Posted in missional on Jan 26th, 2012
Middle class folks LOVE getting free stuff. I mean, who doesn’t right? So when we give generously to the poor, we think “O man, we just made their day! What great people we are!” And so this is what a lot of good people do or aspire to do… and we don’t understand when people [...]
Posted in missional on Nov 16th, 2011
…is something EVERY Jesus-follower should wind up doing. I don’t like the word “evangelist” sometimes because it implies that only certain people do this stuff. Yes, some people are better at it than others, but helping people come to know Jesus is something EVERY Jesus-follower does or will do. So here are 10 simple steps [...]
Posted in missional on Nov 4th, 2011
I’ve needed tube socks for ages. And I see people selling socks on the street by the 59th St bridge and Union Square and at Home Depot – and just random people selling socks from a cart… I even see them at street fairs with tables and tables full of socks. Once a couple of [...]
Posted in life skills, missional on Jun 22nd, 2011
Allow me to borrow the title from Pete Scazzero’s book, and ask the question: What would the Church here in the U.S. look like if it were emotionally healthy? If instead of dwelling in emotional fusion it was able to imitate God’s patient, humble, self differentiated love? First, pastors and church leaders would stop making an [...]
Posted in missional on Dec 11th, 2010
This doesn’t apply to everyone and every situation – and both secular atheists and staunchly conservative Christians will dislike this… but if you have a desire to be a missionary and serve God by “adopting a culture and influencing (from the inside) with Jesus’ Gospel” – then my advice is: come here and do it… [...]
Posted in missional on Sep 24th, 2010
A few of my early teachers said the same thing (although CSL said it first): that the main problem with following Jesus isn’t “understanding,” it’s “imagination.” Many times people refuse to believe something, not because they can’t understand that it might be true, but rather because they can’t imagine it! And from years of talking [...]
Posted in missional on Sep 22nd, 2010
It stabs me in the heart whenever Christians don’t seem to believe this… One of the common (responsibility dodging) attitudes is “I didn’t know, they don’t tell me these things…” If people need my help they should just come up and ask… Well, just the way it’s sort of a nurse’ job to know if [...]
Posted in missional on Aug 30th, 2010
Almost every Filipino I know is Catholic, this was once true for my Irish friends too. Almost every Korean American I know went to a Presbyterian or Methodist church as a child. And almost every older African American woman I know goes to church as well. What does this mean for us? It means it’s [...]
Posted in missional on Aug 30th, 2010
Studies have shown that people find it harder to believe someone when they are culturally different from you… So when someone from a foreign country who speaks and looks and sounds strange to you tells you something, it’s harder to believe even if everything they’re saying is true. I bring this up because if only [...]
Posted in missional on May 13th, 2010
Doing it differently – doing it for real – is going to require sacrifices. Anything extraordinary is going to require sacrifices. What’s a sacrifice? It’s anything beyond what you would normally do, and therefore it costs you… in effort, time, complexity, bandwidth, friends, enemies, emotional energy… If you want to do “what you would normally [...]