Connecting People and Communities
My friends at Ma Siss’s Place and Quincy Street Missional Church were featured on the front page of the Boston Globe this morning.
This first in four part series will continue the next three days (I will post a link each day) and features many pictures and some other multimedia.
“From a Dorchester Chop Shop, to a Place to Pray”
Last week’s issue of U.S. News and World Report featured a couple of articles that include Common Table.
The cover story “A Return to Tradition” and “Mixing Jesus with Java: The Appeal of New Religious Communities.”
I just read The Church and the Incubator, a wonderful article on Wrecked for the Ordinary by Adrienne Ashby. Adrienne talks about a midwife in South Africa that has mothers of premature babies keep skin-to-skin contact with them instead of placing them in a mechanical, lonely, incubator. She then goes on to speak of Western churches as giant incubators and the need for human-to-human contact.
Authors: Peta Owens-Liston
Journal: Time Magazine
Publish Date: Dec. 26, 2006
I just finished reading a TIME article about restaurants that ask people to “pay what you can.†It seems to me an intersting model of voluntary redistribution.
Authors: William Booth
Journal: Washington Post
Publish Date: December 18, 2006
My friend Laura Gillaspy just sent me a wonderful article from the Washington Post. I’ve heard of folks doing this before.
For those who don’t want to read the article, I’ll give you the gist. There’s a green-minded group of people in San Francisco who, last year, made a vow not to buy any new things for a year (save for a few essentials).
I think it would be fun and hard. How do you move away from legalism too? I think it’s hilarious how people are militantly opposed to what these folks are doing, which honestly makes me want to do it even more.
I’m not a green by any stretch, though it’s something I should probably think about more. However, I am a strong proponent of using God’s resources well–most specifically money and time, so giving up new items for a time period is something I’d be very interested in doing. It’s not something that I think should be imposed on people, but certainly a good option for Christians. Similarly, I like the timeframe aspect–it’s sort of akin to a nazerite or lentin vow. Also, many of you know I have a book problem and as of late new books have been cheaper than used, I think that means no books.
Still a lot of details to figure out, but anyone in with me?
Category: Personal article (non-blog)
Author: Peter Walker
I think this guy doesn’t really get it. I’ve been moving all day and am tired, so I’m not going to try to address his post more fully yet. Has anyone read Velvet Elvis? I really liked it, but maybe I was giving it a too friendly read. I mean, I certainly disagree with the social gospel in the since that it removes Christ. I don’t think Rob Bell is doing this at all. What do you think?
Authors: Laurie Goodstein
Journal: New York Times
Publish Date: October 6, 2006
Evangelicals (and the modern church in general) have set their own snare by making the appeal of Christianity exclusively life after death and selling Christ at the bargain price of simply proclaiming an incantation. I am working on a paper about the problem with the prevailing view of evangelism (as I spoke about before). Hopefully I will finish it soon and post it. I’m excited about it because I believe that a false view of evangelism is a root cause for many of the problems facing the institutional church.
Authors: Steve Arney
Journal: Pentagraph of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois
Publish Date: October 2, 2006
Check out this article in the Pentagraph of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois about a professor’s non-traditional interpretation of Revelation. I think I’ll probably get his book. I’ve often commented on my generation’s (including my own) lack of eschatology. I believe God gave us Revelation for a reason, so to neglect it is bad, however, there are certainly sections of the church with an unhealthy obsession with it.
Category: News article
Author: Nathan Colquhoun
I read this reflection by a church planter just now and thought it was worth sharing. Nathan Calhoun reflects on the difficulty of escaping the false Sunday focus of being a Christian.
My passion is building healthy and sustainable communities to shape and inspire the Church. This work involves everything from networking individuals of similar calls together and pastoral care to leading and exploring relational expressions of ecclesia to advising and coaching communities and church leaders. [Read More …]
