December 9th 2007
2 Shootings in Colorado at Christian Sites - New York Times:
A gunman killed two people at a training center dormitory for young Christian missionaries early Sunday after being told he couldn’t spend the night, and hours later four people were shot outside a church in Colorado Springs.
It was not immediately known whether the shootings, about 65 miles apart, were related.
Technorati Tags: Persecution
December 9th 2007
Gunman Kills 2 at Missionary Center Near Denver - New York Times:
Two missionaries-in-training were killed early today and two more were wounded when a gunman burst into a residence hall at the Youth With a Mission center in the Denver suburb of Arvada, the police said.
Police officials said they did not know whether the shooting was at random of if individuals were targeted. The gunman is still being sought.
Technorati Tags: missions, Persecution
December 8th 2007
Historic split for U.S. Episcopals - Yahoo! News:
An entire California diocese of the U.S. Episcopal Church voted to secede on Saturday in a historic split following years of disagreement over the church’s expanding support for gay and women’s rights.
This group actually switched affiliations to the conservative Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, based in South America. They didn’t go off on their own. Still this disunifying of the U.S. Episcopal Church is tragic, but it’s hard to see how these splits can be avoided while the main decision-makers of the church continue to move in unbiblical directions.
December 4th 2007
How Short-Term Missions is Becoming a Two-Way Street
If you define “mission” as crossing cultural boundaries for the sake of the gospel, the global church is engaged in mission on a scale that would have been unimaginable to previous Christian generations.
Yet…
Perhaps this is one thing we need to learn, and unlearn: Even the shortest cross-cultural mission trip is fraught with opportunities for God to make himself known—and with the real potential that we will unwittingly misrepresent him.
Technorati Tags: church growth, missions
December 3rd 2007
November 27th 2007
Mission to Suburbia: A resource center for reaching middle America for Christ.
Technorati Tags: America, Methods, missions, Research, Strategic Planning
November 24th 2007
Yesterday morning, before the parades and the food, I finally finished the trilogy His Dark Materials. I guess that means it’s time for me to Pronounce my Judgment on the series, which includes the book at the basis of the controversial Golden Compass movie. But I’m not going to do that. I’ve stated my opinions along the way, and I’ve already linked to two excellent overall analyses by Jeffrey Overstreet and Mars Hill Audio. What I’d like to do instead is to show some major points of agreement Biblical Christianity has with Phillip Pullman’s vision. There will be some surprises here.
Technorati Tags: Books, Golden Compass, His Dark Materials
November 20th 2007
Yes, Ministry Leadership Is Complex
Technorati Tags: Christian Growth, church growth, Leadership, Methods
October 21st 2007
Book Review
I’ve lost several hours of sleep over David Kinnaman’s and Gabe Lyons’s book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity And Why It Matters. James Emery White, in his Serious Times email newsletter, said* in response to this book, “Christianity has an image problem.” With all due respect to Mr. White, one of the authors I most respect, I disagree. Christianity has a reality problem. The problem is shallow discipleship, and the rest of the world sees it for what it is. It’s a disturbing picture.
Technorati Tags: America, Barna, church growth, Methods, Research
September 16th 2007
CADRE Comments: Revival in North Korea?:
September 5, 2007: The North Korean Army has started a special propaganda effort to discourage soldiers from practicing religion. There’s apparently an outbreak of Christianity in the ranks, and it’s so widespread that the generals are getting nervous.
Very interesting!
Technorati Tags: church growth, missions, Persecution