The best thinking about ecclesiology (nature and structure of the church) is coming from unexpected places. BMW unveiled its GINA concept car today, a car with a re-imagined exterior. The GINA then became a metaphor for how BMW as a company even thinks about cars…or thinks about thinking. For those of

Today was day one of the Allelon Summer Institute hosted by Jacob’s Well Church in KC. I’ll try to post bits here and there as I have time. For today, here’s a framework from John Franke: Four basic ideas in response to the question, “Who is God?” 1. God is Triune 2. God is

We covered a lot of ground today - here’s a bit from John Franke: - “Our primary commitment is to the relationship of Gospel to Culture. We have no stake in ‘how’ church is done. There is no experience/notion of church apart from the interaction between Gospel & culture.” - One could argue

“The Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of Jesus, leads the people of God’s reign and their leadership into a eschatological future that is present among them now, even if only imperfectly.” -Alan Roxburgh, from The Missional Church (ed. Darrell Guder)

Tim Keel mentioned four Old Testament narratives that create lenses through which we imagine the gospel.  First is the Creation narrative, which is a movement from being outside to being invited into participation in creation.  Second is the Exodus narrative, which is about movement from bondage to liberation.  Third is the Exile narrative, which is

Alterity is a big part of the missional conversation - Tim’s got extensive notes and some reflection at paperback theology.

Anybody catch N. T. Wright on the Colbert Report last night?  Awesome. For a more substantive conversation, check out Bishop Tom in a conversation about a variety of controversial things here.

Here are some reflections on Lesslie Newbigin - or my current take on how he thought about the church: The church community is called into existence to be: a sign and witness to the resurrection of Jesus, a foretaste of the restoration of all things, and an agent and instrument of God to help bring about that restoration. These are

For a while I have been trying to come with a good post about why the Obama (or fill in the blank of anyone else running for president, he just happens to extremely popular at Mars Hill) fan parade has been bugging me but in the short conversations I tried to engage anyone on the

Crucial for me is the presumption that the gospel is a story meant to train us to live without explanation. Explanation presumes that if I can just account for why what happened did happen, then I will be able to live with what has happened… I think Christianity is the training for learning how to