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Mary Leigh and I hosted a small group in our home before coming to Cincinnati. It was fully age-diverse. We had kids in elementary school sitting beside recent retirees. We also had a teen couple that was dating and got married after high school. We were part of a church plant that couldn’t afford much … Continue reading
Within 90 days of teaching 19 church members from several churches how to start a church, they had begun a biker church and a Hispanic church. A biker complained that the seminary had yet to send them a biker. And nobody in the training was very good at speaking Spanish. Nobody spent any money. Yet, … Continue reading
While visiting a church recently, I noticed that the choir had their noses stuck in a folder, reading the words. I glanced in the back of the auditorium long enough to realize their songs weren’t being projected. When asked to critique the worship service, I surprised a church leader by saying, “The choir shouldn’t sing … Continue reading
What would you say to a group of Christian leaders in America about the need for an oral approach to disciple-making? Here are my notes from two presentations last week in Orlando, Fla. The International Orality Network’s North American Region director, Rick Brekelbaum, invited me to lead training sessions at Lifebridge Church and the other … Continue reading
In Lansing, Mich., a group of us were learning how to survey communities to understand lostness. As we walked through our assigned neighborhood, my partner and I met an 18 year-old carrying two huge bags of disposable diapers. We stopped and asked how we could pray for him. He said he was really scared to … Continue reading
George Lucas’ Star Wars, Episode VII movie (Disney) has set record sales. You probably saw the movie. The Snowden men all gathered over Christmas and saw it. And it certainly got me wondering if science fiction does more than entertain. A research project published in Science refuted thinking that literary fiction was a waste of … Continue reading
Experiences bring more joy than things you own. Family vacations, mission trips, Christian concerts, and, yes, lively discussion in a Bible study over time become more precious than things you own. My wife and I tackled a major downsizing this past month. We conducted an estate sale and jettisoned sofas, a bedroom suit, at least four entire shelves of … Continue reading
A contrast in missionary work was recently brought to my attention. A missionary-sending group we’ll call Agency A in one year trained their 4,000 missionaries who trained another 21,000 workers who went out and began 14,000 churches. In other words, 4,000 got 14,000 churches started. In the same year with roughly the same number of … Continue reading
When Jim Breeden, a missions leader in St. Louis, gave me a copy of the newly reprinted book Indonesian Revival, by the late Avery Willis, I wasn’t expecting much. But Jim handed me a real gift. Indonesian Revival documented a people movement that occurred in 1966-68 in which two million Javanese came to faith in … Continue reading
How quickly can your Bible Storying group reproduce itself? Are there any barriers to multiplication? Are you willing to ruthlessly address them for the sake of the gospel? A little boy once won a footrace in a West African village. What was so special is that he had contracted polio the year before when his … Continue reading
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