the 2 mile rule

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, missiology
• Date: Jun 5,2006

Anthony Bradley, professor at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis [my own backyard] and research fellow at the Acton Institute, has this to say on his blog, about why he goes to church where he does…

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r-squared: podcast #1

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, missiology, pastoring
• Date: May 30,2006

For those of you that are interested, the first podcast from the Reform & Resurgence conference is online.

The first podcast is Darrin Patrick, pastor of The Journey and vice president of the Acts 29 church planting network, who happens to be from my hometown of St. Louis.

Darrin was the first pastor out of the chute and he jokes that he felt like the opening act you’ve never heard of at a musical festival, setting up the ‘heavyweights.’

Though humble is he, Darrin started things off like a ‘heavyweight’ with such wisdom and clarity!

day 3: reform & resurge

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, missiology
• Date: May 12,2006

Day 3 of Reform & Resurge was great!

I want to focus in on Driscoll’s talk at the end of the day. What a fitting finale! Stetzer said ealier in the week that Driscoll is filled with holy angst. This shone through tonight.

There is no question that Driscoll is going to be a part of the new breed of theologians who hold Scripture highly and the cross closely. I am thankful for his voice in the realm of evangelicalism!

Driscoll said that he had been asked recently to contribute to a multiple viewpoint book [5 individuals from different points in the evangelical spectrum comment on issues] on emerging theological trends. One of the issues was the atonement.

As he started to research and write for that section, most of what he found appalled him. Out of his appallment, another book was birthed and its working title is: Death By Love [also the name of his talk at Reform & Resurge]. He feels that a definitive book about the atonement is a great need for the Kingdom right now. Here are some highlights:

• Early Christians chose the cross to symbolize Jesus; that is no accident
• Must be a recovery of the shame of the cross to understand the significance of the cross
• The word, excruciating, was a word that had to be created to describe what Jesus felt on the cross
• Crucifixion was usually reserved for slaves; to shame you and your family and take away all your dignity
• The cross is offensive [1 Cor. 1:18; Gal. 5:11] but it is offensive in an attractive way
• You cannot preach the power of the cross unless the power of the cross is real to us first
• Don’t back off of the hard issues: the cross, the blood, atonement, wrath, sin
• Jesus was a Charismatic [before Acts 2]
• Wrath appears 600 times in the Bible
• Romans 1: God’s passive wrath is being revealed by letting the world do what they do; leads to depravity
• How dare we claim the mercy of God is personal but not the wrath of God

day 2: reform & resurge

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, missiology
• Date: May 10,2006

This was a good day!

Heavyweights Dr. Ed Stetzer and Dr. Tim Keller, two of the brightest missiologists, dropped it like it was hot and Joshua Harris brought a message that I resonated with GREATLY!

Here are some highlights:

Understanding Culture-Stetzer

• Generational approaches no longer work
• North America is not a pancake it is waffle with divots-cultural pockets
• Instead of importing, think missionally
• Churches need to move from ‘every member a minister’ to ‘every member a missionary’
• Pastors tend to be woefully unaware of their weaknesses
• Before anything else, you must be called to a community
• Before anything that is truly of God can be born, your own preferences have to die
• What does your community think ‘becoming a Christian’ means
• Churches will never change until the pain of tradition is greater than the pain of change
• Most churches die because they choose to

Humble Orthodoxy-Harris

• It is His approval we are to live and die for
• Don’t try to come up with something novel; preach the gospel
• Orthodoxy is a commitment to cherish the truth of God
• We can believe in many things in moderation, but rarely can we believe in one thing strongly
• Truth that is divorced from personal practice is hypocrisy
• Resist the voice ‘lead strongly; don’t seek counsel’
• We are holding the seats warm for the next generation of pastors

Being the Church in the Culture-Keller

• As the city goes, so goes the culture-culture forming womb
• What changes culture are the grassroots elite
• If we are religious, that allows us to keep control of our lives
• Non-Christians need to see Christians in the spheres of their culture
• Non-Christians want to see what their lives would be like
• Americans are the product of communities, family, relationships; not as individualized as we think
• All cultural work is gardening
• We know how to pull Christians into the church but not into their Christian cultural leadership
• The world is not a theatre; it is a ‘journey’ toward a new heaven and a new earth
• We will flourish by service, which is counter-cultural to power
• Since the Pentecost [Acts 2], you can’t be all things to all people at the same time
• The gospel, as opposed to religion, is the key to contextualization

Preaching the Gospel-Keller

• Is the Bible about you or Jesus?
• Every theme in the Bible points to Jesus
• Preaching is helping individuals understand the Gospel
• Go after the heart! Or the part of the heart that needs to understand the Gospel
• We need to go after the idols that people of struggle with the Gospel

day 1: reform & resurge

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, missiology
• Date: May 10,2006

Day 1 included speakers Darrin Patrick from The Journey in St. Louis, Anthony Bradley from Covenant Seminary also from St. Louis, and Dr. Ed Stetzer from the North American Mission Board.

I missed much of Patrick’s talk because I couldn’t find the church [Seattle’s roads are confusing!], but what I caught was amazing. I hope to get a recording of his teaching. I need to hook up with this guy when I get back to town. Here are some highlights from Bradley and Stetzer:

How Jacked-Up Punks Will Change the World-Bradley

• When we are thinking about missional theology, we are thinking about kingdom
• We have missed the fact that God is redeeming everything-including people-because of the fall now
• Brokenness is everywhere: urban/suburban/rural
• As God heals us, he makes us agents of healing
• When it is about the kingdom, you are more interested in bringing the kingdom to the people than you are about YOU
• Church is the people of God that God has brought up to use for kingdom purposes now; redemptive roles in all types of culture; fighting for what God intended
• Lack of focus on kingdom building has created apathy; people are saying ‘is church it?’

Breaking the Missional Code-Stetzer

• Missional: missionary used as an adjective; we as believers should function as missionaries as culture
• Acts 13 & 17: proof texts for engaging culture
• The how of ministry is frequently determined by who, when, where
• We forbid North American individuals, churches, ministries what we require of international missionaries
• Adoption: Some parts of culture are value positive
• Adaptation: Some parts of culture are value neutral but can be changed/redeemed
• Rejection: Some parts of culture are value negative
• Too many pastors pastor in their heads, not in their communities
• We are in a season where we have entered too far into culture

live from jet city

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, missiology
• Date: May 9,2006

Yes, jet city…well actually seattle [see wikipedia].

Though we have one more value to look at to complete the initial vision for relevintage, I will be taking a hiatus this week to bring you some cool stuff.

I will be attending the Reform & Resurge church conference at Mars Hill Church starting this morning. Mars Hill is pastored by well known pastor, Mark Driscoll. He founded Mars Hill Church in Seattle in the fall of 1996, which has grown to almost 5,000 in one of America’s least churched cities and is one the nation’s 60 fastest-growing churches.

Driscoll has been named one of the twenty-five most influential pastors in America by The Church Report, one of the most influential young preachers in America by Christianity Today, Inc. (with over a million downloads of his sermons a year), and one of the twenty-five most powerful people in Seattle by Seattle magazine.

At the conference, some of the topics that to be addressed will be:

• Preaching the Christian Gospel to a secular audience
• The role of mercy ministry in cultural transformation
• Methods for engaging and decoding culture
• Practical tips for pastors
• Emerging theological errors in need of correction

Some of the speakers are:

• Dr. Tim Keller, keynote speaker, founding pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church (New York) and the author of Ministries of Mercy
• Mark Driscoll, founding pastor at Mars Hill Church (Seattle) and author of The Radical Reformission, Confessions of a Reformission Rev, and Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches
• Anthony Bradley, professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Covenant Seminary (St. Louis)
• Matt Chandler, pastor at The Village Church (Dallas)
• Eric Mason, pastor at Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia.
• Joshua Harris, pastor at Covenant Life Church (Washington D.C.) and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Not Even a Hint, Boy Meets Girl, and Stop Dating the Church
• Darrin Patrick, founding pastor at The Journey Church (St. Louis)
• Dr. Ed Stetzer, founding pastor at Lake Ridge Church (Atlanta) and author of Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age, Planting Missional Churches, Perimeters of Light: Biblical Boundaries for the Emerging Church, and Breaking the Missional Code

I am really looking forward to hearing from Driscoll, Keller, and Stetzer. I have been joking with my ministry partners in St. Louis that I’ve traveled half across the country to hear from two folks in my backyard: Bradley and Patrick.

I won’t be able to give you in-depth coverage each day, but I will be giving some special highlights throughout the week. Next week, I hope to unpack, in detail, all the great conversation that will going on this week.

See you soon..