Photo credit: Let Ideas Compete (Creative Commons) I was managing a mobile home park in Texas – 185 homes located about 45 minutes south of downtown Dallas – the only mobile home park owned by a big property management company in North Dallas. Single, divorced, I had long before made up my mind that I… Read More
Category: Missions
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When organic missions is effective
This video is several years old, but it’s really, really good. A few years ago, reports coming in from the field to the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptists were showing something new. An rapid and seemingly almost spontaneous multiplication of new disciples and new churches was occurring in several unrelated parts of the… Read More
I am privileged to have Ed Waken, an evangelist, write this outstanding post on evangelism. What could happen if we didn’t view spreading the good news as a chore, a somewhat socially embarrassing spiritual duty to be performed, but instead an adventure with Jesus. You can read part 1 of this post here. Ed is… Read More
Are all of us called to evangelize? This series of blog posts has been on simple/organic mission and evangelism. It has provoked a slew of questions. I am blessed to know Ed, an evangelist who is involved in organic churches. Here is his unique take on some of the questions. Ed is a leader in… Read More
Photo credit: James Jordan (Creative Commons) What principles allow rapid multiplication on the mission field? Traditionally, follow up from an evangelistic meeting is done by taking people’s names and addresses and asking them to attend church or go through some materials. This is usually remarkably ineffective. In the context I described in the last post… Read More
Photo credit: williamcho (Creative Commons) Simple/organic church is a great way to not only conserve the harvest, but also to multiply it. We have a friend who is an evangelist in countries that are hostile to the Gospel. We originally contacted him because we were interested in the large healing/evangelistic meetings that, amazingly, he is able… Read More
Photo credit: Gravitywave (Creative Commons) Over the past few months, we have had several people from a more traditional church background and who are in the process of leaving for the mission field visit the church that meets in our home. The exchange has been valuable. Our “Jesus family” has rubbed shoulders with people sold out… Read More
Our friend, Steve Lyzenga did his doctoral dissertation on releasing resources (both financial and personnel) towards completing the Great Commission. He compared how resources are used within a traditional church set up and house/simple/organic churches. I had the honor of being on his doctoral board, and so was closely involved in the whole process. His results… Read More
Photo credit: Themikelee (Creative Commons) How are people in simple/organic churches currently actively engaging in cross-cultural missions? People move with their job. Because they already are familiar with simple church principles of mission (find a person of peace and start something around them), it is natural for them to make disciples and start churches in… Read More
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What does humor have to do with mission?
Photo credit: Gary Wilmore (Creative Commons) There is a saying that the British and Americans are two nations separated by a common language. That proved very true when we moved from the UK to the States in 1987. We naively anticipated that with a common language, the transition would be an easy one. How wrong… Read More