Video by youthwork.co.uk did an excellent video interview with Rob Bell, asking tough questions on how the church really started, emergent labels, and not becoming Ted Haggard. Hosted by premier.tv here.
Also here’s a link to the entire Mastering the Art of Living series by Rob Bell. I’m not sure how long this one will be around for. I listened through it back in 2004 I believe and thought it was absolutely phenomenal.
Mac Tablet? I’ve been waiting for this, now if only I had the money.
Someone’s daughter got a bit excited playing her nintedo Wii, check out what happened.
Acts 29 is a church planting network that was founded by Mars Hill Seattle and helps plant churches that plant churches. It is a resource I draw on that I would say is very different from the Mosaic movement and Mars Hill Michigan. In fact Mars Hill Seattle would probably enjoy a street fight with Mars Hill Michigan.
Much of this is fueled by Mark Driscoll, who people simply love or hate. I have no problems seeing past most of the peripheral issues and drawing from most ‘camps’ in the church planting world. Whatever your thoughts on Driscoll are, he sure does make biblethumping almost seem cool again.
I visited Mars Hill during the summer when I was in Seattle. It’s definitely a young crowd. And as anti-femenist as they are pegged to be, there were just as many girls there as there were guys. It’s amazing what they’ve done in their short history.
I also had a chance to meet up with Scott Thomas the A29 church planting director the following day. I love how theologically-driven they are. Mars Hill Seattle and the A29 Network would consider themselves first Christian, then Evangelical,then Missional, and finally Reformed.
They have an adapted model of Leslie Newbegin’s Gospel <-> Chruch <-> Culture and what they call a ministry matrix that shapes how they do things, from Christology -> Ecclesiology -> Missiology -> Ministry.
I’ve learned quite about both theologially and practically through their resources over the last several years. While I understand how many ministries need to recoup costs, one of the things I love about Mars Hill and all things related, is that they make their resources free.
There’s much more if you dig through their primary websites, but I’ll list off some of my top picks here. Again, I’ll try to continually keep this page updated. Let me know if you’ve got some excellent finds.
In the middle of taking a break from writing papers in the library today, I did a bit of dreaming and scheming for the future church plant. Inspired by the leadership synergy diagram from origins, I decided to flip it around and plot out some values of what I’ve been imagining. It’s been on my heart for so long, it only took a few minute once I had a framework to map it out in.
- At the core of every human being is the intrinsic desire to believe, belong, and become. - We believe that these longings call people out on a journey towards drawing on Christ, deepening in Community, and being driven by the Cause - Each of these are driven by values throughout in the culture. Both the divinity and the humanity of Christ, the individual purpose and corporate movement of the cause, and the unity and diversity of the community. - This develops an environment permeated with visionaries, missionaries, and passionaries - Collectively this is what forms a community of faith, hope, and love.
I wanted to take this a step further, and include another layer or additional overarching values of Reconciliation (faith + love), Beauty (love + hope), and Meaning (faith+hope), but it might be a little overboard.
What do you think? Any suggestions, tweaking, or major overhauling required?
Here’s a photo of me during Halloween. Yvz painted my face to look like a zebra with the mohawk, but after playing around with the saturation in picasa I thought I looked a bit a Darth Maulish.
You can get Google Picasa free with the link near the bottom of my sidebar.
I’ve got focus issues. I’m serious. Our small group did a test for A.D.D. earlier this week, and every single one of us are categorically A.D.D. We were so restless we couldn’t even finish the test!
The mere moments I’m focused, I gun straight through things, and am fairly effective. Maybe I’m overly relying on my abilities? But this is something I really need to deal with.
It often takes me at least a couple hours before I can get to a level of productivity. Quite often I’ll clean around the house, Make sure I’m on top of my news/blogs, optimize my desk, do my budget, scribble my daughter’s ’secret’ name, exercise, eat, anything but do the one thing I need to do at the moment.
Now I know many are like this, but I really need to get my act together. My pace of life is excellent, I’m definitely not doing too little or too much in my life. Over the years I’ve found a good balance of work and rest, but it frustrates me every time I set out to do certain things and take forever just to get started. I feel like I’m leaving time on the table and mockery of the moments I’ve been blessed with.
People tell me all the time how amazing it is the amount I seem to accomplish. I don’t believe this is true in comparison to what I’ve been blessed with. I find most of these focus issues are usually tied to school work and non-urgent tasks. However with the baby coming and the pressure of ministry increasing, I really need to stop squandering my moments and maximizing what I’ve been given.
If everyone’s got any life-transforming tips in this area, I’ll take it. Please help. Now to get back to my paper.
oh look, I just found a few more mp3’s and videos to add to the Erwin McManus and Rob Bell resources. Okay, now back to work, really.
To follow up the Mosaic Movement Resources as promised, here’s some articles, audio’s and video’s for you Rob Bell fans. I’ve been downloading all of their sermons since back in 2002, but again, to be on the safe side, all links here are just what’s currently available on the web.
*Note, I only link to resources that are already available on the web and I don’t have a practice of distributing or re-distributing any content.
For those of you who aren’t up to speed on Rob and Mars Hill, I’d say their the Mac of the megachurch world. clean and simple. Rob Bell’s an excellent communicator who does his homework, especially with contextualizing ancient Jewish culture. Their church is legend for exploding by word of mouth as Bell preached through Leviticus the first year.
Nooma video’s have been the latest craze. People thought I was being silly for spending money on them a few years back. You can borrow them from me if you’re in the area.
I’ll try to keep this resource page up to date, let me know if there’s anything worthwhile that I’m missing. Feel free to share this link on your sites/blogs.
Full videos from the Nooma series (I’m surprised it lasted this long, looks like some of the videos have been removed. Feel free to let me know if you find alternative links).
Full Nooma clips on Googlevideo/Youtube currently – Rain, Trees, Flame, Sunday, Noise, Kickball, Luggage, Dust, Bullhorn, Lump, Rhythm, Matthew, You
First 17 full-length Nooma’s also viewable in high quality on Vimeo here
Rob Bell regarding SexGod on CNN Five downloadable clips from Everything is Spiritual on iTunes Rob Bell interview for the Evolving Church conference 2007 Clip from Sex God tour in Michigan Video not of Rob Bell, but one of the “Way of the Master” guys in response to the Bullhorn Nooma. Video by youthwork.co.uk did an excellent video interview with Rob Bell, asking tough questions on how the church really started, emergent labels, and not becoming Ted Haggard. Hosted by premier.tv here.
Friday night Jake, Isabelle and I roamed the downtown core of Toronto for our youth-at-risk class.
We checked out some drop-in centers (Sketch, The Gateway, Seaton House, Sanctuary), Gay bars (Woody’s, Sailor’s, Churchmouse & Firkin), Other hang outs like Bovine Sex Club, Allan Gardens, The Falls, Hooker-Harveys, Boys town, and other nooks and crannies.
These are some pics I found off the web of a few of the places we checked out. I would’ve brought my own camera but didn’t want to look like a tourist.
From Graffiti Alley (Some good sets here and here)
I’ve been anti-brand name for most of my life, especially when it comes to clothing. I’ve always felt that brands were just another way of outsourcing our creativity.
We spend those extra dollars in exchange for some sense of assurance, that at least someone out there says it’s okay, normal, legit, fits-in, acceptable, etc.
I’ve begun my own clothing line. It’s called “LON-GERIE”, get it? The tag line is:
“FASHION THAT BRINGS OUT BEAUTY IN OTHERS”
Here’s two from the ‘portfolio’.
I’m not sure how long my iron-on will last. Here’s two interesting companies that beat me to it and can help create clothing with a personal touch.
To follow up the 
