Beginning in October I will be teaching our churches Gospel & Our Church class. This is a foundational class of what we believe as a church and how we live that out.

Session 1: Introduction & The Gospel
Session 2: The Bible
Session 3: God
Session 4: Creation and Sin
Session 5: Salvation
Session 6: Spiritual Warfare
Session 7: Spiritual Disciplines
Session 8: Stewardship
Session 9: The Cultural Mandate
Session 10: The Church

Here is a link to the first time David and I taught it.

I’d like to think through the idea of community, small groups and being the church, here are some books I’m reading:

The Connecting Church: Beyond Small Groups to Authentic Community By: Randy Frazee

Many Christians never experience a deep sense of “belonging” at church—even if they’re members of small groups. Examining the true meaning of community, Frazee helps you implement radical principles—common purpose, place, and possessions—that will foster lasting relationships in your congregation. His biblical model is sure to keep your church healthy and growing!

The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community, and Small Groups By: Joseph R. Meyers

Community is a fundamental life search. We need to belong. In our time, we search with some increasing desperation as terms like neighbor, family, and congregation are being redefined. The Search to Belong, is a practical guide for those struggling to build a community of believers in a culture that wants to experience belonging over believing.

Building a Church of Small Groups: A Place Where Nobody Stands Alone By: Bill Donahue Russ Robinson

This challenging and timely book provides pastors provides pastors and other church leaders with the vision, values, and initial steps necessary to begin building a church where small groups initiate, and are fully integrated throughout, the entire ministry - a church of groups, rather than a church with groups. People are hungry for authentic relationships - with God and with other people. Christians who hope to find those relationships within the local church are too often disappointed. Large gatherings provide a place for celebration, teaching, and worship,and Christian education programs offer a means to become familiar with the content of our faith, but how does the church provide a place where nobody stands alone? Authors Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson, both involved in small group ministry for Willow Creek, believe that it is primarily the small group setting where people are able to engage in authentic relationships. In a small group that is appropriately designed and effectively led, people can wrestle with how truth impacts their lives, experience shepherding by caring leaders, enjoy mutual ministry and create a place to walk together through life’s joys and sorrows. Speaking to key local church leaders, lay and staff, Donahue and Robinson articulate the benefits, challenges, difficulties, and key decisions required to build the neccessary infrastructure to become a church of small groups.

Here is a book that arrived in the mail, it is part of the Gospel & Our Culture Series which I’ve enjoyed reading from in the past (The Church between Gospel and Culture, Missional Church, The Continuing Conversion of the Church).

Storm Front: The Good News of God By: J.V. Brownson, I.T. Dietterich & B.A. Harvey

How does one authentically hear and live out the gospel in North America? This book attempts to answer this question in a way that reveals much about the nature of Christian faith today and its relation to contemporary culture. In keeping with the aims of the acclaimed Gospel and Our Culture series, StormFront investigates how the gospel intersects American culture and seeks to reorient the church to its full and proper missional vocation. Four authors noted for their understanding of modern church life offer a sober yet hopeful critique of American culture that focuses on consumerism and the privatization of religion, and they challenge the Christian church to embrace its corporate task to be salt and light to the world. Amid the many books on the subject, this one is distinctive in its concern for application. By contrasting contemporary life with a thoroughgoing reading of the biblical narrative, the authors help American Christians discern how our cultural location makes it difficult to live out the transformative message of the gospel. Few readers will fail to be engaged by the lessons offered here.

The God Who Is There, 30th Anniversary Edition By: Francis Schaeffer

The God Who Is There is a full, deep, penetrating look at society and its relation to the church (and vice versa), but it can be summarized in five basic passions, according to author and editor James Sire, in the foreword. One, a passion for the God who is there, the God who directly engages with his people. Two, a passion for truth. Schaeffer felt that the conflict seen in society stemmed from differing concepts of truth, and he calls us to return to the truth of Scripture. Three, a compassion for people. As Schaeffer states in the book, “As I push the man off his false balance, he must be able to feel that I care for him. Otherwise I will only end up destroying him…” Four, a passion for culture. Without a deep, full understanding of what the world is thinking about and chasing after, the church cannot speak the truth of the Gospel effectively to it. Five, a passion for relevant and honest communication. Schaeffer brilliantly focuses on how many in our society use words to mask the real meanings and to hide reality. He calls us to unmask the meanings, and to face reality squarely.

Escape from Reason By: Francis Schaeffer

Man is dead. God is dead. Life has become meaningless existence, man a cog in a machine. The only way of escape lies in a nonrational fantasy world of experience, drugs absurdity, pornography, an elusive “final experience,” madness… In this highly orginal book Dr. Schaeffer traces the way in which art and philosophy have reflected the dualism in Western thinking introduced at the time of the Renaissance. Today this dualism is expressed in a despair of rationality and an escape into a nonrational world which alone offers hope.

He Is There & He Is Not Silent By: Francis Schaeffer

Schaeffer deals with the fundamental spiritual questions: What do we know? and How do we know what we know? He points to an infinite, personal God whom we can come to know intimately.

In Acts, when the first Church was built, it was a perverse pre-Christian generation. What we see in this church is valuable to us today because Scripture tells us about how we should be a community within a corrupt culture. As our culture suffers and worsens our goal as a church is not to save culture; but to save the lost. We need to understand how we can reflect the Gospel to the corrupt world around us. It is within this corruptness that Kaleo has an opportunity to show what a difference it means to be a community in Christ. Full Sermon >

Often people come to church on Sunday’s and they are looking for answers. During each week new challenges come up that we must face. Our lives are marked by highs and lows. How can we take Scripture and apply it into our lives? Today, we will read the beginning of the 4th chapter, where Paul tells the Philippians very practical things in response to who God is and what He has done. Full Sermon >

A lot of ink has spilled discussing the shape of the emerging North American church. We hear voices within the church speak of a need to re-tool the ‘modern church’ to create a spiritual experience that reflects the current cultural context. It is clear that this creation requires changing the way we do church. The challenge that we must grapple with in the midst of this transition is discerning what the church should be willing to change. Today there is a tension in the emerging church between our biblical calling and the desire to be culturally relevant. Read the full article: Article Published at The Ooze

How are we as believers supposed to react to pop psychology and secular counseling? What does God’s Word say about these things and depression, self-esteem and more. Full Sermon >

Goodmanson.com is a site that will collect the writings, thoughts and interests of Drew Goodmanson. I hope that some of these ramblings and ideas are profitable for friends and families to join in and discuss. And most important we will also put pictures up of Gideon (always a family favorite).