Hey there friends, my wife (tentatively) bought me a year subscription to Proost, and resource for church ministry/worship, but before we actually put down the money, I was wondering if anyone here has used it and found it effective at all?

If you are from Calgary or simply want to hear someone share some insights on their own community where they live, please head over to Incarnation Instant Breakfast, and read some thoughts by Albert.

He does a very effective job of sharing thoughts of someone no longer in full-time ministry and what he sees in his neighbourhood.

great stuff

Ladies and Gentlemen

The final count on the Wellgivings.

$15,745

That means over 1000 people in Malawi will have water. Awesome.

I just finished reading Seth Godin’s book, small is the new big. This is a great book for the person who needs a kick in the butt in their current job, or some ideas to stir the imagination, or simply to learn a little about the web and how to utilize it as a marketer or entrepreneur. Here are some thoughts from Seth on how small is the new big.

Seth Godin breaks down the book into “183 other riffs, rants, and remarkable business ideas,” which make this book feel like a blog. This is very helpful as each short story and thought leads you into your own person thinking on your own situation. Even as a church planter I found myself wrestling with what we are currently doing as a church and how I might be able to shake things up, or simply to stay true to the path I have known all along to take.

If you want your mind to be stirred, and your creative ideas to flow, I highly recommend picking up this book and stick it on your coffee table for random thought explosion.

My church planting coach asked a few of us to comment on some of the ways we measure our effectiveness as church planters.

Many questions in the past have geared around numbers, such as baptisms, conversions, gospel presentations, but I think we need to think through a lot of these former measurements.

I tend to think the questions asked of the church planters should be more specific to the church planting task itself.

Maybe questions like what books have you read or are reading about church planting are effecting the way you church plant (accountability to read). Or perhaps questions about the individuals community itself, such as where are the common places in your neighbourhood that people gather and how are you gathering there with them (accountability to study the community)? Or what is the spiritual climate of your neighbourhood, what religions/non-relgions are present? Or what have you learned from spending time in the community centre? Or maybe what do the people in your community like to do, or how do they communicate? What are the greatest needs in your neighbourhood (homelessness, drugs, single mothers)?

Does that make sense?

It’s my opinion that many church planters do not understand their contexts enough when they plant, which is why so many churches look the same. Because despite how much prayer and knowledge of God they have, they really need to understand their people.

Just a few thoughts.

Thought I would let you know that we have finally finished the open house newsletter for December.

It has been a long time coming, but hopefully we will get back into a rhythm and begin putting these out every quarter in order to update everyone.

There are some great articles about our new interns, project 51 (more to come on this), Kristin‘s gleaning trip and work with extended care and ways for our friends to support us in an exciting transition.

Please have a read…

Dec07_Newsletter

I wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And I wanted to thank Randy and Lambrick for bringing something back into my life this season tonight at the Christmas Eve service. I am not sure if i can name it, I can only say I felt it and it was life.

cheers

After Suvi pointed me to that great quote from God’s politics, of which i posted on here as well, I began to think through what that might mean for our church.

What if belonging to a faith community meant becoming an employee, instead of a customer? It seems to me that when people decide to be a member of a church they are saying that now I am going to be a loyal customer as long as you serve me.

Now this is not a new concept, I understand that but sometimes I wonder if it will not matter how often we preach or teach that, but as long as our church structure looks like that it will continue to be that way. Say what you want about Sunday morning, but that structure suggests in many ways that the employees (and the volunteers) teach the customers.

The big idea/concept I am working through this holiday season is how do we grow as a church, and how do I lead in this growth, without needing to control through a regular large group weekly gathering. How do I free up all those who say they belong to the community to serve all those who are not in our community. You see if we as members are to be employees, then that means the customers are all those who do not consider themselves “members” of the open house.

What I am trying to get at is for us (and sometimes i mean me) to move through this recent time of transition, it is going to mean letting go more and more, and then trusting God to communicate vision and direction even when other open house’rs don’t “see” me that often.

Not sure where I am going with this, other than to say to all those who consider themselves part of the open house that I am going to need you. I am going to need you to take action, to take initiative in anyway you know how to move this ship along. It’s going to be up to all of us and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Too many people come into community to find something, to belong to a dynamic group, to find a life which approaches the ideal. If we come into community without knowing that the reason we come is to discover the mystery of forgiveness, we will soon be disappointed.
- Jean Vanier
Community and Growth

thanks for the heads up Suvi.

Via Sojo

Jake and Kyle

Originally uploaded by urbanplanter.

I’m off the the well fundraiser tonight. But before I set off I thought I’d post a pic of Jake and I at Ambleside Park in West Vancouver last Monday.

As you can see I am growing the Christmas beard. It comes off when we have heat in our house…not sure when that is going to happen yet.

see some of you tonight!