Emergent Brethren

Oh, how I wish I had time to do more reading! I’m not the kind of person who likes to sit around alot. I learn better in seminar environments. Martin asked in a prior post what books I’m reading. Here’s a list of some of the books I’ve read and want to find time to read:

Living Your Strengths, Albert L. Winseman, Donald O. Clifton, and Curt Liesveld, Gallup Press, 2003-2004

Last week, I attended the faith-based Strength’s Coaching training at the Gallup headquarters in Omaha. It was one of the most energizing things I’ve done. I’ve been coaching people through my church now for 4 years in helping them understand their strengths for leadership and marriage (pre-marital counseling). This has been a good experience. Many young adults seem to like this approach to understanding how God has wired them much better than the traditional spiritual gifts approach. I’m recommending this book for the Annual Conference Bookstore.

If you’ve done the Gallup Strengths Finder survey, please let me know about your impressions!

The Relevant Church: A New vision for Communities of faith, Edited by Jennifer Ashley with Mike Bickle, et. al., Relevantbooks, 2005

This is a book with each chapter written by an emergent church pastor. It looks good. I picked it up at the National Pastor’s Convention.

Vital Signs: A Pathway to Congregational Wholeness, Dan R. Dick, Discipleship Resources, 2007 <just off the press!>

I attended a meeting at the Discipleship headquarters of the United Methodist Church this Spring. We were handed a copy of this book before it was sent-out to book stores. The author studied over 700 United Methodist congregations. From his study, he divides them into four categories: decaying, dystrophic, retrogressive and vital. I’ve not read the whole book, but it looks VERY interesting and helpful!

Web-Empower Your Church: unleashing the power of internet ministry, Mark M. Stephenson, Abingdon Press, 2006

For any of you who have websites or thinking of creating one, this is a MUST have! For more information about this book and the author go to http://webempoweredchurch.com/index.php?id=379. Here you’ll find a video-streaming presentation about the topic.

They Like Jesus But Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations, Dan Kimball, Zondervan, 2007

I like any book by Dan Kimball. More than any other emergent author, I like the practicality of the information he shares.

The following are books I have, but haven’t taken time to really look at:

Just Walk Across the Room:Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith, Bill Hybells, Zondervan Press, 2006

The Power of Asset Mapping: How Your Congregation can Act on Its Gifts, Luther K. Snow, Alban, 2004

Systems-Sensitive Leadership: empowering diversity without polarizing the church, Michael C. Armour and Don Browning, College Press, 2000

Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Baker Academic, 2005

The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with Grande Passion, Leonard Sweet, Waterbook, 2007

The Blogging Church: Sharing the Storyof Your Church through Blogs, Brian Baily with Terry Storch, Jossey-Bass, 2007

Blessings to you!

Jeff Glass

Just wanted to inform all my emergent friends on emergent brethren that on Sunday night April 29 at 8:50 PM Trinity Jade Braught came into the world. She weighed in at 6 pounds 6 ounces and was 17.5 inches long. Momma and Baby are doing great and are now home. Kaiden (our 3 year old son) who wanted a brother in the worst way is adapting and will I believe grow to love Trinity. The Birth experience was amazing and God was in the midst the entire time (and Kim’s entire pregnancy- she had some trouble the last few months). She’ll be at Annual conference in July…so stop by and say hi if you see us.

God bless,
Ryan

Also attached is a picture of Kaiden and Trinity

As I sit in a friend’s Third Space I am thinking about growth of Veritas. We are very small and have been for a while. We have talked about Organic growth vs. Marketing/Advertising. Obviously, we want to be about organic growth. Growing from relationships,etc… but we still are looking at doing traditional marketing/advertising. I am wondering what types of things have you done to help your ministry/church grow? What have you done as far as organic growth? What have you done in marketing/advertising? What has been the best thing you have done?

Any and all help/comments would be great.

Ryan

I just bought some books today and one of them was “Organic Community” by Joseph Myers (author of The Search to Belong). I have a feeling that this book will help the development of the Veritas community (www.veritaspa.org) as we are striving to be an organic community formed and grown more by relationships than programs and grown by those relationships and not so much by advertising (though we are still doing some of that). The first Foreward is by Randy Frazee and I was struck by two quotes he uses. The first one being, “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils” (Francis Bacon) and the second is “There is nothing more perilous than change” (Machiavelli). I am struck by these two statements. We in the church seem to be stuck in the middle of these statments. Some don’t want to change but by not changing they bring, what Bacon calls, “new evils” and others want to change but don’t always see the effects of said change. Frazee goes onto say, “Because change is so difficult, we often delay moving in the new direction due to the mistaken notion that while things may not get better, they certainly won’t get any worse. Now, instead of making the necessary changes, we also must deal with the negative effects of postponing that change.”

That I believe in a nutshell is where I am right now. (see my previous post) Somewhere between risk, change, and the status quo.

But aren’t we all?

Ryan

What a great concept. See Mark Batterson’s recent blog on this very topic…”Decoding Culture”, in it he talks about the concept of doing ministry from imagination vs. doing ministry from memory. I love the concept and highly recommend the blog. The older I get, the more I see how easy it is to slip into doing ministry from memory and not from imagination. But the real fruit is when we keep doing ministry from imagination. It’s a constant battle!