Recession: How Bad Is It?

Is the recession kicking your butt around like it is mine? Most of our ministry proposals for 2009 were regretfully turned down. That means there are networks and movements in over a dozen countries that we will not be able to support financially next year. It also means we need to tighten our belts and…

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Hope For Europe Roundtable

HPE Roundtable starts tomorrow in Basel, Switzerland. I should really be there but am not – I am home, working on a secret project, then off to teach at Cliff College on Wednesday. My apologies. Is anyone blogging the Hope for Europe Roundtable? Technorati Tags: hpe roundtable, hope for europe

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Mega-Churches in Cyberspace?

Wanna help? I am writing an article on missions and post-modernities, in particular the idea of transcoding mission in a world of new media communications. It will be published [unless they think it unworthy] close to the Edinburgh 2010 events. It would be a help to me if you could read an old blog post…

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Francis DuBose on “Missional” Video

A few months ago, I was a participator in a 50-blogger synchroblog on the word “missional” – a word that is now in common usage to describe the church’s role as sent into the world. The word was coined in the 20th Century by Dr Francis DuDose. I used to direct the Page Street Center…

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On Going Fourth

So it’s like 3 FLIPPIN’ A.M. and I cant sleep and my mind is churning over and I am solving the worlds problems when I should be snoozing. Again. I have recently requested some funds for a number of social enterprises. What was keeping me up was the measurement criteria for a global mission fund…

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India: Flood victims AND Christian martyrs

Phil J. reports on India that not only are people left homeless from the flood but also Christians are running for their lives from radical Hindus in Orissa and some Christians have been martyred. Read the story and the background. That first link has a document from the Evangelical Fellowship of India that you can…

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Missional – cover story at Next Wave

I have some thoughts on Next-Wave about being “missional”. Looking back, I should have made mention to the excellent blog post by Ed Stetzer here. Enjoy the read. Technorati Tags: missional

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GloboChrist: The Book to Read

This is for the missional entrepreneurs working in continental Europe that I will be teaching in Belgium next week. You know who you are and you may have been notified of my book recommendation. If not, here it is: The most important book you can read in preparation for my presentations, the one and only…

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Aberdeen with Andrew Walls

This morning I am at Crown Terrace Methodist Church in Aberdeen to hear missiologist Andrew Walls preach and then I will be having lunch with Andrew. I hope he can cook! Really excited about this. Dr Walls is arguably the leading expert on the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh (1910) and how it panned out…

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Are Short Term Missions a Waste of Money?

A Washington Post article last week entitled “Churches Retool Mission Trips” examines the criticism that short term missions are high cost and lack value. HT: Seth Barnes Its a good article and worth reading. I share many of the same concerns. Yes – a $2000 house built for $30,000 by an overseas mission team might…

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Ramayana at British Library

I spent a whole morning at the British Library exhibition called Mewar Ramayana: Love and Valor in India’s Great Epic. The display included 400 paintings, produced by Hindu and Muslim artists between 1649 and 1653, that tell the story of Rama and Sita, a story that forms the basic mythology behind the Hindu vedas and…

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Jeff Fountain at the Cell Church Euro Symposium

I popped over to London for the European Cell Church Symposium which was conveniently only 30 minutes from Luton airport. Highlight for me was hearing Jeff Fountain talk about Europe – its past and future connected to Asia. Jeff is a fellow kiwi (yeah . . . salt of the earth!) and currently heads up…

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Missional Synchroblog: The Skinny on Missional

Missional. I lost my job because of “missional”. I will tell you how in a second but, first thing, before i start whining over losing my job at the Baptist Convention of Texas, welcome to the missional synchroblog, organized by Rick at Blind Beggar. My entry is one of the latest (stuck in Aberdeen due…

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1024 Window

I am working on a small presentation for tonight for a project I am calling the 1024 window. A billion people are online and they are viewing the world and finding answers through a screen that is most likely 1024 pixels across and 768 pixels high. The most popular display resolution in the world is…

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Four Steams: Emerging, Missional, Mosaic, Monastic.

Tom Sine has an excellent article online called Joining the Anabaptist Conspirators which draws from his book. He lists 4 kinds of activists in this movement that is redefining Christianity.: Emerging, Missional, Mosaic and Monastic. I really like this! Where do we fit? I see all 4 streams in what we are doing. Sorry if…

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David Pierce on Tall Skinny Kiwi

David Pierce, director of Steiger International and No Longer Music is my guest today. You can interact with him in the comments section if you want to ask him anything. Great guy. Amazing ministry. From a barge in Amsterdam to the ends of the earth, taking its message of hope to “some of the darkest…

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Edinburgh 1910 – 2010

UPDATED and reposted in case you missed it. 2010 marks one hundred years since the International Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, 1910. Needless to say, many of us have been working towards it and this blog post should update you. LATEST NEWS: The lectures from Edinburgh 1910 have been digitized and are now available online. This…

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A Century of Missional Thinking in the West

Mission used to be something our Western Christian countries did for the non-Western “heathen” lands that we called the Third World. Talking like that now will get your email boxed flamed. Times have changed. Now the global south and east has more Christians than we do. They even send their missionaries to our countries. Our…

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Context [Part 2]: Between Mindlessess and Recklessness.

This Series on Contextualization: [Part 1]: Does it Matter? [Part 2]: Between Mindlessness and Recklessness [Part 3]: Between Absolutism and Relativism Phil Johnson puts forward a good response to my response. I had not previously read his thoughts on the subject of "contextualization" but I can now see that he has a few good points…

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