faithrunner

While some are mourning the demise of denominations , I continue to be excited about the possibilities of no longer needing to keep our sheep within strict doctrinal and liturgical fences. Finally, being the big "C" church is about the sheep and not about the shepherds. Another aspect of the crumbling walls of sectarianism and the reviving and re-forming of the church in America is a renewed focus on serving the communities in which we live and work . Being the church is no longer about gathering members but about empowering missionaries to serve where they live and work and go to school. Cooperation in the larger Body of Christ and attention to the needs of people in our mission field have combined to bring new life to dying fellowships and stagnate churches. Last year, Markus Lloyd, Children's Pastor and Creative Architect at Legacy Church , led us to partner with three other churches in our community to raise money for an endowment to address the needs in our ci...

We are reading through The Story at Legacy , and we are well into Exodus . By this time in His-story God has shown his anger several times, and these tantrums by God have begged the question from some of our readers, "Why is God so mean?" Others have commented, "I'm not so sure I like that God," or, "I'm glad Jesus came along and calmed his Father down!" Anyone who is a serious follower of Jesus and who stakes his or her life on the God revealed in Scripture has wondered, " What's up with all the 'anger of God' stuff in the Old Testament? " Here's my finite, fallible take on the topic : When Holy God reveals himself to a fallen people in a fallen creation in order to establish his presence among them for all to see and know, the clash of God's holiness with the fallen will cause conflict and anger on both sides of the relationship. The world was and is a fallen mess. Insert Holy God who wants to love and guide a ...

A friend gave me a copy of Greg Boyd's Present Perfect a while ago when I did not read nor return the one he lent me. I get a lot of book suggestions, and I seldom feel compelled to read another one beyond what I need to read for my teaching at Legacy and beyond. What started as a gesture of friendship turned into a new level of intimacy with God and an awareness of God's presence in my life and others. Boyd builds his case for living with God in the now on the writings of Frank Laubach , Brother Lawrence , and J.-P. de Caussde . Boyd claims based on these authors, ...that remaining awake to God's presence in the present moment is the single most important task of the Christian life and that no spiritual discipline is more foundational or transforming than this one. (18) That's quite a claim, but Boyd supports it with his own insights that makes it viable for all who claim to know and follow God . We live too much in either the past or future , according to...

I don't post much on this blog about the servant leadership of Jesus . (I need to start a separate blog, I suppose.) I spend more time teaching the principles and model of Jesus' leadership in the courses I teach for B H Carroll Theological Institute and Dallas Baptist University as a Teaching Fellow and Adjunct Professor (MACE and Ph.D.) respectively. That doesn't mean I don't keep up with the dialogue around my life's message that if we are followers of Jesus we who are called to lead will lead like Jesus . The dialogue around servant leadership and Jesus, which I am pleased to monitor and enter into regularly, has become a mainstay of leadership discussions in Christian schools and seminaries , . Bethel Seminary has with a D.Min. in Servant Leadership and Gonzaga University recognizes itself among "servant leadership schools," who train leaders to be servant leaders. I appreciate serving DBU's mission to "produce servant leaders" th...

Dallas-Fort Worth is snowed in today so thousands of us get a free day at home. I'm happy to get these once or twice a year, but wouldn't want to live where it is like this three or four months of the year! This past Friday it was 75 degrees and spring-like . I returned from Marshall, TX, that day after speaking at the Christian Association of Student Leaders annual meeting hosted by East Texas Baptist University. You can read about it here . The future of Jesus' movement on those campuses is in good hands. On the way back I stopped at Tyler State Park and ran Loops A and  B trails in my fivefingers treksport . It was a perfect day on ideal trails for minimalist running. I discovered I don't train enough on trails in my fivefingers to run the trails with ease. I'll have to go back to trail shoes for occasional runs. Rats. The hard-packed trails were great. Only gumballs, pine cones, and some loose rocks caused any blunt force pain. (Oh, and that root I stu...

  When Matt and Lisa first suggested we host a Walk Through the Bible event as we begin The Story at Legacy Church , I admit I was a bit skeptical . "That's 'old school' stuff," I thought, and we are all up on the latest methods of doing church at Legacy. We had hosted that same event back in the 90's, and I wondered how it could be relevant to our folks a decade later. Well, I was wrong . WTB was just what we needed to refresh our knowledge of the "mega-narrative" of the Old Testament and introduce The Story to those who had no clue about what it was about. Bruce Wilkinson's DTS Master's project still works! The combination of key words, signs, repetition, and group participation in an atmosphere of fun work together to give those who participate a way to remember the entire story of the Old Testament. Yes, the sometimes tedious, obscure stories from creation to the return of the Jewish people from exile come to life through the child...

This past October while at a conference in Atlanta, a friend and I took a side trip downtown to see the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site and the surrounding buildings. I had been before, but the older I get the more I realize the significance of this man's life. I have confessed before that the Civil Rights Movement went on outside my personal, suburban experience. I knew something was going on by the news I watched occasionally at night after we ate, but I never encountered the movement firsthand. Like many white Americans, I was sympathetic to the situation of Afro-Americans in my country but let the work and death of others right the wrong. Two quotes from Dr. King caught my attention on this trip. I have not looked up their source, but they are on postcards I bought in the museum gift shop. The first is: "The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others. In dangerous valleys and hazardous pathways, h...