To get a basic overview of this topic click here. It is one thing to hammer away at a problem, to point at something and say over and over, “This is broken.”  It is altogether a different and more challenging thing to offer an alternative. I’m still processing all this myself and don’t fully have it defined…even so, in between describing what is broken (activities centric definitions of “church”) I want to give examples of what I believe [...]

The gospel does not become public truth for a society by being propogated as a theory or as a worldview and certainly not as a religion. It can become public truth only insofar as it is embodied in a society (the church) which is both “abiding in” Christ and engaged in the life of the world. Leslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship My small group is working through a study that [...]

Over the last several years it seems as though our society has begun to value division more and more.  Turn on the tv and you can not help but see the talking heads rallying their troops to their side of the day’s argument.  While divisiveness sells tv advertising, I think it also begins to diminish our abilities to resolve conflict amongst ourselves. This morning I was reading through Galatians 2:1-10 and was struck by the way [...]

Example #1 – The Visitor I was cleaning up the Sunday School party yesterday at Valley (the institutional congregation I serve) when one of the youth brought a visitor to talk with me.  She was a thin woman in her mid forties with two teenage girls in tow.  She started the conversation off with, “Hi, I was wondering what programs you have for youth.”  She didn’t make any attempt to introduce herself or shake my [...]

I think we have all been in a gathering of people taking prayer requests when someone says something along the lines of “and pray that I will have the strength to resist temptation as I go about the normal pattern of my life this week.”  I cringe when I hear that.  I cringe because it always makes me feel like the person asking for that is already planning on acting on that temptation that they [...]

Early this week I read an article on the disappearance of deep thinking and sacred space over at The 99%.  The message of this post has been floating around in the back of my head ever since.  I suspect that it’s refusal to leave my thoughts has to do with two things: my impending vacation time, and my dread of the Christmas season. I believe that we all know that we all inherently know that we are [...]

Every Tuesday morning I join with a group of men waaaay to early in the morning to study the Bible together.  This morning we started to walk through the book of Galatians together, and I was struck by something in the first chapter: Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. Galatians 1:7 Paul is concerned by what is slipping into the faith that he had [...]

Matt Note: I am excited to introduce my friend Jeff Elkins to the churchthought community.  You can read a description about Jeff below, but what he doesn’t say is that Jeff flat out thinks well.  You could burn through many hours camped out in a coffee shop talking church with Jeff and come away feeling like you have been drinking from a fire hydrant.  I am honored that Jeff is willing to spend his Monday’s [...]

Two articles have had me thinking this week. The Christian Post had a story late last week that touched on the speaking of Alan Hirsch saying that the majority of churches in this country are engaging in ministry practices that will engage at most 40% of the local population.  In other worlds, while church planting movements are the sexy new thing in many Christian circles we need to be careful that we are not replanting churches that [...]

During basic training at the Air Force Academy the phrase “Attention to detail” was drilled into our heads.  The idea was that if we paid attention to the little things the big things would naturally work themselves out.  Late last week Spence Smith shared the story of Van Halen and brown M&Ms.  Basically, Van Halen would request a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed at each show.  This was done not because [...]