality.
Read moreThe Church in the New Testament: Its Form, Function and Purpose
October 31, 2010
2 Comments
Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride! In this PowerPoint presentation, all that you think of as “church” is about to be challenged so God can woo us back to being, once more, the multi-faceted, wonderful, exciting Body of Christ.
Read moreLife!
September 3, 2010
0 Comments
My greatest joy is walking with guys as they learn to stop being knuckleheads and become men; to minister to hurt and wounded women as they find not just healing, but health and wholeness; to let others come forth into life and gifting as they exceed me in the Kingdom. For all of this, Lord, [...]
Read moreAuthentic Church
May 3, 2010
1 Comment
“So here’s what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight… Take your turn, no one person taking over. Then each speaker gets a [...]
Read moreReboot
March 15, 2010
3 Comments
God seems to be laying a foundation for yet another of His periodic, history-changing interventions in the affairs of man. Over the last two thousand years there have been many such paradigm shifts, and it’s naive to think that our current, settled status quo will somehow be exempt from the unsettling but progressive advance of [...]
Read moreTrue Ministry
February 27, 2010
5 Comments
Last night, we had one of our best times of “participatory church” as we seamlessly shared a meal, partook of communion, fellowshipped and ministered one with another — and none of it depended on me! The last several weeks have been very emotionally and physically exhausting for me. On top of my best friend dying, [...]
Read more Improbable Church
January 31, 2010
6 Comments
If you saw the church that meets in my home, you would laugh and wonder: “What can God do with these people?” Yet, isn’t that God’s way: to establish his Kingdom on earth by transforming lives, cultures, nations and history not with the ordained, but with the ordinary?
Read more The Lost Art of Dialogue
October 18, 2009
4 Comments
Our whole paradigm for “doing church” needs to radically shift from monologues delivered from podiums that safely isolate our leaders from effective fellowship.
Read more Participatory Church
September 17, 2009
19 Comments
My journey from traditional “church”, and some of what I’ve learned about being the church – the exciting, enticing, enthralling and multi-faceted Body of Christ!
Read moreThe Church in D Pod
July 26, 2009
8 Comments
This Sunday, like most Sundays, I will be fellowshipping with the “Church in D Pod” at the local jail. D Pod is a unit housing around a hundred men, and God has been pouring out his new wine in an exciting way among those inmates. A couple of months ago, I started shifting my focus [...]
Read moreThe Sunday "God Show" at Your Friendly Podium Church
July 19, 2009
2 Comments
When did “church” become a podium-focused “God Show” watched by passive spectators for an hour or so each Sunday morning? Where do we even find that in Scripture? I believe that the days of the “podium church” and the Sunday “God show”are passing — where we gaze each Sunday past the back of the head [...]
Read moreNew Wine Sucks
July 7, 2009
3 Comments
As God brings forth new wine in a new generation, there’s a fundamental dynamic that can’t be ignored. To put it bluntly, new wine sucks! In my younger days, I was an amateur wine maker. So I know what Jesus means when he says, “no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he [...]
Read moreNew Wine And Old Skins
July 1, 2009
1 Comment
Here’s an interesting article, reprinted below, on how people will stick to what they believe or think even in the face of contrary facts or circumstances. As I’ve watched people react to challenges and controversies over the last couple of months, and to God bursting old wine skins as he brings forth new wine, I can [...]
Read morePost-Release Community
June 5, 2009
5 Comments
I’ve been meeting with various brothers who also minister in the informal Christian networks I’m part of, along with others, to discuss starting a weekly fellowship (possibly in my home) for ex-inmates. My burden is for men whose lives are dramatically captured by God in jail, but then stumble when they get out because they [...]
Read moreBeen Hearing God Lately?
March 25, 2009
5 Comments
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how God fellowshipped with Adam. It was in the garden, where the two of them walked side by side and talked face to face in the cool of the evening. God met Adam in his full humanity, where life sprang forth both within and around Adam. It took [...]
Read more Rethinking Missions
February 20, 2009
21 Comments
If evangelical Christians have the equivalent of a “sacred cow,” it must be foreign missions. At the risk of martyrdom, I hereby declare that it’s time to slay that cow (or at least herd it into a different pasture!).
Read moreJim Wright
Teacher, pilot, foe of tyrants, world traveler, passionate, attorney, entrepreneur, friend of the dispossessed, Christian, thinker, reluctant counselor, occasional mentor, brother in the Lord, adequate cook, pretty good host and so-so bass fisherman.According to the internet tracking service Networked Blogs, Crossroad Junction is among the top 100 blogs worldwide on "Christianity" and also among the top 100 on "faith".
As a friend said on Facebook, "I don't write things people need to know. I share things. If people care, they comment." I invite you to care.
I also invite you to contact me at Fulcrum Ministries.
- A Hollow Gospel
- The Mythology of Tithing
- Rethinking Missions
- Participatory Church
- Ordained to Fail
- Pimping the Gospel
- Dealing With Church Leadership Abuse
- Sufficient Grace
- Confronting Abusive Pastors, Part 2: How Should We React?
- Confronting Abusive Pastors, Part 4: Civil and Criminal Law
- Beyond Evangelical? – A Follow Up
- Beyond Evangelical? (Part 3)
- Beyond Evangelical? (Part 2)
- Beyond Evangelical? (Part 1)
- True Leadership
- Jesus at the Fringes
- The Priesthood of All Believers
- We Have Met the Enemy
- A Multilingual Jesus
- Planting Churches
- Eli: Milts article is very helpful in the discussion, t...
- MISSION@RIES (@Missionaries): I appreciate your statement, "Jesus is subjective,...
- Beyond Evangelical? – A Follow Up | Crossroad Junction: [...] days after I posted my series “Beyond ...
- Eli: Personally I don't think the problem is with a foc...
- Eli: Thank you for writing this! I too gain a lot from ...
- Randy: Jesus loves his Bride very much. I get tired of th...
- Ron: Thanks Jim......
- : I love tithing plus. I've tithed for about 30 year...
- Georgia Ana Larson: "Sometimes our faith requires that we speak truth ...
- Jim Wright: Thanks, Bruce. Based on our more private commu...
