I was at the new suburbia conference this past week. I’m not sure how true the conference was of its title, it was mostly about Christian community development in an urban setting, gentrification of city slums, and indigenous leadership empowerment.
There was some good material in there. However, I felt some of us gathered [...]

Posted in Church planting, Community, Toronto 6 Comments »

Ever feel like you have more friends than you have time for?
Ever question if you really have any meaningful friendships at all?
Do you wonder who some of those people are on your facebook account?
How do you pick and choose who you spend time making deep friendships with?
Similar Posts…The silence in church… by Lon on January [...]

Posted in Community No Comments »

(Original photo here)
I’ve posted many times questioning the effectiveness of preaching before, however this past Sunday was definitely an example of working more creatively, not harder, while creating a deeply meaningful experience.
I’ve been wanting to experiment with this for quite a while now, and with my voice blown from speaking the night before, this was [...]

Posted in Community, communication, creativity, preaching 7 Comments »

This past Saturday a team of us from two churches organized a Global Awareness Banquet.
The banquet is a dramatization of the inequity that perpetuates poverty in the world. Guests are randomly assigned according to the realities that divide us today 15% rich, 30% middle class, and 55% poor on a global level.
The rich were [...]

Posted in Community, creativity, poverty 5 Comments »

I just received an advanced copy of “The Tangible Kingdom - Creating incarnational community” from Leadership Network by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. I have so many other things to read, but I haven’t been able to put this one down.
Without giving away too much of the content, let me just say it’s refreshing [...]

Posted in Books, Church planting, Community 5 Comments »

A couple other seminary students were sharing with me yesterday about how lonely things can be as they’ve began working in leadership in different churches.
I wrote a while back about how ‘leaders need community‘.  I want to take this further as not only an acknowledgment, but as a request, on behalf of leaders.
Certainly there are [...]

Posted in Community, Leadership, seminary 9 Comments »

Since I’ve joined facebook, I’ve been horrible with making the most of the connections I’ve established through it. I’m backlogged in replies, and friends I haven’t spoken to in fifteen years, well, I still haven’t connected with them, though we’re now ‘official’ as friends.

I declare this Sunday December 30th International Facebook Day. I’m [...]

Posted in Community, tech 1 Comment »

(Photo from here.)
I’ve been re-reading Houses that Change the World by Wolfgang Simson as I’ve been looking for more clarity going forward in life.
Here’s a quote in the book by Art Katz, a Messianic Jew, where he speaks of true community
Community life pulverizes your old ego in the power of the Spirit of God, and [...]

Posted in Books, Community, Quotes 9 Comments »

I’ve been doing some thinking recently… (I do my best thinking with my Optimus Prime helmet on, video here).
There are so many more people around the world who read my blog than people I connect with regularly in person.
I’m guessing part of this is because if you’re in my regular circles, well, we can catch [...]

Posted in Community, tech No Comments »

Another idea I’ve been tossing around, is the idea of intentionally not gathering as a church on sunday.  Being the the church that scatters.  Really, we’re not even suppose to be going to church, we are the church.
We’ll be experimenting with physically not meeting up together and being the church on a Sunday morning in [...]

Posted in Church planting, Community, mission 9 Comments »