Vol 4:19 Mission and Leading Christ’s Community – Part 15: Leading New Wineskins

I recently picked up a book I have had on my shelf for a number of years and began reading it – They Call Us Dead Men: Reflections on Life and Conscience by Daniel Berrigan, S.J. In it, among numerous other things, he talks about the church and advocates for regaining a sense of church as youthful. He states, “Genuine youthfulness in the Church never canonizes human beings or their works. ...

Vol 4:14 Mission and Leading Christ’s Community – Part 10: Being Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

In leading missionally within the context of the congregation I have served, I am learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. In many ways I would rather be comfortable with being comfortable, but I am discovering that makes ministry all about me, rather than where the Spirit is leading us, and how we are being called to participate with God in God’s mission. Being comfortable closes...

Vol 3: 16 Missional Living: The Chaos of Following the Spirit

Following the Spirit can only be described as chaotic when we sense we have lost or are losing control in knowing where we are being led. We determine a situation is chaotic, when we cannot exert enough influence to ensure the outcomes we desire. Exercising effective leadership has much to do with bringing order out of chaos – but I suspect it has little to do with being open to the leading...

Vol 3:10 Missional Journey: Lent – The Disorientation of Walking with God

As a Mennonite community, the community I pastor, we are on a journey throughout Lent in which we seek to focus on Psalms of Disorientation and Reorientation. Walter Brueggemann is the one who gives voice to this understanding of the Psalms (cf. Praying the Psalms, Spirituality of the Psalms) and expresses that the Psalms of Lament are meant to disorient us. In being a missional people seeking...

Vol 3: 7 A Church in Which the Spirit Dwells: Organizing Around the Moving of the Holy Spirit

I have had a number of conversations with church planters or others involved in revitalizing their congregations about how they plan to restructure the organizing of their churches to facilitate increased ministry effectiveness. In fact, I remember one such conversation in which my friend pointed to a 30-step plan his denomination had given to him to follow in planting and organizing a church,...