Two Missions & Great Comissions

" . . . I have infected every corner

with the desire for power and greed, as you will see. I have smeared the continents with Lust For Blood not even your Invader can swab clean. (World hater)

'A thousand were unchain today," said Anthem.

"But Millions still are mine and hate the myth you love."

(World Hater)

- Calvin Miller -

The Singer Trilogy

(The Song)

Misdiagnosis Of Church

"When any species undergoes a reproduction crisis, a name is giving it: "endangered." Arguably Christianity has entered such a crisis; our inability to reproduce the faith is the number one problem facing our families and churches today. Christianity in the West has become a sterile, exhausted religion. . . .

The dominant means of addressing the church's reproduction crisis has been to devise new methodologies and strategies for how we do church. This is a misdiagnosis of the problem, however, and without the right diagnosis of the disease, I cure is difficult."

-Leonard Sweet. From Tablet To Table.

Broken Church- 70-80% Of OUR Kids Never Return.

We are full of it.... we are full of hot air, bologna, theology, hyper-spirituality, and the fact is that we aren't doing anything other than congratulating ourselves on the profundity of our revelations.

Between 70 and 80 percent of evangelicals in America, by the time they are twenty-one, will leave the faith and never return. Did you hear that? We are not even reaching our own children.

It's like we have a broken down car and we're trying to sell it to the world, saying, buy our product.

Our product stinks. We have nothing to sell but our Bible opinions. And how is the world responding to our bible opinions?
But we're going to keep doing it because we've got the "Bible."
But we're not delivering on the life, the love, the power, the truth, the Incarnate....(sigh!) ..... we are not delivering on Jesus as a general rule."
Seventy to eighty percent of our own children should be a terrifying statistic. It should cause us to sit back and say,

"Dear God how many hours, how much money is being poured into this thing called Christianity, and my own children aren't even serving the lord?"
This is broken Saints. It's broken! It's broken, broken, broken! But we're going to have an evangelism outreach, we are going to pass out... [pamplets or flyers]
Oh my!
- Stephen Crosby!

Read this Book as it gets to the real issue below the surface that we never talk about in church.

This insight in how our history, our past, our emotions, and our emotional responses and mechanisms affects us today,  is simply extraordinary.

I found the book to be the typical  slick marketing and packaging  to make a "Program" to sell to churches. So the writing is the usual dumbed own style of language and writing of typical evangelical  programs,

but in no way is this books HELP and INSIGHT shallow.  

He hits  subjects not talked about. 

It is VERY well written.

Every leader should read this book. 

 

The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazzero 

As Question Instead Of Persuad Uninterested

"Saints, please listen to me. If you are still in persuasion mode, you still haven't learned anything yet.

What was Jesus's modality? "What do you want me to do for you?" We have not learned how to dignify another human being where they are "AT" ......

Jesus would dignify another person with an inquiry."

- Stephen Crosby

What Has Lighting The World Cost You?

"As a child in the 1950s, I heard a story at a holiness revival meeting in New York. It seems a certain missionary, home on leave, was shopping for a globe of the world to take back to her mission station. The clerk showed her a reasonably priced globe and another one with a lightbulb inside. “This is nicer,” the clerk said, pointing to the illuminated globe, “but of course, a lighted world costs more.” What has lighting our world cost you lately?"

- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch 2.0

Mango Tree Missionary

"Jeff insists that more good conversations, more transactions, and more organized system. His point is that ministry in Africa happens more effectively at the mango tree level than in any sort of organized “church planting” or “discipleship” or “evangelism” model."

- Marla..... who lived with and observes the movements of  Heidi Frazee Jeff Frazee in some often forgotten place in French West Africa.

A Church Shout is Mission

Negro Spiritual 

"I real’y do b’lieve widout a doubt,
Dat de church hab a mighty right to shout."

Different Pulpits

"God makes himself known to them? I’ve come to value the time in cars and homes with people far more than I do standing on a stage, and I see far more impact from it as well."

- Wayne Jacobsen. Beyond Sundays 

The Spirt Convicts Enough So You Shouldn't Have To

"A lot of evangelism is because we don't  trust the Holy Spirit, right? Because, obvioisly the Holy Spirit is not doing a very good job of convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, so, he needs my help. I can convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, just give me a chance.
I used to know what God was doing and used to tell everybody. 
What i did was I met him where he was at because I believe the Holy Spirit is already all over and after him."
- Wm Paul Young. Aug 23, 2013 talk. 

Wm Paul Young. 13 min in.. but the whole message will disintegrate our fear of loss. We have nothing to lose 

Thy Kingdom Go

"Most Christians glibly recite “Thy kingdom come,” but this means almost nothing until and unless they also say “My kingdom go.”

~ Richard Rohr

Poorest Evangelism Ever!

"Judgment is a terrible evangelism strategy. People don’t line up to be judged. Instead, they flee."

~ Carey Nieuwhof

Standardized Kingdom?

"Not that the genuine presence of the Kingdom in a person can be hidden.... But it also cannot be canned, controlled, produced on demand, standardized, or brought to a point at which it can be dispensed by one human being to another."

~ Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy

I Am Their Problem

"As long as I am condemning my friends or relatives, or pushing my "pearls" on them, "I" and their problem."

(Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy)

Jesus Would Love The Nones

"If Jesus were walking our patch of planet earth today, he would be paying extra special attention to the “Nones.” They would feel as though he understands them. His approach to them would make the religious insiders nervous. Around him, they would feel like insiders, not outsiders. And soon, they would be loving him."

~ Ken Wilson

Church Is A Field, NOT A Force Of Evangelism

"The church is meant to be a force of evangelism but has become a field of evangelism instead"

British Methodist Samuel Chadwick (1860-1932)

God Doesn't Have You?

"God has many that the church does not have and the church has many that God does not have."

- St. Augustine

How We See God Is How We See The Universe

"Central to the understanding and proclamation of the Christian gospel today, as in Jesus' day, is a re-visioning of what God’s own life is like and how the physical cosmos fits into it. It is a great and important task to come to terms with what we really think when we think of God. Most hinderances to the faith of Christ actually lie, I believe, in this part of our minds and souls."

(Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy)

God is About Redemption as Mission

Commenting on Romans 1:1, where is says Paul is,  "Set apart for the Gospel of God."

"Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognized as the abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell - it is redemption....
God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character."

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

"Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel...." 1 Cor 1:17. Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by "The Gospel", namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching..... We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification - we are commissioned to lift up Jesus (See John 12:32) it is an injustice to say that Jesus Christ labored to make me a saint, Jesus Christ labored in redemption to redeem the whole world and to place it perfectly whole and restored before the throne of God."