Tonight I had an opportunity to have dinner with my old pastor Mark Driscoll, Jamie Munson (an elder and friend from Mars Hill) and a few of the local Acts 29 planters.  It was great to hear the many stories and challenges from Mark & Jamie.  Driscoll was in town and spoke at a pannel regarding his new book, Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives which included perspectives from Mark Driscoll, John Burke, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt and Karen Ward.  He brought us all books, I'm looking forward to reading the Ward/Driscoll exchange.  I'm sure this book will frustrate many but this is part of the conversation going on right now.

There is often something quite arrogant about Calvinists.  I think many people gag against the 'know-it-all-ism' that exudes from these (often) academic theologians who seem to have God in a nice neat little box.  Personally, I often warn people of the dangers of reformed theology, because like a kid with a new sword they end up hurting more Christians swinging this new sharp blade without any skill.  In many circles, this season can last a lifetime before their reformed theology truly helps them worship God for the grace that was shown them, accept their new identity, be transformed by the gospel and sent on mission.  I believe a major stumbling block in diving into reformed theology is that it typically begins with systematic theology.

The danger is systematics are a normative expression of theology.  That is, it is true but often misses how we should absorb the information.  For example, it is true to say, "God elects" but this defines God, we are the benefactor of God's grace which changes us in many ways.  This is the challenge, systematics usually leave out the full gospel picture of how this God's grace works it's way out in our life. This is what Francis Schaeffer saw as the great spiritual crisis in his book True Spirituality.  Schaeffer saw that many people who claimed to uphold orthodox theology had very little true spirituality.  Schaeffer realized he too, although he had the doctrines down, lacked spiritual transformation.  For all his knowledge, Schaeffer began to see true spirituality is not just a matter of the mind, but a matter of the heart.

This is where I found a great chart in the GCA Church Manual from Steven Childers.  In this chart, The Radical Grace of God in the Gospel: The Whole Gospel for the Whole Person! (pdf) Childers outlines systematic 'precepts' in a more complete gospel picture.  I'd encourage you to download it and check it out.  Here is one example:

It is in this type of presentation, theology goes beyond systematics.  A whole gospel picture begins to emerge as we begin to talk about things like election and justification.  Rather than jumping into TULIP, a conversation that deals with the predicament, problem, provision, promise, precept and new picture would provide the listener a greater understanding of who God is, how He works and His great love and grace.  This is the grand story that people can see through redemptive history as told in the Bible.

Found this article on evangelism/outreach methods from EllisonResearch published in the 2007 January/February edition of Facts & Trends magazine. The findings are from a representative sample of 811 Protestant church ministers nationwide.  Here is a snippet:

The methods churches are using for evangelism are quite varied. The most common is Vacation Bible School, or VBS, which has been used by seven out of 10 churches for evangelism in the last year. At least half have used literature such as tracts or magazines (59 percent), events such as block parties or a Fall Festival (56 percent), musical events or concerts (51 percent), mailings or fliers (50 percent), and nursing home or retirement center visits (49 percent) specifically for the purposes of evangelism.

Other relatively popular evangelistic efforts include “invite a friend to church” days (42 percent), revivals or crusades (40 percent), evangelism training classes or groups (38 percent), door-to-door visitation within the community (37 percent), community service such as cleanup days (31 percent), online efforts such as blogs or web sites (27 percent), audio or visual products such as tapes or DVDs (26 percent), and booths at community events such as the county fair (20 percent).

Ninety-seven percent of all churches report doing something specifically for the purposes of evangelism over the last year.

Just what churches are doing to evangelize their communities differs quite a bit by denominational group. Southern Baptist churches are particularly big on using revivals or crusades, literature, evangelism training classes or groups, and door-to-door visitation, but are less likely than average to use any sort of online evangelism. Other Baptist groups (National, Progressive, General, etc.) are fairly close to average, but are a bit more likely than others to use literature and door-to-door visitation.

Methodist churches are more likely than average to use events, but less likely to use literature, door-to-door visitation, and revivals or crusades. Lutherans are particularly likely to rely on Vacation Bible School, online methods, and mailings or fliers, and less likely to use revivals or crusades, musical events or concerts, or audio/visual methods. Pentecostal churches are particularly likely to employ musical events or concerts, revivals or crusades, “invite a friend to church” days, and audio/visual products, but less likely than average to use Vacation Bible School for evangelism. Presbyterians are especially unlikely to use literature, revivals or crusades, door-to-door visitation, or audio/visual products.

In general, evangelical churches use a greater variety of evangelistic tools than do mainline Protestant churches. Evangelical churches are considerably more likely to attempt evangelism through literature, revivals or crusades, evangelism training classes or groups, door-to-door visitation, and audio/visual products, while mainline churches have only a greater propensity for doing community service as a form of evangelism.

Full report:  Four out of ten pastors lack strong interest in increasing community outreach

Church Planting Resources posted a paper that "sets out a new paradigm for church planting that may help create such a culture. Missionary and Missiologist Roland Allen calls the kind of church planting movement referred to in the MNA church planting vision as “the spontaneous expansion of the Church”, its “unlimited expansion” and the “spontaneous freedom of expanding life.”

It includes:

1. Principles of Spontaneous Church Planting Expansion (with applications)

2. Case Studies: Mars Hill in Seattle (of a Spontaneous Expansion), Harbor Presbyterian in San Diego (of a One-Church/Multi-Congregational Movement)

3. Written by Tim Keller it includes much of their philosophy @ Redeemer

4. Feedback in Paul’s Missionary and Church Planting Method

5. The Mission to North America’s (MNA) Church Planting Vision

Go here to download Emergence Theory and the Spontaneous Expansion of the Church – a vision for Church planting in the 21st Century a 22-page PDF. 

I saw this from Joe Thorn on The Gospel and Its Meaning … 

The Gospel and Its Meaning by Harry L Poe, Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University is a book to help Christians understand the scope of the gospel in order to better preach and apply it to the people God has sent them to.  Poe argues that the good news is comprised of nine parts: the existence of a Creator, the fulfillment of Scripture, the incarnation of Jesus Christ as son of God and son of David, his death for sins, his resurrection, his exaltation, the gift of the holy spirit, the return of the Lord, and human response.

Thoughts?  I haven't read the book, so I don't know if 'the fulfillment of scripture' encompasses things such as the Kingdom.

Speaker: Dr. Steve Ogne

David Fairchild provides a good summary of the session on Mobilizing Church Planters .  Steve gives a few suggestions for finding and igniting a multiplication movement. What are we looking for when we think of a lighting rod of a man who knows how to charge and take a hill?

1-The leader should engage the culture intentionally not accidentally.
2-The leader can be someone who is effective at disciple-making and can start and multiply a group.
3-The leader may be a pioneer church planter who starts and pastor a new congregation.
4-The leader needs to have a proven track record of being catalytic in his context.
5-The leader may come from an environment where he is the pastor of a parent church who sponsors new churches to begin.
6-The leader may be a coach who empowers and equips church planters.
7-The leader may be a mentor who raises up disciple-making leaders, church planters and missionaries to start and multiply churches.
8-This leader should be an intercessor who prays for others regularly.

Some qualities that an attractive church planting movement possesses:

1-Reputation- We need to know what our reputation is to the city and other churches. What are our distinctives? How would we clarify our theology? How do we articulate our ministry style?
2-Vision- Do you have an attractive vision for church multiplication? Does your movement have empowering visionary leadership?
3-Compassion for lost people- How do you emphasize outreach, compassion, ministry and evangelism?
4-Care- To what degree are you able to provide personal care for church planters and their families?
5-Diversity- How are you prepared to reach the diversity of the harvest and therefore attract a diversity of church planters?
6-Character- What is the quality and character of your leaders, pastors and people?
7-Coaching- What kinds of ongoing coaching, training and resources can you provide to the church planting team?
8-Resources- Do you have reasonable financial resources and benefits to attract the planters your need?
9-Success- Do you have a track record of successful ministry and church planting?

"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few…" (Matthew 9:37b)  How do you raise and recruit leaders to change a city?  Dr. Steve Ogne states that, recruiting is NOT a long term solution.  Ogne believes that effective leadership development systems begin with the lost community.  Pastoral leaders have the responsibility to raise up the next generation of pastors, church planters and missionaries from within their context.   This is exactly what we at Kaleo Church are developing for 2007.  Yet, as we seek to not build a church, but change a city we recognize how short-handed we are.  It is Kaleo's vision to plant 15 churches within the next 7 years through a multi-site model.  This February we are launching our third.  (In this same period, we also have a goal of more than 15 traditional parent/daughter church plants in Southern California through our relationship with Acts 29.)  With that said we are in need of people who have a heart for mission, church planting and seeing a city changed by the gospel. 

In particular we need:

Church Planters who want to actively participate in not just one (a site) but a movement, multiple church plants that will occur throughout the city. 

Worship Leaders, musicians and artists who understand the vision/philosophy of ministry where the style of worship is an expression of the local context, yet rich and true in it's theological proclamations. 

Church Interns and others who want want to roll-up their sleeves and see what it means to learn theology while on mission.

Gospel-Centered Counselors who want to join our counseling center to change & counsel people through gospel transformation.  We just launched Kaleo Christian Counseling Center to minister to both people in the church and to the city at large. 

Supporters who have a heart for reaching San Diego and are willing to pray, donate time, finances and other resources to change the city. 

Are you a designers, developers or programmer?  MinistryCamp Job Board has launched “a listing of design and programming jobs offered by ministries looking for the best of the online industry that loves Jesus.”  One of the benefits of MinistryCamp, is a percentage of the sales is given back into practical Christian ministry determined on a monthly basis. This month MinistryCamp is giving to Campus Crusade for Christ in New Orleans. If you need designers, developers, programmers or others, check out MinistryCamp as a employment advertising option.

I'm always curious about social trends and the shape of things to come.  It is through this fascination, I've gathered some information and patterns to suggest where the future of spirituality is going and what is after postmodernism.  I believe postmodernism is already dead.  Unfortunately, it will take years (and even decades in some pockets of culture) to unfold the new era of where things are going.  I believe Christians need to be prepared for the challenges ahead as we desire to understand our culture and communicate the gospel to a dying world. 

Here are the shifts that I believe will radically alter the spiritual landscape of the west:

1. The Science of Faith - Science has, in the past steered away from non-empirical areas of faith.  But under increased pressure to explain the unexplainable, scientists are moving quickly to provide a framework of reducing faith to 'scientific' components.  Science must do this to restore the lost power from the rise of postmodernism and rejection of a naturalistic modern progression.  The day will come where issues of faith, belief and spirituality will be considered 0's & 1's that came from evolution.  Science will tell us why we have faith or beliefs and attempt to strip validity of all religion.  [Eg. One such area of study is memetics, an approach to evolutionary models of information transfer based on the concept of the meme.  'Meme ' is a term often used in blogging about the viral transfer of information through blogs but it actually was coined in the biological field prior by Richard Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene".]

2. Christianity as a Psychiatric Diagnosis and social ill - Under the 'new' science of the mind, people who are of faith will be considered in need of treatment.  As science enters into the faith equation all religions will be seen as 'Viruses of the Mind' or Faith Suffers as Richard Dawkins writes.  To deal with man's true problems will require treatment to remove the guilt, dogma and false belief structures imposed by religion.  True therapeutic healing can only begin after the Christian rejects the superstition of faith.  Dawkins argues  that religion may be "natural" but like a viral infection Christianity is still a disease that must be eradicated for the good of humanity.   

3. The death of Pluralism & Postmodernism - Religions will be blamed for the wars, prejudices and intolerance in our world.  There will no longer be a tolerance to religious differences.  As all religions are lumped into one malady, no religion will be considered right, except the faith in science & naturalism.  Pluralism and the relativity of postmodernism will be rejected as frameworks that are naive and unworkable.

4. The Rise of the New Atheist - All of these shifts will be aggressively pursued by thinkers who are no longer tolerant of any religious faith.  As described by Wired: "The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it's evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking."  (Source: Wired, The Crusade Against Religion Oct 23rd 2006)  Wired claims the three leading atheists are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.  Also see the Bright's Net , a collective of this new atheist.  (Logo from their website)  These atheists will not stop until all religion is labeled evil.

"We certainly have been placed in an interesting time.  In fact it is not much different than what Machen was experiencing in the early 1900's.  We have a rise of liberalism within the church labeled as Emergent.  And we have the rise of scientism outside the church labeled as Progess.  Both are trying to regain ground.  One attempts to gain ground they lost to the evangelicals, and the other ground they lost to the postmoderns.  The New Liberalism and the New Science which are not really new at all are they?,"  Tom Moller, an elder at Kaleo Church .

For those who are church planters, I've put together a list of Acts 29 pastors who have blogs.  My assumption is that a lot of these planters will post on issues of church planting and being the church.

David Fairchild (San Diego)

Mark Moore (Dallas & Mark blogs about the International Acts 29 movement)

Mark Driscoll (Seattle)

Michael Foster (Cincinnati)

Bill Streger (Houston)

Pete Williamson (Bellingham)

Tim Wagner (West LA) 

Brent Rood (Bothell WA)

Ed Marcelle (Troy, NY) 

Jonathan Herron (Kent OH)

Ryan Mobley (Springfield IL) 

Justin Anderson (Tempe, AZ) 

duane matthew smets (Pacific Beach) 

Mike Edwards (Detroit)

Who else am I missing? 

During my flight to Hawaii, I cracked open the SkyMall.  In it, I found an advertisement for Soundview Executive Summaries.  For a yearly subscription, you can receive summaries of the best business books of the year in your choice of print, audio, CD-ROM, or online formats, covering subjects like management, leadership, strategy and more.

I know many of you read (or would like to) a large number of books.  BUT what if someone did the same thing for theology & church-related books?  People could subscribe to receive summaries of the best theology/Church titles of the year and (buy them if they like it or at least learn from the book).  I suggested it to Tim Challies for Discerning Reader (since he reads more books than 10 people combined).

What do you think, is this something you'd be interested in? 

If you haven't heard, LinkedIn continues to gain momentum as a place for people to network, find jobs and old co-workers.  Because I work in the web development industry, I've joined, (view my LinkedIn Profile ) but I don't know if pastors and other church leaders are using it. 

Since we're talking about work, Keller wrote a short but good piece on "What Kind of Work Should I do?" and here is a quote:

First, consider your affinities. This is the existential aspect to determining your calling. It is asking the question: “What people-needs do I vibrate to?” Second, consider your abilities. This is the empirical aspect to determining your calling. It is asking the question: “What kinds of tasks am I good at doing?” Third, consider your opportunities. This is the ‘providential’ aspect to determining your calling. It is asking the question: “What actual doors are opening for me? What needs to be done?” 

Read the full article, “God’s Work; Our Work” in January 2007’s Redeemer Report (PDF).  (HT: djchuang )

Our church launched a location at SDSU this last year.  This process has increased my passion to equip these students with a Biblical worldview and gospel-center as they face the daily challenge of being a Christian at college.  When I went to college at University of Oregon, I know I disregarded my Christian upbringing to pursue the things of the world, which seemed much more appealing.  While I was raised in the church, I had never received a Biblical worldview and ended up seeing faith as a compartment in my life that was much less interesting than the pleasures found on a college campus away from my parents.  Now I can see that I was only a cultural christian at the time, and it was two years later I recognized the bankruptcy of a life without God.  God reached me at my lowest point and it was there I received a saving faith that caused me to repent and follow him.  I am thankful for that season, as now I am convinced that only the joy of God can satisfy my eternal longing.

If you know students about to set-off for college, our worship leader wrote a review of a book that may be helpful to bring up discussion & areas for prayer:

I recently came across a great book by Abbie Smith called Can You Keep Your Faith in College?, Abbie gathers together 50 college students to write essays on college life as a Christian. They openly discuss the ups and downs, pressures, perceptions, and challenges that a Christian college student faces on campus. The fact that this subject is written by actual college students living in the academic trenches helps to give this book credibility. I’m sure parents, pastors or professors could write a helpful book on the “dangers of college life”, but it just wouldn’t carry the weight and urgency that come from hearing from your own peers.
I think most young men and women cannot wait to get out of the house when they graduate from high school. The idea of calling your own shots is alluring, but it also comes with an incredible amount of responsibility - and this is something that is learned by experience. I found most of the writers that shared their experiences in this book to be extremely open about their struggles and sin, and I found this refreshing and not something you read too often in Christian literature.

Read entire article:  Review of Can You Keep Your Faith in College?

This year, Kaleo Church began a corporate Bible reading plan.  As we embark on this, I was forwarded an excellent article by Michael Goheen, The Urgency of Reading the Bible as One Story in the 21st Century (PDF). Goheen writes:

Today, as in the ancient era, the Church is confronted by a host of master narratives that contradict and compete with the gospel. The pressing question is: who gets to narrate the world?”  Webber believes the three leading contenders are the Muslim story, the liberal capitalist story, and (somewhat surprisingly) The Marxist story. Over against these three contenders Webber and Kenyon say: “In a world of competing stories, we call Evangelicals to recover the truth of God's word as the story of the world, and to make it the centerpiece of Evangelical life.” 

How can the Church confront these stories and make the Biblical story our centerpiece, when as Goheen rightly claims, Christians fragment the Bible into bits, "moral bits, systematic-theological bits,devotional bits, historical-critical bits, narrative bits, and homiletical bits."  It is when we have a fragmented view of the Bible, there is no one grand story that shapes our 'culture' or worldview.  "The Bible bits are accommodated to the more all-embracing cultural story, and it becomes that story—i.e.the humanist story—that shapes our lives," writes Goheen. As Christians, we need to recover the Biblical Drama as one story, that is THE normative story of history.

Again, read this article, great quotes from Eugene Peterson, Lesslie Newbigin, and N. T. Wright (An essential part of our theological and missional task today is to ‘tell this story as clearly as possible, and to allow it to subvert other ways of telling the story of the world . . .’)

UPDATE: Here are two past posts w/ book recommendations that help present this one story: The Drama of Scripture (Goheen, author of the article) and Promise and Deliverance

The year 2006 has been a full year for our family.   Some of the events that shaped us were:

• Our family grew with the adoption of Roman in January.
• Gideon, our 3 year old spent two months in a full body cast February through March.
• Monk Development doubled in size, including 100's of churches now using Ekklesia 360 Church CMS and the launch of Sermon Cloud, with 1000's of users and sermon downloads.
• Kaleo Church doubled as well.  We launched Kaleo SDSU in the Fall and are preparing to launch a 3rd location in El Cajon beginning in 2007.

We are excited to go into 2007, many of the above events will still impact the new year. I look forward to learning from you the blogging community, sharing more insights and getting feedback and building relationships with many of you in my virtual community.

Have a great New Years and for now, here are a few Goodmanson December photos to wrap up 2006.  (Images include Christmas, Disneyland, my Birthday, friends & family.)