Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver RelinThree Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, is a book you must read. Without knowing that it was already a bestseller, I ordered Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time. It arrived on Friday. I started reading it on Saturday. Tonight is Sunday and I just finished all 338 pages — it is that good!
I announced in our September newsletter that Debbie and I would be visiting each family in our church in the coming months. A frequent complaint in small churches is “the pastor doesn’t visit enough.” Which usually means, “the pastor doesn’t visit me enough.” Not that our folks were complaining, but I’m trying to be more intentional in my pastoral care.
Brian McLaren’s newest book —
Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope
Emergent Village announced today that Brian McLaren, emerging church guru and author, is launching his new book, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope , due out in October, 2007. In Everything Must Change, McLaren asks,
This past week was difficult for our community. I live in Chatham, Virginia, about 2-hours from Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, so we were obviously affected by that tragedy. But, on the Saturday before the VT tragedy, our town doctor died suddenly and unexpectedly. Dr. Thompson was a member of our church, as was his physician father before him, and his pharmacist grandfather. Monday the Virginia Tech shootings occured, and on Tuesday we had the funeral for Dr. Thompson at our church. It was a difficult week for our community.
I’ve put up two new categories — “Sermon Illustrations” and “Missional Church.” I love good stories and that’s what “Sermon Illustrations” is — good stories you can use in sermons or your blogs, or wherever. Most of the stories are my experiences, if not I’ll let you know where they came from. I would appreciate your linking to this site if you use these for your blogs or online content. I have “retrofitted” all the stories here to “Sermon Illustrations” category for your easy reference.
The problem with the small church, as I have said before, is that it is small. Pretty clever insight, but it’s true. Our obsession with numbers in church life always puts the small church at the bottom of the heap. Not counting is not the answer, because most of us have to report to our church board, denomination, or fellow-pastors, “how many” we had in worship or Bible study or both. But there is a better measure of small church faithfulness — counting people in ministry and those touched by ministry.
Continue reading “Counting people in church, or counting people being the church”
The Homeless Camera Adventure, photo by Troy.
Isn’t the internet wonderful? I’m surfing Technorati for missional stuff, and I find my friend Jerry’s blog, Becoming Missional. His latest post is about The Homeless Camera Adventure. These folks give homeless people disposable cameras, then post their view of their world in both black-and-white, and color photographs. The photos range from beautiful, to amusing, to sad. But someone is doing what I’m advocating — coming alongside the “street community” and giving them a creative venue. While the scope of Homeless Nation.org might be beyond the small church, The Homeless Camera Adventure fits a small church perfectly. Anybody doing anything similar in your small church?
Homeless Nation.org* is a Canadian website created by and for the homeless. In their own words, here is their mission:
“Jesus did not say, ‘I will speak true worlds to you’ or ‘I will tell you about the truth;’ he claimed to embody truth in his person. To those who wished to know the truth, Jesus did not offer propositions to be tested by logic or data to be tested in the laboratory. He offered himself and his life. Those who sought truth were invited into relationship with him, and through him with the whole community….”
“Because primitive Christianity revolves around personal, not propositional, truth, its richest insights come down to us in stories about people.”
— To Know As We Are Known, Parker J. Palmer, pg 47.
Have you heard the saying, “Christianity is one generation away from extinction”? My business travels took me to China frequently in the ’90s, mostly to Hong Kong and Shanghai. I opened an office in Shanghai, and hired a Shanghai-born Chinese man as my manager. I’ll call him Mr. Li, but that wasn’t his real name.
ChuckWarnock.com 
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