I am a fan of Anthony Bourdain.  I realize that he and I come from very different faith backgrounds.  I also realize that he is something of a disreputable sort.  For those of you unfamiliar with Anthony Bourdain, he has a television show called No Reservations on the Travel Channel, is a regular judge on Top Chef, and has written Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw among other books. I recently had the opportunity to read [...]

Last week I started to write about what I’ve learned about missional living over the last two years.  You can read the first post here. Seeking to imitate Jesus in the world by loving as He loved, I’ve learned, is the heart and soul of missional living.  It is the focus.  It is the point. We (the Thingy) are obsessed with being the love of Christ in our communities.  In every relationship, in every encounter, in every moment [...]

Who are the most capable givers in your church?  You may think they’re the people who write the one big check in December, give the largest weekly contributions, drive the flashy cars, or have a couple vacation homes.  You may be (and often are) right, but this is not always the case.  The faithful annual givers who may not appear to have a particular abundance of wealth are the best prospects for planned gifts.  These [...]

When we were in the darker periods of my ministry in Toronto, one of the most common manifestations of our corporate dysfunction were the group divisions we experienced in the church.  Our seniors often appeared hostile towards the youth, complaining about their music and how the church board seemed to let the youth program get by with inappropriate behavior. The youth returned the favor and complained that the seniors were always down on them. They [...]

On Tuesday mornings I wake up way too early and take part in a men’s Bible study at my church.  In the course of yesterday’s time together we briefly read through Psalm 1: 1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who [...]

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ll be spending the next few weeks on this site talking about effective church planting in the local Baptist Association. For my readers who are not part of my denominational “tribe,” please excuse some of the “insider” conversation that will neccesarily be a part of this discussion. It is my hope that my non-Baptist brothers and sisters will nonetheless learn some principles that they can take back into [...]

Lately I have been talking a good bit about the legacy that a pastor can leave for himself.  I wrote about entitlement and preparing ourselves for our defining moments.  Today I have been thinking about George Washington.  Perhaps it is the President’s Day weekend or maybe it is all the car ads, but as I was making the trip from Baltimore to New York yesterday I was thinking through the legacy that our first President [...]

We started the Thingy (the missional church Wendy and I belong to) with the desire of redefining “church.”  We hoped to move away from a program-centric understanding of church to a lifestyle-centric understanding.  We wanted membership in the church to be more about how we lived in our communities than what we did when we gathered. As the team planned I studied other groups with lifestyle driven models of discipleship – specifically recovery programs like [...]

Growing up I was highly involved in Boy Scouts.  Truth be told, I am an Eagle Scout.  The Scout’s motto is “be prepared” and while it works quite well for them, I think that it is something that we as church leaders should be adopting as well.  Earlier this week I wrote about the entitlement mentality that pastors sometimes get caught up in.  While that post is good for identifying the issue, it really doesn’t [...]

Matt Note: Doug White has been my college professor, confidante, mentor, and friend throughout the last twelve years.  As a youth pastor it was not uncommon for him to be a guide our leadership retreats and as I have served at various churches we often found ourselves having conversations lasting hours on leadership, strategy, and pursuing Christ in our day to day.  I am excited that he will be joining in the conversation here on [...]