"Imagine a church where the main thing is the main thing. A church where people convene primarily in homes and secondarily in public spaces for worship services. A church where the ministry is carried out by ordinary people and it is the pastor's job to identify, deploy, train and support these ministers. A church that is warm and accepting of both the churched and the unchurched. A church that sees hundreds/thousands baptized each year. A church that has no geographical limits but spreads from house to house---neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city, nation to nation. A church that is not just multi-location--but also multiethnic and multinational. What if this church were more like a movement than a ministry?"
Deliberate Simplicity---Dave Browning.

"Average leaders focus on what happens next. Extraordinary leaders focus on what happens after next." Kerrick Thomas

Faith At Home event

I just found out about a fantastic event coming to Calgary. It's a parenting seminar to help provide you with the resources and tools to make your faith a part of your family's every day life. I've read some of their books and heard Mark Holmen speak. It's practical stuff that even the busiest moms and dads could make happen. Best part? It's free! Tickets are needed so they know how many people but I've got some and, like I said, they're free.

Here's some info:

Extreme Family Makeover

This 3 hour seminar will inspire, motivate and equip parents to reestablish the home as the primary place where faith is nurtured. Come ready to gain lots of practical ideas you can begin implementing immediately to bring faith practices into your home life.

Phase 1 - Facing Our Condition
Did you realize that less than 10% of Christian households pray (other than at mealtime), read the Bible, do devotions or participate in any type of worship at home? What does this mean? Where does this lead? What happens when faith is not being lived out or talked about in the home?

Phase 2 - Creating A Vision/Plan
We have retirement plans, educational plans and vacation plans yet do we have a plan for how to grow spiritually as a family? Let's learn how to build a spiritual growth plan.

Phase 3 - Building a Unique Lifestyle
Every family is unique and there are many ways to live out your faith at home. Let's learn ways to bring faith back into the center of our daily lives.

Phase 4 - Welcoming Partners
It's not easy being a Christian or Christian household. Who can you invite to help you stay the course and keep growing in your faith walk?

Thursday, March 3 6:30-9:00pm

Foothills Alliance

Presented by Mark Holmen (faith at home pioneer) and Brian Siewert (faith at home Canada Director)

For more information, visit www.faithathome.ca

*this is the info for the Calgary event but there's events all across the country over the next couple weeks. Dates and locations are found at the Faith at Home Canada website.

Current Read

Prayer; Does it Make Any Difference?, Yancey

I feel like there may just be a few great quotes to come from this one. I feel more and more pressed to study and practice prayer in whole new ways. I long to have this as a much greater part of my life of faith. If anyone's got any great suggestions on other reads in this area, feel free to pass them on...and yes, I am reading the Bible as my primary resource on the topic. Seems like that would only make sense! :)

After some of what our church family has wrestled with, dealt with and survived over the last several years, I found this article to be particularly refreshing: The Church and Sexual Immorality.

Beyond Recovery

Current Read

Renegade's Magic: Book Three Of The Soldier Son Trilogy, Robin Hobb

"I recently had an epiphany: about half the Christians I know love the King but are almost oblivious to the fact that he rules a kingdom, and that he calls them, in season and out, to seek his kingdom and to advance it. They are intimate with the King, or at least they say they are, but they're not about the King's business. And this: that about half the pagans I know have some inkling there's a kingdom - that life is meant to be other than it is, more joyful, hopeful, peaceful, fruitful, just; less segregated, paranoid, dismal, violent - and to varying degrees they are stumbling toward the kingdom, groping for it. But they are mostly oblivious to two things: first, that what they dream, however blurrily, is really the kingdom of God rather than some political utopia or socialist paradise or retooled version of the American dream, and second, that this kingdom has a King. They intuit the kingdom, and in some remarkable cases are doing the King's business, but they shun or remain aloof from or outright ignorant of or openly hostile to its King."

Mark Buchanan, Spiritual Rhythms, pg 217

I've been thinking about this. In church circles, we talk about the kingdom and about serving a King. It comes right out of Scripture.

Matthew 6:10 "May your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven."

Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well."

Funny thing is, I wonder if we really have a concept of that means. We don't serve a King. We don't live in a kingdom. We don't have princes and princesses, borders to guard or advance, fairy talks with knights and dungeons or dragons to slay.

I think of all the movies that I love from the era of kings and queens. There's generally some sort of epic battle. The monarchy is either loved and revered or hated and despised. There's knights to serve faithfully. There's boarders to guard and competing kingdoms: "those guys over there" to protect against which often leads to some sort of treachery or espionage. There's adventure. Always adventure.

If we really thought about serving a "King" and being a part of a "kingdom" in those terms, I wonder if our thoughts about living for Jesus would change. If we recognized the power of a king to change and influence his kingdom, I wonder if we would see our King differently. Our King of peace, of joy, of love, of grace and of justice ruling over the powers of darkness and defeating it. I wonder if we would live differently. I wonder if those who don't know Jesus, who don't recognize the King (yet), would see something more, something bigger and something genuine if we did. I wonder.