vinceantonucci.com

Good Company!

2008-05-10T15:29:00.002-04:00

Many of you may be aware that back in October the Virginia Beach newspaper did a front-page story on our church in which I was referred to as "husky." (I have lost some weight since October, but I digress). The story was then picked up by the Washington Times and other papers around the country, thereby sealing my fate as the "husky pastor."

Well, I was just reading the same paper's review of the new movie, "What Happens in Vegas..." starting Ashton Kutcher. In said review the movie commentator writes, "Who knew that Kutcher could be such a likable clown? He has been known primarily as the boy toy of an older woman, Demi Moore. Husky Kutcher, though, proves that he can handle facial expressions that illustrate the plight of a beer-guzzling guy who is falling for the wrong girl."

Wow!

I think Ashton Kutcher is a pretty good looking dude. So ... either I have a future starring in big romantic comedy movies OR maybe this newspaper just has a very limited thesaurus. (In which case "husky" wasn't the best choice of words to describe me. Let me suggest a few better options from my thesaurus: stunning, gorgeous, sexy, or 'a face that makes women break out into a sweat'.)

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Quote This

2008-05-10T08:58:00.000-04:00

Are you like me? Do you love the good quotes? Well, love this:

"People fear the responsibility of being free. It is easier to let others made the decisions or to rely upon the letter of the law. Some people want to be slaves."
- Brennan Manning

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Bootcamp

2008-05-09T11:34:00.000-04:00

Hey future church planters: Have you considered going to church planter bootcamp? It's an intensive time of teaching and working out a plan for starting your church. I know for a lot of people, it's been an invaluable experience.

Interested?

I'm speaking at a great one in June. Check out the details here.

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Church Planting Posts

2008-05-09T08:19:00.003-04:00

I love what Bob Roberts is saying on his blog today about local church planting.

By the way, do you know why we so desperately need more new effectively evangelistic new churches? Check out this post and you also may want to see this graph.

And, by the way, the point of church planting is that it is the most effective way to reach large numbers of lost people.

And, by the way, the point of reaching lost people is God's heart. It beats for His children who are far from Him, that's why He sent His Son to bleed for them. The reason we want to reach lost people is because we love God.

- featured on newchurches.com

A Horse & Carriage (7 of 7)

2008-05-08T08:00:00.000-04:00

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

Okay, last post in this series on a church planter’s spouse and marriage and I want to talk about BOUNDARIES and encourage you to establish some very clear, well defined, strong ones.

First, you need boundaries between your family and your church. Yeah, yeah, I know, your church is your family and we love them and we want to be available all the time. And there is truth in all that, but in other ways, it is not true. Your family is your family, and you need to love them most of all, and be available to them. And if you’re constantly answering the phone or checking your e-mail or setting up appointments on your day off, your family will suffer. You will have a wife and kids who resent you and resent the church. Hopefully they won’t resent God, but chances are they’ll do that too. So you need some boundaries. You need (at least) a day off each week where you are unavailable to your church unless someone dies or strikes oil. You need to not answer the phone or touch your computer at night when you’re hanging with your kids, or when you’re on a date with your spouse. Seriously, don’t just nod your head, do it.

Second, you need boundaries between you and other women. You need to protect your wife from having to ever have a doubt about you, or from experiencing the pain of your adultery, or from even the hint or appearance of something immoral. So set up boundaries that will prevent all that. I don’t mean with women alone, even out in public. If I have to talk to a lady in my office (which almost never happens) I have a big glass wall and an open door so everyone can see what’s going on. I don’t ride in a car if it’s just me and a lady. If I were to show up early for a small group and the only person in the house was a female, I’d sit out on the porch till someone else arrives. I won’t even open the front door of our house to a female if my wife isn’t home. That may sound silly, but I want to guard against even the appearance of immorality. And so if my wife’s friend is dropping off at Tupperwear container, and I open the door, take it, and she walks away – but my neighbor drives up right then and sees me closing the door and this lady walking down my driveway, and notices my wife’s not home – what is my neighbor going to think?

People have made fun of me for how serious I am about the boundaries I’ve put up, and that feels a little weird for me. But not as weird as it would feel to have to explain to my kids and church that I’m getting divorced... I'll take the boundaries anyday.

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 6)

2008-05-07T06:00:00.001-04:00

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

We're nearing the end of this series, and my advice for today: Date your spouse. Again, everyone says that, and it seems like common sense, it’s just not very common. And there are all kinds of excuses: “We don’t have the time.” “We don’t have a babysitter.” “We don’t have the money.” “American Idol is on tonight.” But there is a theological response to each of those objections: Bullcrap! None of that is a good enough reason to not date your spouse.

When you first met and started dating you both showed each other your best sides, you pursued each other, you made sure you have fun together. Then you got married, went into ministry, maybe had a kid … and your marriage feels boring and your wife isn’t exciting and other women seem more alluring. The theological response to that is: Duh! Of course that’s going to happen, because you’ve stopped pursuing each other.

My wife and I totally went through this. When we were first married we made fun of couples who had a “date night” because we had a “date life.” Then ministry and kids happened, and suddenly we didn’t have a date anything. We went to counseling and the guy asked us if things were ever great in our marriage. We said yes and told him about how things were when we were first married. He said, “Well, if you want things the way they were, you need to do what you did.” (Again, duh!)

So we started clearing our schedules to talk or play games several nights a week, and made sure to go on a few dates a month. At first it felt kind of awkward, but pretty soon we were almost back to when things were really good.

So are things boring or even bad in your marriage? Then do the things you used to do. Or if things were never great, you’ll have to do things you never did to get something you’ve never had. Now stop reading this stupid blog, call your wife, and set up a freakin’ date.

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Crazy Love

2008-05-06T14:12:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite preachers to listen to is Francis Chan, who is one intense dude - and his intensity is all directed towards Jesus - which is where I want mine to be!

Chan's first book, Crazy Love, just came out. I read it last week and highly recommend it. You know how sometimes people will say, "It was like drinking from a fire hydrant"? Well, this book is like drinking from a baseball bat. It's like Chan holds you down with one hand and beats you with a baseball bat held in the other. And I mean that in the best possible way.

The book is about the greatness of God, but even more about how we should respond to a God that amazing. Chan holds up the standards for true discipleship of Jesus, rather than of the modern-day American church. It's scorching, again in the best possible way.

Go out and get this book, it's challenged me in a way that no other book has in awhile.

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 5)

2008-05-06T07:00:00.000-04:00

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

Here’s another thing I feel strongly about and I think protects your wife: Don’t have expectations for her beyond what you would have for any other mature Christian.

Now if you’re a mature Christian and you attend Forefront, I have certain expectations for you. You’ll practice spiritual disciplines, live in community with other believers, serve, lead, tithe, develop relationships with people who are far from God and invite them to meet Him. Those expectations come from God and His Word. And if my wife isn’t living up to those basic expectations, she has a problem, and I am going to lovingly challenge her on that, just like I would with anyone else.

What I try not to do is have higher expectations for her than I do for everyone else. She’s a mature Christian, so she should live like one, but she’s not a Superwoman – so I shouldn’t expect her to live like one. Of course she’ll probably be more invested in the church than anyone but me, but she’s not me. God didn’t call her to be me, or to be the Lead Pastor of this joint. And it’s not fair for me to expect her to be Superwoman, or to be me.

I also don’t have specific expectations for her, as far as her ministry role. Just because she’s the pastor’s wife doesn’t mean she has to play the piano. (Forefront doesn’t have a piano, so this one is actually pretty easy.) Just because some other pastor’s wife volunteers in the Children’s Ministry, doesn’t mean she has to. Some other pastor’s wives may be real up-front types, but that might not be what God created her to be.

If you’re planting a church, or even if you’re leading an established one, it’s going to be difficult enough on your wife. She doesn’t need any extra pressures, so don’t put higher or more specific expectations on her than what God has for her. Let God be her God, you be her supportive husband.

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Multiplying Church Discussion

2008-05-05T23:15:00.002-04:00

Remember a couple weeks ago I did a series of posts on Bob Robert's book The Multiplying Church? Well, someone with even more knowledge and authority on Bob Robert's book is doing a series of posts on that book ... Bob Robert's himself. Want to check it out? You should! Go here to do so...

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 4)

2008-05-05T11:52:00.000-04:00

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

This one is especially for church planters (though it may apply equally to pastors of established churches): I really encourage spouses to be on different emotional journeys. What I mean is that if you’re both fully living and dying with exactly the same things - that is going to be a crazy emotional roller coaster that I personally wouldn’t want to be on. So, for instance, if you’re both totally focused on the attendance, or the offering, and it’s bad this week, you’re both going to be out on the ledge, with no one to talk you down. I’m not saying your wife shouldn’t care about how the church is doing, of course she will, but I am saying that things will likely go better if she’s more concerned with aspects of the church that you’re not so focused on. Maybe she’s really into the Student Ministry, and on the week the offering stinks things with the Student Ministry are rocking, and vice versa, so you can encourage each other.

On a related note: I’m a fan of not telling your wife everything. As a pastor you’re going to deal with a lot of stuff, and a lot of it will be about people. I try to tell my wife as little as possible. If it doesn’t impact her, I don’t tell her, unless it’s HUGE and I feel like I have to. Why? Well, first, it’s not necessarily any of her business. Second, it’s usually depressing enough for me to have to deal with, why should she have to as well? Third, I don’t want her to have negative opinions of people on staff or in the church. --- So, usually if something has me down and she asks what it is, my answer is, “You don’t want to know. Don’t worry about it. It will be fine.”

You may disagree with my philosophy on all this, but it’s worked well for us for ten years now, kept us off the roller coaster, and allowed each of us to have the other to talk us off the ledge.

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You Might Be A Redneck If...

2008-05-04T13:00:00.002-04:00

Know that whole, "You might be a redneck if ..." ("You think 'loading the dishwasher' means getting your wife drunk" "You were shooting pool when any of your kids was born") schtick?

Well, today I had a, "You might have a great church if ..." kind of morning:

You might have a great church if ... you've been gone two weeks and you find out one of the new people coming is the owner and premiere artist at the hot local tatoo shop.
You might have a great church if ... you find out that the guy started coming because one of his customers invited him to come see her get baptized at Forefront.
You might have a great church if ... your service opens with your band absolutely rocking "King Nothing" by Metallica.
You might have a great church if ... you play an interactive, audience participation game called, "Name That King!" which has people screaming, "King Kong!" "Hank Hill!" "Michael Jackson!" "I have no idea!"
You have a time where Children's Ministry volunteers are honored and the importance of raising up the next generation of radical love God, love people Christians is highlighted.
You might have a great church if your sermon bumper/introduction video looks like this:

You might have a great church if ... you preach a "kick people in the teeth" kind of message about making Jesus the king of our lives, and how He won't allow us to follow Him (and we can't call ourselves followers) because God opposes the proud ... and then seeing people take off the crowns they had been given on the way in, and hearing people sniffling in the prayer time that followed.
You might have a great church if ... so many people help with breakdown that you end up getting done and leaving way early.

So ... we can check off all those today. The best thing is that Jesus was totally help up as being great and the only thing worth giving our lives to - which He is. And anything great about our church is totally because of Him.

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Survey Saturday!!!

2008-05-03T06:09:00.000-04:00

Yes, call your grandma and release the monkeys, it's another Survey Saturday!

Today's question: What's the best book you've read in 2008? And what makes it so great?

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Quote This

2008-05-02T14:05:00.000-04:00

Are you like me? Do you love the good quotes? Well, love this:

"Love changes us... Spiritual formation, a term used to describe the process of being changed into the image of Christ, doesn't happen by following disciplines. It happens by falling in love. When we fall in love with Jesus, all the other loves in our life fall into place. ... Everything in our life finds its proper value once we have properly valued him."
- Ken Gire

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 3)

2008-05-01T06:00:00.001-04:00

A Horse & Carriage? (Pt 2)

2008-04-30T09:19:00.001-04:00

Incarnation

2008-04-29T23:04:00.001-04:00

This is a post I put on our Forefront Church blog tonight......

It was cool being at the White Horse tonight. We are trying some different things there. Why?

Well, when God wanted everyone to know the good news that He loved them and desired a relationship, what did He do? He became human. Why? Because God wanted to connect with us, and the most effective way to relate to us was to become one of us. Theologians call this the "incarnation." Incarnation basically means "to put meat on." God, who is spirit, took on flesh and moved into our neighborhood so we could relate to Him, so that He could effectively share the good news with us.

This is the task of all of us who follows Jesus. We are to share the good news of God's love and desire for a relationship with everyone. And so we need to figure out how to connect with people. What is the most effective way to relate to people so we can share the good news with them? Seriously - you need to figure that out. How should you do that at your workplace? At your kid's Little League field? In your school? With your neighbors?

Well, those are the questions we are asking at the White Horse Pub. How should we "incarnate" the gospel in a bar? We went into it back in September assuming that it would be the same kind of service that we've done in movie theaters and high school auditoriums. But over the months we've begun to wonder if this really is most effective. It's certainly the easiest for us, because it's what we're used to. But God hasn't called us to do what's easy, He's called us to share Jesus with people, and to make the most of every opportunity to do so.

So, please be praying for us as we work through this, and we'll pray for you as you incarnate the gospel and make the most of every opportunity with the people God has put into your life.

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 1)

2008-04-29T12:00:00.001-04:00

What A Weekend!!

2008-04-28T22:14:00.001-04:00

Okay, in the past when I've posted about the "Lousy T-Shirt" series I've felt a little weird about it ... I don't want to be self-promotional (even though the series is free). Well, no more. I just had the coolest weekend.

I went out to Phoenix to preach at Chandler Christian Church. They did the Lousy T-Shirt series and had me come out to preach the last message. What an experience! This is a church of 2,500 people, and 1,500 people read the book (and discussed it in small groups) along with experiencing the series on Sunday mornings.

After the services people lined up to talk to me - and it was incredible. Hundreds of people told me how the book and series impacted them. I had people crying as they told me it finally helped them to forgive their fathers, how it helped them come to faith, how they've shared the book with non-Christian friends, one lady is purchasing a case to give out to prisoners. It was AMAZING!

And it confirms my belief: You should totally do this series. Seriously. First, it will be the easiest six weeks you ever have. We'll give you a DVD with sermons, small group questions, graphics, videos, top ten lists - all done for you! Second, it's not only an all-done-for-you, free series, but it's a powerful series. Third, most of the people who go to our churches don't read Christian books - but I know that good Christian books have had a major impact on my spiritual life. This will get your people reading a book that will catalyze spiritual growth. And it's a book that non-Christians will like, new Christians will like, old Christians will get something out of. (In fact, the church in Phoenix has a lot of Senior Citizens and, to my surprise, they really enjoyed the book! But I will admit: One elderly lady said, "I love your book! But I just read chapter 12, and I liked the first paragraph and the last, but inbetween, well, I didn't know what you were talking about.")

I have to admit, I can't figure out why a church wouldn't do the series. That's not ego speaking, it's just that it's a done-for-you, free series that will give you six weeks to focus on other stuff, or prepare for your next series or two. So why not? Interested? Get all the resources for free here.

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Quote This

2008-04-27T14:33:00.001-04:00

Are you like me? Do you love the good quotes? Well, love this:

"The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do."

- A.W. Tozer

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Darren Patrick

2008-04-27T13:29:00.001-04:00

Darren's session at the Exponential Conference came mostly out of Dan Allendar's book, "Leading with a Limp." Here are my notes from it:

1. Paul was a weak leader

- Paul had his thorn in the flesh
- People will follow leaders who operate out of weakness
- Operating out of weakness forces reliance on God
- When stay in our strengths, we tend to control people
- Leaders who try to control will hide
- Thorns are God's grace, forcing you to dependance

2. Paul was a reluctant leader

- As a leader, you will dissapoint everyone
- Constantly dealing with people, systems, plans
- Constantly making decisions
- Leaders will be lonely
- "No one really understands."
- "I wish I didn't have to do this."
- Your biggest problem is you.
- Filled with insecurities
- Improperly motivated
- People will follow a reluctant leader (not a rock star)

3. Paul was a sin-confessing leader

- People follow leaders who confess sins
- 1 Timothy 1:8ff
- Need to confess our ambition
- Need to confess we're controlling
- Confess in real time (not just about things from your past)

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Tim Keller

2008-04-26T22:57:00.001-04:00

I'm posting notes from sessions at the Exponential Conference. I heard Tim Keller at a breakfast this morning, but didn't take notes. Unfortunately, what he said was awesome, so I really wish I took notes. Later he spoke at a main session, and I did take notes (though my notes aren't that great) (and he was good at the main session, but not nearly as good as at the breakfast). Here you go:

Christian world now in a position where people don’t know the gospel anymore.

The story of your culture can only find a happy ending in Jesus.

3 points of the gospel:

1. Upside Down Kingdom (God empties Himself)
- Because god emptied Himself, came down, it should turn the world’s values upside down.
- God won by losing. He triumphed by being killed.
- We’re about serving, racial reconciliation, lifting up the poor

2. The ??? Kingdom (God substitutes Himself)
- Pharisees repent of their sins. If you only repent of your sins, you’re a Pharisee.
- What makes a Christian different is that they repent of their good works.

3. The ??? Kingdom (God returns to create a new Heaven and new Earth)
- Christianity is a fighting religion. It knows that God hates suffering, hates poverty, hates hunger – and will someday destroy these things. So we are not passive.

How apply? Three parts of the gospel, but almost nowhere in the Bible do we see those three points all put together. So when we preach or present the gospel, we don’t have to give all three points.

Ways of illustrating each of the "parts" of the gospel:

1. Incarnation

- Russian astronaut: “We went to the heavens and did not see God there.” C.S. Lewis: If there is a God you wouldn’t relate to him the way a person would by going upstairs to find someone. You’d relate to him the way Hamlet would relate to Shakespeare. Not by going backstage. The only way you’d know of the existence of Shakespeare is if he wrote himself in the play.

- Dorothy Sayers wrote series of books. Fell in love with a character she created. In the middle of the series she wrote herself into the series. Married the character.

- That’s the incarnation.

2. Atonement
- Tale of Two Cieties: Two guys who look exactly alike. Both love Lucy. Lucy chooses and marries Charles. During the French Revolution. Charles is arrested bey the revolution. Waiting in prison to be executed. Syndey breaks into jail, “Let me take your place. Then you can be free to live the rest of your life with Lucy and your child.” Chales says no. Sydney knocks him out, gets taken out of prison. Sydney now in prison waiting to be executed. Another woman waiting for execution. A seamstress. Comes up to talk. Eventually realizes now Charles. “Are you dying for him?” “Shhhh, yes, for him, and his wife and child.” She says, “Haven’t known how I can face my death, but if a brave stranger like you holds my hand to the end, I think I could do it.”
- What gave her courage? His substitutionary sacrficice. And wasn’t even for her. And if that was life-changing for her, how much would it mean for you?

3. Resurrection
- N.T. Wright. In Surprised by Hope. Makes case even if you don’t believe in resurrection, you should want it to be true. People care about people, world. But believe world caused by accident. Dissapointmented that more people don’t care about things. Don’t realize their own world view undercuts what they desire. If this world is all there is, then who cares… Easter means that things matter.

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Larry Osbourne - Living a Kingdom Life

2008-04-25T15:47:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite books is, "A Contrarians Guide to Knowing God" by Larry Osborne. At the Exponential Conference I got to attend a workshop he did. Here are my notes from it:

1. Build a church you would want to go to
- Not big, not like someone else’s, not successful…
- The church you would want to go to is the only church you an lead intuitively and the only church God has gifted you to lead

2. Fulfill your calling, not your potential
- Potential is a bitch goddess. It will kill you.
- When you’re first starting you get lots of encouragement that you believe is fact.
- Be all you can be is great for the army, stinks for God’s Kingdom
- Son, at 7, “I don’t like it when daddy writes books, because he doesn’t play with me.”

- Committed to not write book until youngest graduated from High School. All his kids follow Jesus and have found churches in the towns they move to.

3. Focus on being a sticky church
- No one stays at a church because they were assimilated into a program, they stay because they’ve been velcroed into relationships.
- “I’m less needed when people are genuinely connected.”
- “Northcoast is all about sticky relationships.”

4. Live like a mature Christian, not a pastor
- If think being a pastor means you have to live differently, something is wrong with your paradigm.
- If do, no longer have nagging question: “Who is watching?” (That question will kill you, and poison your kids.)
- You might lose people, but you’ll save your family.

5. Lose your church before you lose your family
- If on path where you’re putting family on back burner for church (“for awhile”) you are on a very bad path. And that other path never comes.
- The bigger the church gets, the less discretionary time you have. (It’s a myth that a large staff will give you discretionary time.)
- So master this now, or you won’t later.
- Never has done counseling after 5:00 p.m.

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Andy Stanley: Apostolic Mission

2008-04-25T08:03:00.002-04:00

Here's my notes on another of the sessions at the Exponential Conference. Andy Stanley is brilliant and makes everything seem so ridiculously simple...

Vision = Mental picture of hwat could be, fueled by passion of what should be

Vision begins as a burden

What’s clear in here must become clear out there – or people won’t know how to follow us.

5 Things To Do:

1. State it simply

Memorable is portable
We suffer from the curse of knowledge
People don’t ask stupid questions, they’re just letting us know how poorly we’ve communicated the vision.

Northpointe’s Vision: “Create a church that unchurched people love to attend.”

What is Obama’s vision? Change. What is Hillary’s? John McCains?

2. Cast it convincingly

Define the problem (If people don’t feel weight of problem they won’t be excited about the vision).
Offer the solution (Your vision is the solution to a problem.)

Explain why and why now (Why now in this community?)

3. Repeat it regularly

Discover the rhythm of your church

Build vision casting into the rhythm

4. Celebrate constantly

Problem with vision – no pictures going somewhere that only exists in my head.

So when we get “pictures” – hold them up – celebrate the win.

Stories do more to clarify vision than anything else.

Don’t miss opportunities to showcase examples

5. Embrace it personally (and publicly)

Share with staff and church when you invite someone, what happened this week in your small group, etc.

Don’t miss opportunities to showcase examples.

So: What do you think? Which of these come easy to you? Which are really difficult? For me I'm worst at "repeat it regularly." I think maybe I don't want to bore people? Also, I'm always nervous about how the vision will sound to the newest people... What about you?

- featured on newchurches.com

Steve Andrews: Radical Disciples

2008-04-24T22:38:00.002-04:00

Notes from Steve Andrews talk at Exponential on Radical Disciples...

We need to become exponential, or the church in America will fade into obscurity and irrelevance.

What we need to pour into the church planters of the future

1. Permission to say NO
- You cannot pursue God’s vision and expect to be liked and loved.
- Have a crystal clear vision and stick to it unwaveringly.

2. The Spirit of GO
- See the greatness in others.
- Release people

3. No EGO
- We need people who don’t care who gets the credit.

I'll tell you what, I don't really know Steve Andrews, but I know quite a bit about him and his church (Kensington Community outside of Detroit) - in fact we partnered with his church in starting a church in Detroit - AND this guy seems to REALLY live it. I am so impressed with what his church is doing. They are starting a ton of churches, and really putting their money where their mouth is. We need more leaders like Steve and more churches like Kensington...

- featured on newchurches.com

Alan Hirsh: Missional Movements

2008-04-24T21:19:00.003-04:00

Finally I'm able to post some of my notes from sessions of the Exponential Conference. Here's my notes on Alan Hirsh's talk on "Missional Movements." By the way, if you haven't read his book "The Forgotten Ways" - you crazy! Buy it and read it tomorrow! Here's what he said:

We need to:

1. Recover the Centrality of Jesus in His Own Movement

We must radicalize in order to missionize
Radix = root. To radicalize we must go back to our roots.
If we don’t go back to our roots, what are we doing?!?
Christology leads to our Missiology leads to our Ecclesiology
“Jesus is a disturbing dude. Jesus and religion don’t go down well together.”
The subversion of Christianity.
We’ve taken Jesus out. Why? Because it’s hard to live with the Lord.
We’ve domesticated Jesus
We’ve re-made Him in our image.
You know you’ve done it if He hates the people you hate.
What if Jesus showed up in our churches? I mean the wild Jesus…
We need to be disturbed by Jesus.

2. Recover Discipleship as Our Core Task

Discipleship is becoming a little Jesus
Our lives speak loudest
Consumerism is killing us.

3. Recover the Ethos/Structure of Apostolic Movements

Missionally responsive; Culturally adaptive; Organizationally agile; Multiplying
Movements mobilize the whole people of God
Every believer a church planter. Every church a church planting church.
Structurally networked.
Employ missional leadership. Ephesians 4: 5 fold leadership.

4. Recover an Incarnational Mission Impulse

God is missional and incarnational
We must go, and go deep

- featured on newchurches.com