Subverting Suburbia The suburbs smother the Christian spirit. I know, because I live in suburbia. The message of the suburbs -- heck, the message of the city too, the message of culture -- is self-empowerment. Self-enhancement. Self-fulfillment. Self is at the center... ( added 1 year 86 days ago.)

Missional and Attractional, Part 4 This is the fourth entry in our survey of the attractional-missional church dichotomy, during which I have been elucidating on the contrasts outlined in the following chart: In this installment, I'd like to touch on the relative ways attractional... ( added 1 year 87 days ago.)

Because the Gates of Hell Will Prevail Against the State Before Jesus entered the scene with his unique, prophetic ministry heralding the arrival of the kingdom God, the bulk of Jewish kingdom expectation focused on the assumed overthrow of the Roman government and its oppressive occupation of Israel.... ( added 1 year 93 days ago.)

Missional and Attractional, Part 3 In the last installment in this Missional and Attractional series, I elaborated on the first couple of contrasts in the following chart highlighting general differences between the attractional and missional ways of "doing church" and being the... ( added 1 year 95 days ago.)

Missional and Attractional, Part 2 In Part 1 we looked at the nature of and the motivation behind the so-called "attractional church," perhaps the most prevailing mode of church in the evangelical landscape. Attractional churches are generally motivated by getting as many people... ( added 1 year 100 days ago.)

Missional and Attractional, Part 1 Now that we have briefly surveyed missional meaning and missional motivations, we can continue to unpack the myriad qualities that might make up a missional church. My aim in this series is not to cast "missional" as a trend for evangelicalism or... ( added 1 year 102 days ago.)

What Does a Missional Church Do? Missional philosophy is all well and good, but as the great prophet Duke Ellington said, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." (Doo wop doo wop doo wop.) There are a whole lot of churches and ministries "doing missions," implementing... ( added 1 year 107 days ago.)

The Meaning of Missional If you spend any time at all surveying the contemporary evangelical church landscape, you have likely encountered the buzzword du jour "missional." It is, don't you know?, the latest thing for churches and pastors to be. The primary problem with... ( added 1 year 109 days ago.)