Mini Me…

by The RevNo Comments
One of the greatest characters in film is Mini Me from the Austin Powers series. Now, granted for many of you reading this blog you are already offended just with the mere mention of that film series, sorry, but keep reading it might come full circle (maybe). Have you ever wondered how Mini Me relates to Jesus? No? Hmm…This Sunday I was talking with a group of people about the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is a pretty cool thing. It was a fold up Temple that the people of God were able to take with them anywhere they went. It was a kind of holy Winnebago or something. Here’s a picture compliments of the ESV Study Bible: It was a pretty remarkable thing. It was over this tent that a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night hovered declaring that God was present in their midst. That’s pretty remarkable! Of course, it didn’t take long before this...
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Lead, lead, lead…

by The RevNo Comments
Yesterday I committed myself to watching The NINES leadership conference. I set up the laptop with the projector and big screen and kicked back in our youth room. I was impressed with the variety of speakers and the depth of insight that was being presented. I was less than surprised by some of the poor exegesis. I was able to invest in about half the conference. For those of you who don’t know how the The NINES works it’s a single day web conference where speakers discuss a single topic. This year they got 6 minutes. So, over the course of the nine hours there were over 100 videos. The pace is fast and a couple fo hours disappear before you know it. This year’s topic was “Game Changers”. There were two highlights for me as a developing leader that I am going to continue chewing on. The first was from Mike Slaughter. He discussed the centrality of discipleship in his ministry....
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Discipleship…who knew.

by The RevNo Comments
So it turns that some of the greatest thinkers in the Christian world are coming to the conclusion that the church has missed something. It has missed “discipleship”. We are not training, building, developing, and sending mature believers into the world. It seems to me that this is the “cost” of the great “evangelical” movement that has developed over the last fifty-five years. Prior to the fifties the church trained people well. There was a commitment to “catechism”. There was an emphasis on education. However, there was a cost. The cost was that of evangelism. We were not inviting people into the community of faith. So, were we really training people well? Probably not. But, now we get the message out and get people saved but we are not building and sending. We need now not a pendulum swing but a re-centering on the life and ministry of Jesus. I think that this is a good article and points us back...
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Applying the paradigm…maybe?

by The RevNo Comments
Here is something I put together about applying the missional concept to the role of “Youth Pastor”. What do you think?IntroductionThere has been a fundamental change in the way the world works over the last twenty-five years. The shift has been called “post-modernism” or “hyper-modernity” or “post-Christian” or “post-Christendom”. Regardless of what one calls the paradigm change, the change has indeed happened. The way that most people see and understand the world is very different than it was not very long ago. You could say, “this ain’t your mama’s world anymore”. The kind of shift that has happened is as thoroughgoing as the shift that took place in the 1960’s, maybe even more so.The environment that the children of the emerging generations are growing up with is a unique one that the church, their parents, and their educators have not ever experienced. The rampant individualism, the emphasis on a radical consumerism, and the overdevelopment of the institutional church are leaving...
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The Forgotten Ways, Part 4

by The RevNo Comments
The Heart of It All — Jesus is Lord. So, now what? The first main principle that Hirsch lays out is that of disciple making. The development of disciples has taken on a new cool twist recently with all the emphasis on the Jewish life and what a Rabbi really is and therefore what it means to be a disciple. Hirsch steps in a provides a clear, succinct, and challenging picture of what discipleship is all about. How important is discipleship? Hirsch argues, “if we fail at this point then we must fail in all the others.”So what is discipleship? It is the embedding of mDNA into other people. It is that process by which men and women follow Jesus are built into people who can reproduce their lives into others. This is God’s plan for sending his message all over the world. And it as Hirsch puts it, “it worked.”Discipleship has taken on many labels over the years, Robert Coleman called...
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