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On this blog, I primarily focus on the gathering of the church… that is, times when believers gather together with one another. These times are extremely important to the life and maturity of the children of God. We need one another, and we need to spend time with one another – or, as I like to say it, share our lives with one another. I believe this is part of the mission of God – seeing his chi...

Recently, I was speaking with a friend who is a missionary to the Dominican Republic. At some point during our conversation I asked him about any particularly discouraging aspects of his ministry. His answer surprised me. He confessed that the most discouraging aspect of ministry in his region is the other missionaries. He went on to describe in detail how so many western churches send people to the island for mission work but in reality they ar...

There are different ways to answer the question in the title of this post: How much organization and administration is necessary to finance global missions? Different denominations and church organizations have answered this question in different ways, but most of the answers focus on some type of organization with administrative requirements, as evidenced by the proliferation of missions boards and sending organi...

Miguel at “God-Directed Deviations” has started a very interesting series that he calls “Why I’m No Longer the Sort that ‘Closes the Deal,’ in Evangelism.” (You can read “Part I” and “Part II” of his series now.) He is stepping through how his thinking about evangelism and, especially, “closing the deal” has changed. In the first post, M...

Over the weekend, after I wrote my previous post linking to a great comment by Arlan, Bettie left another comment that I would like to highlight so that more people read it and think about it. As with the previous post, Bettie is actually introducing himself to me and my readers. However, her comment touches on an issue that I often struggle with as well. What do you do when you have a longing to change the way yo...

Three years ago, I wrote a post called “20 Years with a Missional Wife.” It was part of a series that I did called “Stories.” Well, as of today, January 14, 2012, Margaret has now been my wife for 23 years. It’s so hard to believe that we have been married for 23 years. God has taught me so many things through her. Primarily, he has used Margaret to help me understand how to focus on ...

Felicity at “Simply Church” is at it again in her post “They dirty secret of missions.” Most of the post is a quote from Rick Wood, editor of Missions Frontier magazine. In the quote, Wood laments that many of the “missionaries” who are sent out by churches and organizations have very little (or no) experience actually discipling other people. But, then, Felicity asks two pointe...

Joel at “The Double Edged Sword” wrote a post called “Leave the Walls Behind.” Like I told him in a comment, I still have decided if I’m glad that he wrote this post at all. Most of the post (all except for two short sentences at the top) is the lyrics to a song by Leeland called “While We Sing.” (I don’t keep up with the music industry that much, so I don’t kn...

God cares about light displays. But, I’ll get back to that in another 200 words. Last weekend, our friend Jared helped us string white icicle lights along our roof line. Many of our neighbors have decorated their houses, porches, trees, and yard ornaments with lights: white or multi-colored; twinkling, blinking, or steady. Of course, there’s nothing in our neighborhood to compare to Mr. Grizwald’...

I’ve had several conversations over the last few weeks – really stretching back a few months – and, if I really tried, I could probably think of conversations over the last few years – about the difference between doing things officially as “church” and simply doing things with other brothers and sisters in Christ. From what I can tell, it boils down to this: When we do things s...