Simply ChurchI love this Christmas video. I love the expressions on the faces of the kids acting it, but I love it’s message too! Enjoy. I pray that you all will experience the peace and joy that comes from the presence of Jesus over this Christmas season. Merry Christmas!
Some time ago, Jared White wrote a comprehensive and detailed review of The Black Swan Effect: A Response to Gender Hierarchy in the Church. I was amazed and blessed at the amount of work he put into it–it might easily be the best review I’ve seen. Since that time, he and I have corresponded over various… Read More
In 1996, a coach at our kids’ school handed our son, Jon, a small brochure written by Jim Rutz. It had a lion on the front cover, and was about a different kind of church that Jim envisioned and called “open church.” Our hearts resonated with the message, because it described a kind of church… Read More
The key skill to making disciples and planting churches is an ability to recognize God’s voice. Do we know when he is speaking to us? Can we distinguish his voice from our own thoughts? Many of us have learnt how to do this on an individual basis, but how many churches put into practice the… Read More
I’ve been reading a fascinating book by Kenneth E. Bailey recently. The title, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels is an accurate description of the contents. Bailey has spent decades in the Middle East and he brings a very different perspective on many stories and ideas—such as the parables of Jesus, the… Read More
There is one key skill that each of us needs to develop if we want to multiply disciples. I was spending time with the Lord one morning, watching two squirrels play a game of tag in the oak tree outside my window, when, out of the blue, a thought came to mind. “You are to… Read More
It’s 2001, and Tony and I are in India where we are speaking at a conference. Another of the speakers is from India, and he’s someone we’ve wanted to meet for a long time because we’ve heard that he’s in the middle of an extraordinary, multiplying church planting movement. So in every break, I take… Read More
Sadly, we Christians are renowned for our negative attitudes. According to David Kinnamen in his book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…and Why It Matters, we are thought of by ‘outsiders’ (ie those who are not involved in church) as firstly, antigay (91%), secondly, judgmental (87%), and thirdly, hypocritical (85%). This is a tragedy!… Read More
God is doing incredible things all around the world. There are probably more Christians in China now than members of the Communist Party. In Asia, the T4T training has resulted in more than 1.7 million baptisms over the past 10 years. In India, a Hindu nation, one house church network with which I am familiar,… Read More
This last weekend, we had a round table in Dallas based on our book, The Black Swan Effect. It was an extraordinary time, with a sometimes overwhelming sense of the Lord’s presence. God spoke to us clearly. The climax of the day was a powerful time of ministry led by Brandon Chase, where on behalf of… Read More