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Thanks to everyone who has stopped by, lurked or left a comment, but things are a changing…for the better, I hope.
Co-hosted by the Missouri Baptist Convention and Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church, the 121 Forum is being held August 28 and 29 at FBBC in St. Joseph, MO. Billed as, “The Forum…First century message, Twenty first century methods,” the conference features Drs. Bob Roberts and Alvin Reid among others. Sessions include “The Local Church Living the Kingdom of God,” “1st Century Missiological Perspectives,” “8 Keys for Missional Living in the 21st Century,” and three more.
Registration, hotel accommodations and other info available through the above website. In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock, pastor Micah Fries has announced that a “tent city” will be allowed in his front yard for those who cannot afford a paid room.
Examiner.com is a new growing online news presence that utilizes local people who write based on their particular areas of interest or expertise. I first noticed it coming through my Google News feeder just under articles from the Washington Post, LA Times or Baptist Press.
Out of sheer curiosity I checked out their writing opportunities and decided to apply. You are now reading the ranting of the “Atlanta Southern Baptist Examiner,” since I was approved at the end of last week. I’ll be contributing between 2-4 articles a week that will automatically feed into the Atlanta region of the Examiner.
This is a “payin’ gig.” It isn’t much, but I do get a little for every page view. Payment is affected by the number of “subscribers” to my articles and the number of comments, since an active comment section means that more people are looking at the pages and staying longer, which affects the ad rates on my pages.
If you have a few seconds and want to help a friend (yes, that would be me), then go to my page and subscribe to my articles. By subscribing, you will get an email alert when I submit a new article. You can delete the email or check out the article (which helps me because it counts as a page view even if you don’t read the entire thing). You can also make me a “Fav” examiner if you are so inclined.
I hope to build readership both locally and nationally since news readers pick up the feeds outside Examiner.com’s local region. That will take a little time, but it will happen.
If you are a writer and decide to check it out for yourself, please contact me before you sign up. There is a referral program and I can get some extra moolah if you name me when you apply.
I remember being in the 9th grade, sitting the back of Mrs. Howard’s math class at Riverdale Junior High School. I was a teacher’s aide and spent almost as much time doing nothing as doing something. My desk, as it was, sat beside a bookcase that had just one or two books on it (it being a math class, after all) one of which had a black cover with the title in bewitched looking red letters. I did not know at the time those two words had come from a Beatles song: Helter Skelter.
The first time I picked up the book, I went straight for the picture section and noted the photos of bloody words on the wall, the “white out” figures of the bodies, the Manson family in court and the maniacal hippie prophet, Charles Manson. I had no idea who Abigail Folger or Sharon Tate were, just that something out of control had happened. The stark words inside the cover, “The story you are about to read will scare the hell out of you,” scared it out of me without even reading the book.
Today and Monday mark forty years since the Manson murders. That seems almost unfathomable to me; how could it have been so long ago? Manson will soon be 75 years old; a frail, wrinkled, but still crazed, old man. Some of his followers, the co-perpetrators, remain in jail as well, while some of the “family members” who did not participate in the murders have lived their lives attempting to outwit the shadow of the gruesome killings four decades ago.
A generation of kids were marked, many by fear, but all in memory of a California night that shattered our ideas of safety, family and the future. All these years later, I hurt for the families whose names became infamous by being the victims of an unspeakable tragedy. I’m thankful for the two or three “family members” who have received Christ and exhibited genuine repentance in prison. I’m supremely thankful for a Savior whose sacrificial death is sufficient to cover the sins of even the most heinous of criminals, including those attached to this vile chapter of our nation’s history, so long as they repent and believe the gospel. And for a gospel that, in and of itself, is the power of God unto salvation.
3:25ish PM
Chip and Dan Heath are authors of Made to Stick and the upcoming Switch the latter of which is the subject of the interview.
Change is not always unwanted; having kids brings great change, getting married brings great change. Change is filled with conflict. Part of us wants to diet, part of us wants a cookie. Part of us sees the need and wants to change, part of us wants to keep the status quo.
There are two systems in our brain that can be pictured by a human rider on top of a 6 ton elephant. To make progress, there has to be an agreement between the goals of the rider and the goals of the elephant. The short term goal of the elephant has to be utilized by the long term goal of the rider in order for their to be success (at least I think that’s how the illustration went).
In a time of change, look for the one or two things that are working and study them and then clone them. It proves that something is successful. The bright spots are proof that the church can solve its problems.
1. There is a clear asymmetry between the size of the problem and the size of the solution. The small solution comes into play when the elephant sees what it can do, “Let’s go to the next village,” rather than what the rider wants to do, “We need to go two hundred miles.” (I’m having to expand some thoughts to compensate for some very brief sentences the Heaths are using.)
2. Shrink the change.
When change occurs there is usually a predictable pattern.
Compassion International is 57 years old, but in the last 4 years (from the first year that their team attended the Leadership Summit) CI has doubled.
Stafford was asked to speak about pain this year.
Calling, mission, purpose in life, and greatest act of obedience came at the age of 10. Raised at a boarding school in Africa, living there for 9 months per year. The leaders were missionary failures who were given charge over the boarding school because they could not do anything else.
There isn’t a way to write what Stafford is telling.
10:51 AM
Look at Africa, not as producers, but as partners. African entrepreneurs are not looking for handouts, but for market space for our products. A continent full of people waiting to do business with the rest of the world.
How as the aid issue been sustained in the face of clear evidence that it does not good? The best case is NO AID. Aid is not really structured; 1995, the year of highest international aid, was the year of the lowest African GNP.
Aid undermines accountability. Last year, Tanzania had 4,000 donor reports and 1,000 donor meetings. AID creates chronic dependency, not jobs or productivity. This dependency undermines the integrity of the recipient countries.
How do we affect change while being compassionate?
Mom is 5′ foot Korean, Dad is Irish-American with blue eyes. “Koreans have strong genes!” (He looks thoroughly Asian.)
10:17 AM
Who is my neighbor? We exegete it one way, but live it another.
McGavran’s homogeneous principle has caused us to grow great churches, but consumeristic churches. What has God called us to? To be contrarian, to be abnormal
God is calling us to follow the path of the third culture leader.
Adaptation
Painful adaptation
There was a sentence here, it didn’t say on the screen.
It’s normal for us to love someone like us, but the world will stop and pay attention when we love those who are not like us.
How do we become third culture leaders?
The third culture leaders is focused on the misfit more than the masses. Margins lead movements. To really make a change, hang with the early adopters. This is where the change makers are. The masses do not lead us, the fringe does.
Who is the outsider? Jesus movement was from the fringe. What hinders us from loving on the fringe?
The third culture leader has a different set of metrics? Failure is success to God. The pain that we are now going through is our platform to humanity. It give us the quality to connect to this generation. Our failure and weaknesses are gifts from God to give us success. The world does not understand America’s success, but they do understand our pain.
Look at human resources, rather than financial resources. Who is in my congregation who wished they were being seen?
10:28
How do we quantify vision?
Isn’t the vision basically love God and love your neighbor? Relationships trump vision. We don’t need more visionaries, but more “relationaries.”
We need to stop wearing Saul’s armor. We need to change priorities. 70%-30%–What is going to be the 70%? What is 70% is leadership development? Gibbons spends 5-8 hours on weekend preparation and the rest of the time he is spending time leaders and relationship development.
Discipleship is a commitment to life on life. His front door, at home, is open always to anyone from his church who wants to stop by and spend time.
Allows the multi-sites to bring their own vision.
The third culture leader understands obedience. Obedience is more important than passion. It is more important to obey God than to be passionate about _______.
Four Acts of Obedience
1. Deeper collaboration
Perhaps he refers to the city and churches working together.
2. Communal living
Choose a neighborhood and have several families move in to it.
3. Prayer
The church does not believe in the Holy Spirit. If we really believe in the power that raised Jesus from the dead, we’d pray.
4. Radical sacrifice
Here we go. Updates today as wi-fi allows. Thanks for checking in.
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