Category: missional
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Helpful Books on Missional Communities – Missional Theology
As you begin to explore the world of missional church and missional communities, you can encounter an overwhelming number of resources. I have spent a good deal of time reading through much of the literature available, and I thought it would be beneficial to provide some short commentary on many of the works available. I’ll…
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Helpful Books on Missional Communities
As you begin to explore the world of missional church and missional communities, you can encounter an overwhelming number of resources. I have spent a good deal of time reading through much of the literature available, and I thought it would be beneficial to provide some short commentary on many of the works available. I’ll…
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Churches Planting Churches
This Sunday, The Austin Stone joined with many other Acts 29 Network churches to preach to our congregations about church planting and support the mission to make disciples and plant healthy churches. I continue to be grateful for the Lord’s grace in my life to participate in church planting. As we prayed for our entire…
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The Lobby – Day 2
Today has been another encouraging and challenging day of conversation, and has left me with some good thinking to do. Session 5: Mission and Community We began the day today talking through the idea of mission, and how it plays out in community. My friend Spence Shelton gave me the opportunity to share the story…
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Soccer and the Kingdom of God
I played soccer up until high school, and always enjoyed the game, so when it came time to put Micah into sports, soccer was a natural choice. After a few stints at the YMCA, we joined our neighborhood league and I volunteered to help coach our team. It’s been an interesting few weeks in the…
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Verge Conference
The Austin Stone is hosting a National Missional Community Conference called Verge. The Verge Conference is unique in that it is committed to the development and multiplication of missional communities. The theme of the Verge Conference is The DNA of Gospel Movements, and will focus on movement strategies and practices to help pastors, church planters,…
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The Whole and Heart of the Gospel | Cardus
I found this summary from Ray Pennings (HT: Kevin Young) of Reformed theological positions on cultural/social engagement to be particularly helpful in identifying the predominant understandings churches tend to have of gospel and culture. Below is the core of the article: Neocalvinism focuses on the comprehensiveness of the gospel claim. “Every square inch” belongs to…
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Multisite Church | Christian Standard Interview
If you have been interested in the multisite discussion as a missional church, then I’d recommend reading the article below. Todd Wilson does a great job of highlighting the upside of multisite planting, and a holistic perspective on how it fits with church planting strategy. Christian Standard Interview – Todd Wilson on Multisite I think…
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Book Review | Total Church
The second book I read over my vacation was Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester. The overall perspective of the book is applying to the church the two foundational principles of gospel and community. As a short synopsis, it is an excellent basic theology primer coupled…
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Assimilation and Mission | Repost Set 1
Vacation Repost Set 1: Assimilation and Mission I’ve written several posts that refer to assimilation and mission, and the complexity of doing both well. Take a look at them below: Alan Hirsch meets Seth Godin – Spontaneous Emergence Thoughts from Tribes by Seth Godin – Assimilation is Connectivity Effective Connection into Mission – Mission First,…
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Integration vs. Mission | Exploring College Ministry
Benson Hines has a great discussion about integration of college ministry relative to mission here. This has been a consistent struggle for us in the College Ministry at The Austin Stone, but definitely one that has yielded great fruit in ministry. To summarize where we have landed, we: Deliberately integrate our weekly worship service, and…