Beware of gifted but itinerant men and women who want to “help” your local church as modern-day Paul’s, but lack roots in, commission from and accountability to another functioning local church.
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Jesus at the Fringes
February 4, 2012
9 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
2 Comments
God speaks to some subjectively, and to others objectively, and each often forgets that Jesus is multilingual.
Read more Room at the Inn
December 24, 2011
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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 The Question of Leadership
October 31, 2011
4 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.
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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 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 Participatory Church
September 17, 2009
23 Comments
My journey from traditional “church”, and some of what I’ve learned about being the church – the exciting, enticing, enthralling and multifaceted Body of Christ!
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 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
Church sower, mentor, teacher, foe of tyrants, friend of the dispossessed, Christian, thinker, author, attorney, entrepreneur, pilot and so-so bass fisherman.According to the internet tracking service Networked Blogs, Crossroad Junction is among the top 100 blogs worldwide on "Christianity", among the top 100 on "faith", and also among the top 100 blogs on "culture".
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 have nothing to sell, and nothing to peddle (not even myself!), but I love to hear from folks. You can contact me at Fulcrum Ministries.
Let’s Connect
- The Mythology of Tithing
- A Hollow Gospel
- Participatory Church
- Rethinking Missions
- Sufficient Grace
- Modern Day Pauls?
- Ordained to Fail
- Beyond Evangelical? (Part 3)
- Pimping the Gospel
- Does Jesus Want You to Vote?
- God in a Box
- Sufficient Grace, Part III
- Fathers and Teachers
- Peeking Through the Cracks
- “Us” and “Them”
- Is There Not a Cause?
- Millennials and Old Farts
- The Fierceness of God
- Sufficient Grace, Part II
- Inside Out
- Jim Wright: Thank you, Constantine. I agree....
- Constantine: Greetings from the suffering Athens, Greece. I...
- Jim Wright: A box is how we limit Christ to our own attitudes,...
- Ockert van der Westhuysen: I am curious about the 'legalism', which I don't q...
- Rob Kampen: Too often (always?) our view of who God really is,...
- Jim Wright: Esther, the points in my blog go "beyond" (no pun ...
- Esther: Hi! I haven't commented here before, but this pos...
- Barbara Alsip: This is good, Jesus wants us to be one absolutely,...
- Eli: brilliant, great challenge and encouragement. i ho...
- Janet Maxim: To look for Christ in others, rather than analyzin...
