Category: church
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Cultural Mandate and Renewal
I enjoyed these challenging thoughts from the 9Marks blog on the Cultural Mandate specifically as they pertain to the Christian’s and the Church’s engagement in culture making/redemption. As a result of The Austin Stone’s Fall 2008 Vision Series, I have been wrestling a lot with these concepts, and have enjoyed learning a variety of different…
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Great Vision Creates Liminality
I enjoyed reading these thoughts from Alan Hirsch on the power of future vision to shape the present. Using his language, a bold future vision contributes to liminality, or an out of balance state, which in turn creates a response of individuals and communities toward missional engagement. This post is worth a read (and his…
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unChristian 2
Chapter 2 presents some of the research findings about the perceptions of outsiders toward believers (the terms “evangelicals” and “born again Christians” are used), and breaks down the rest of the book on the lines of six general themes: hypocritical, too concerned with converts, antihomosexual, sheltered, too political, and judgmental. “The primary reason outsiders feel…
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unChristian 1
Just started reading through the book unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in anticipation of the Q conference here in Austin in April. Here are my thoughts from Chapter 1: “We are not responsible for outsiders’ decisions, but we are accountable when our actions and attitudes–misrepresenting a holy, just and loving God–have pushed outsiders…
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Working Together
Some campus ministers have been working toward a unified strategy in reaching UT’s campus. Collaborative work amongst college ministries tends toward the abstract and non-committal variety, but God has been stirring to move the various directors toward strategic and functional engagement. As we seek to redeem and restore the University of Texas with the Gospel…