August 2004

I’ve had a few conversations lately with some friends who read blogs like this, but they are too chicken to comment. (You know who you are!) That’s the whole point of this. I know that myself, and many other bloggers, consider our thoughts to be only partially formed. (In fact, many of mine probably classify [...]

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Some continuing thoughts from the previous entry…
Why do I feel drawn to less structure within church?
Structure within churches has been something that has turned off many. It is at the core of the argument for those who want no part of ‘organized religion’. Structures can become corrupt, but we shouldn’t assume that all structure is [...]

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Been playing around with different means of reading RSS feeds, and wondering what others like using. Up until now, I’ve been using BlogLines, which I find useful, especially the notifier that goes in the system tray. However, I’ve been playing around with Pluck as well. It looks like it could be great if I take [...]

It’s not often that I recommend books that I haven’t even finished, but I am enjoying one so much right now that I must. It is Mere Discipleship by Lee C Camp, and it is excellent.

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I’ve been in the process for several months of thinking through what it would like it to look like if I were participate in a church plant. I like some of the thinking that is happening among those align with the emergent church, and yet I’m not quite as eager, as some seem to be, [...]

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Just finished reading How People Grow by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. This book presents a great picture of what growth as a Jesus follower looks like. These guys truly understand, better than me at least, that following Jesus means that we come to a point of wholeness in our lives. Jesus just doesn’t [...]

I love the teaching of Rob Bell. I recently ran across some audio files of some teaching he did which I think represent him at his best. It is from a conference at ResLife, which is another church in Grand Rapids. From listening to it, I think the topic must have been “Reaching the Next [...]

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I had an intriguing conversation with a friend a few days ago. He was in a conversation with a friend of his who was asking all sorts of questions about who Jesus was. One of his questions was whether or not Mary Magdalene was the girlfriend of Jesus. His reasoning was that it just [...]

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I decided to switch to WordPress. It’s a little more difficult to do some of the layout on my end, but beyond that, it is just a lot more user friendly for readers to leave comments, as well as for me to post. I still will have a few things to add to get this [...]

(By titling this “celebrate the residue”, I’m willing to bet that I’ve just put together a phrase that has never before been used in the whole of human history!)
For the first time in a long time, I’ve been using a commentary for my devotional reading: Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters by Tom (NT) Wright. [...]

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I very much like this quote from The New Testament and the People of God by NT Wright:
“The main thing that would have struck observers of early Christianity was not its ‘religious’ side, nor indeed its early doctrinal formulations, but its total way of life.” (emphasis mine)

I ran across a great article by Brian McLaren which is recommended to all. Thanks to Pernell Goodyear for posting this link on his site.

Was doing some study for a teaching a few weeks ago and ran across a little insight I’ve thought about a number of times since…
In Acts 3:19, Peter is speaking to a crowd in Solomon’s Colonnade. He tell them that times of refreshing will come when they repent and turn to God. The word refreshing [...]

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I was playing around with some colors to add a little more flavor to the site. One my desktop, it’s kind of hard to read, but comes out very clear on my laptop. Don’t know if the problem is just my desktop monitor, or if these colors are a little more difficult. Please let me [...]