Category Archives: Pastors

Outside the Box

March 20, 2012 By in Courage, Institutional Church, Organic Church, Pastors 3 Comments

For most Christians, “church” is the big box where they attend a “service” on Sunday mornings.

If they are super-committed Christians, maybe it means attending additional meetings and programs that emanate from the Box during the rest of the week.

Outside the Box!

It took me years to learn to think – and act – outside that box!

Yes, Christ can be found in the box. But He does His best work, I’ve found, apart from and outside the box.

My spiritual heritage was outside the box. I was birthed into the Kingdom of God during the Jesus Movement and was very active in what we’d now call a network of “organic” or “simple” fellowships. But as the decades passed, I allowed myself to be slowly but surely drawn into the box.

Getting back out required a fundamental paradigm shift as I honestly and painfully let Scripture strip away my man-made traditions and accumulated expectations.

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Reboot

March 15, 2010 By in Church, Community, Culture, Fellowship, Gifts, Institutional Church, Kingdom of God, Leadership, Ministry, New Wine, Pastors, Transcendent 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 His Kingdom.

Paradigm Shifts

This newest paradigm shift is starting with pioneers who realize that God’s primary goal in history is to change not only individuals but also whole cultures and nations — as per the Great Commission.

Likewise, as with all prior interventions in history, His will is being applied to more and more aspects of His creation here on earth, just as it is in heaven — as per the Lord’s Prayer.

We also are coming to realize that the Kingdom of God — His will being done on earth (including all spheres of human endeavor) as it is in heaven — is bigger than the church. Nonetheless, we are beginning to understand that His Kingdom is not going to advance much further unless the church re-discovers her New Testament roots.

Admittedly, there is comfort in the familiar status quo of “church” as we’ve all come to know it. Some, however, are so hungry for God’s Kingdom — as it continues to progressively advance through history — that they’re willing hit to the reboot button and look afresh at God’ s purposes.

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New Wine Sucks

July 7, 2009 By in Community, Faith, Joy, Kingdom of God, Leadership, Ministry, New Wine, Organic Church, Pastors 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 says, ‘The old is better.'” (Luke 5:39)

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New Wine And Old Skins

July 1, 2009 By in Community, Faith, Jail, Joy, Kingdom of God, Leadership, Ministry, New Wine, Organic Church, Pastors, Sovereignty 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 Something Newover the last couple of months, and to God bursting old wine skins as he brings forth new wine, I can believe it!

Isaiah 9:6-8 tells us that God’s Kingdom, from the incarnation onward, has been and will continue to be ever advancing. As such, God is constantly fermenting new wine — and providing new wine skins to contain it — as his progressive plan of redemption moves forward from one spiritual generation to each successive spiritual generation (which can include individuals of all ages!). God’s active and ever expanding intervention in history is clear, and his tendency to discard the old while bringing in the new is repeatedly seen in Scripture.

Yet it never failed to fascinate me, as a graduate student in church history back in the 1970s, to see how — time and time again — most Christians reject God’s new wine of new anointing for new generations. Instead, they choose to stick with their old wine and old wine skins.

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Leadership Abuses: Private and Public Sins

May 20, 2009 By in Abuse, Impropriety, Leadership, Ministry, Pastors, Predatory Leaders, Repentance, Sin 23 Comments

“Peace if possible, truth at all costs.” – Martin Luther

“Church” can often be messy, especially when ongoing sins and improprieties begin to come to light – maybe even among our leaders. Yet God, I believe, is calling us all to a new level of collective integrity.

Incomplete ManSo how do we handle leadership failings, especially when they go beyond merely personal sin and involve an abuse of position or trust within a church, movement or mission, and hurts others?

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