What does it look like to take Jesus to the cities of the 21st century? Sunday Night Discussions is back this week and we’re asking that very question. It is estimated that today over half the population of the earth lives in cities and outlying areas. This change in global demographics also touches race, ethnicity, and religion. How can the Kingdom of Heaven be advanced is this new world reality. Join Robert and me here Sunday at 8p central as we welcome Luke Greer who serves with Global Cities Initiative and the Orchard Group. Orchard has been planting churches since 1948 in New York and is now reaching out into the major cities of the world.How big of an issue is this and how can we be involved? Feel free to send questions in early via here or our Google Plus page. During the show questions and comments can be sent in via both mediums and we will be giving away a copy of Why Cities Matter by Stephen Um and Justin Buzzard toward the end of the show. Forward in the book is written by Timothy Keller. So grab a friend and plan to participate as we kick off another season of SND.
BTW for the Dallas and NY Giants fans, we will have an audience member keeping us posted on the game score.
Entrepreneurship is a confusing word. Not just because it’s hard to remember how it’s spelled, but because of the many word pictures we put behind it. Business is usually the venue where we see this practice. Even in the market place though, it can equally be applied to someone who starts up a business and also someone who takes an existing company to the next level. I swim mostly in the realm of the Church and discipleship world where the range of applications can be just as wide. A church planter establishes one church in his life that grows to 1000 or more in Sunday morning attendance. Suddenly he is allowed to successfully wear the title. A woman takes an existing ministry to new heights and likewise is awarded the spot light for her accomplishments. The bigger the results, the more the person is called an entrepreneur. Yet those who achieve lesser accolades are denied the headlines.
But I wonder if maybe there’s more to the story here in creativity. Could it be that for true divine entrepreneurship to take place we really need a number of different people, different skills, and different situations? To illustrate, I’m wondering who is the biggest entrepreneur in the fast food business; the McDonald brothers or Ray Kroc? (more…)
In referring to Elijah of the Old Testament, James makes the observation that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. But I wonder. Even when we find our righteousness in the healing of Christ opposed to our own merit, are our prayers really powerful? Are they truly heard by the God of all creation? Tune in Sunday night at 8p Central as our special guest, Rick Stedman, believes so. Rick founded and for two decades led Adventure Christian Church in Roseville, California. His real desire is getting people connected to God and borrowing from Eugene Peterson, Rick has suggested that the number one job of pastors is to teach their people to pray. Would you agree with that? What other questions about prayer or living out the loving Kingdom of God would you have for Rick? Feel free to send in questions early and join us for the live discussion Sunday night. We will also be giving away a copy of Rick’s new book, Praying the Armor of God. Questions and comments can be taken during the webcast via our SND Google + page or here.
“You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” Those words were spoken by Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. When I think of the enormity of that statement, Church Planter and Pastor, Ken Hasekamp, is one of the guys who always comes to mind. If anyone knows experientially about influencing people with the love of Christ, it’s Ken. Patterson, CA is where we find Ken these days and it’s amazing to see the stories of how God is working through his life to love his community and make an eternal difference. Join us this evening as we dive into the question of “how to be the light of Christ in our 21st century communities.”
The Discussions begin tonight at 8p Central and you can find us here or on Google +. Feel free to join in on the conversation with your questions and comments. Looking forward to hearing from you this evening.
I recently came across an interesting blog post simply titled; Church Planting is Dead! I don’t know Kevin or anything beyond his bio, but he’s got some good points in the discussion on the ever changing face of church planting and kingdom expansion. I’ve done some time in the trenches of church planting so naturally I believe this subject should be a huge priority. Even in the established ministry here at The Crossings I’ve begun to lay the initial ground work for sending out planters and daughter churches. It’s a big deal.
In the post the Kevin notes various changes like the present phenomena of launching multiple campuses or sites by mega-churches opposed to planting autonomous churches. That subject is indeed another debate for another time. Here however, Kevin focused on individual people rather than on methods. His point being, in one sense, that every Christ follower can be involved in church planting. I agree with that assessment and would take the thought one step further. The key to really ushering in church multiplication and kingdom expansion is just going back to serious discipleship and not more machinery. (more…)
Back in 2008 a great preacher from Nor Cal introduced me to Matt Harding dancing around the globe and I loved the clip from the get-go. It was a reminder to me of how big and beautiful God’s creation is as seen through diversity and nature. Even now it reminds me of Revelation 7 where the apostle Paul spoke of the future and fulfilled Kingdom where a “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, was standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” Today while doing some research I saw that Matt created a new clip for 2012 and I was just as pleased. While I like the music better in the 2008 video, it was cool to see places like Moscow, Helsinki, Manchester, and other spots around the US and the greater globe where I’ve been. Either way, the picture is the same. An awesome God, who created a colorful globe, filled with majestic people, and a profound message of divine love to take be taken to the world over. My, what a wondrous world we live in.
PS, if you could visit any of these places, where would you go and why?
What does it look like to take Jesus to the cities of the 21st century? Sunday Night Discussions is back this week and we’re asking that very question. It is estimated that today over half the population of the earth lives in cities and outlying areas. This change in global demographics also touches race, ethnicity, and religion. How can the Kingdom of Heaven be advanced is this new world reality. Join Robert and me here Sunday at 8p central as we welcome Luke Greer who serves with Global Cities Initiative and the Orchard Group. Orchard has been planting churches since 1948 in New York and is now reaching out into the major cities of the world.How big of an issue is this and how can we be involved? Feel free to send questions in early via here or our Google Plus page. During the show questions and comments can be sent in via both mediums and we will be giving away a copy of Why Cities Matter by Stephen Um and Justin Buzzard toward the end of the show. Forward in the book is written by Timothy Keller. So grab a friend and plan to participate as we kick off another season of SND.
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