Archive for category christianity
Preaching | Gentrified
Posted by Todd Engstrom in christianity, pastoring on July 7, 2009
My good friend Logan Gentry has some excellent thoughts on preaching, and asks some great questions. Below is a quote from the synthesis of his thoughts on what the point of preaching is:
It seems to me that our preaching has a 3-fold reach in regards to focus and application. It seems that each message has an individual application in how we view God, a community application that explains to the body how this message affects the local church they sit in and informs the strategy or theology of their vision and then finally how it affects the way Christians live in and engage a secular society that doesn’t agree with them.
Go give it a read and chime in here!
Triperspectival Leadership | Church Matters
Posted by Todd Engstrom in christianity on July 5, 2009
There is a good compilation of resources on Triperspectival Leadership at the 9 Marks blog. Here’s an intro to the idea from the post:
To over-simplify, the insight is that church leaders tend to be prophets, priests, or kings. Prophets love to proclaim the word of God and dream about where God is leading the church. Kings love to put systems in place to make it happen. Priests make sure that everyone is cared for and feels God’s love along the way.
Understanding your church leadership in light of those strengths (and attending weaknesses) can help you identify blind-spots and make good decisions about staffing and new leaders. I have found this really helpful as our church incorporates new elders and thinks through how we can do things better.
This concept, although not limited to simply to leadership, has been a great tool to help people understand what they naturally gravitate toward in leadership. I’d also recommend that you take a look at Drew Goodmanson’s material here.
via Church Matters: The 9Marks Blog
Advocating for Justice | Jeff McWhorter's Documentary
Posted by Todd Engstrom in christianity on June 27, 2009
I have a friend in need, and you can help! Below is a call for action from my friend Jeff McWhorter:
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Here is the deal. For my senior thesis at UT, I made a 10-minute documentary about young men growing up with incarcerated fathers in East Austin. One of the young men (14 yrs old), with whom I spent a lot of time, was incarcerated himself last week for house burglaries. (He was caught on webcam, maybe you heard about it). Anyhow, some of the crimes were unjustly pinned on his older sister because he used her car. She went to jail, and has gotten out, but she and her mother are really struggling to come up with money to pay an attorney to get the charges off.
Also, there is a risk that they could get evicted because Booker T, where they live, does not like trouble in the neighborhood. This would really, really put her in a bad spot.
His mother works hard at her job as a waitress to provide for the family (4 kids in the house) and show a good example of honest labor. She loves the Lord and is trusting him through all of this but is understandably pretty distraught.
I really want to help them out, and I am having a benefit showing of my documentary tonight at 9 p.m. at my house to raise some money.
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Please help Jeff out by showing up!
Aaron Ivey – Between the Beauty and Chaos
Posted by Todd Engstrom in austin stone, christianity on June 26, 2009
You for sure need to download this album if you haven’t already (click the image above or here). Aaron has been leading our church in worship through these songs, and they speak powerfully to the greatness of God and call us to His mission in the world.
Calling | TheResurgence
Posted by Todd Engstrom in christianity, college ministry, missions, theology on June 23, 2009
I thought about posting an excerpt the following post, but it’s short and you should just read the whole thing.
This goes in line with what I wrote in an earlier post commenting on Passivity in the Church. The root of passivity in the Christian walk I think is the lack of identity as God’s called and sent people. As a college minister, I frequently hear questions about calling to a job/life decision–”should I be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer? What am I called to do?”–which are all significant questions.
I have found, however, that students predominantly have exchanged the idea of basic obedience to our effectual calling and new identity as Christians with their specific vocation to a job. The result has been that, more often than not, a job is THE determining factor in how an individuals life is oriented.
This isn’t a student’s fault, however, but in many ways the result of cultural syncretism with the American dream. We (myself included) often cannot see outside of our own culture to understand that our personal vocation is fundamentally subservient to the call to global discipleship (Matthew 28:18-20, Matthew 24:14), and therefore don’t orient our lives toward God’s purposes.
What if this generation of students asked the question “how can I obey God with my gifts and skills to reach panta ta ethne, or all the people groups?” rather than injecting God into their life trajectory? The call to discipleship is most often a radical departure from the plan we have for ourselves, and requires asking a fundamentally different set of questions.
I pray this generation would be the one who understand their identity, asks questions based on that identity, and obeys God radically to the ends of the earth!
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