faithrunner

For many years I have invited Christ followers to see the church and themselves as "a mission outpost where every member is a missionary in his or her own mission field." Whenever I find someone else calling for the same way of living, I get fired up and realize maybe the idea is more than a catchy phrase.  Meet Sean Benesh . He lives in Portland with his wife, Katie, and his three sons. He is a missionary on a bicycle . He has written a short book called, The Bikeable Church , which I endorsed because I was captured by his questions and heart to be a missionary in the true sense where he was planted. He's some of his thinking and challenge: Why do we continue to insist on auto-based commuting patterns for church life and worship? What if we simply reduced the scale and scope to that which is bikeable and/or walkable? As missiologists one of the principles behind exegeting a city is to learn how people naturally gather for fellowship and community. Most often...

WCA REVEAL Survey Cally Parkinson of the Willow Creek Association recently contacted me saying she wanted to write a case study on Legacy Church because they had observed the improvement in our church's spiritual growth through the comparison of our two REVEAL surveys taken in March, 2010 and March, 2012 . I was surprised by the request since we had nothing to compare our progress to except our two survey results. So, we gathered some of our "spiritual growth team" around a conference call with Cally, and we told our story.  Rather than describe the case study, here it is in its entirety. I am thankful to the ministry directors, church leadership team, and two members who made up our spiritual growth team , and to the staff and members who implemented their plan to "help people trust Jesus." --> Legacy Church, Plano, TX Case Study (c) Willow Creek Association, 2012 Picture the nation’s 70 th most populous city—one named, in ...

We have started our fall series as Legacy Church . We call it SENT . We are walking through the first twelve chapters of Acts as a reminder of how--like the first followers of Jesus--we are a sent people to tell His-story and demonstrate His life-changing power. Last Sunday I tackled the topic of the Holy Spirit and how important that Person of the Triune God is to the church, or, ekklesia .(You can hear the full message here .) I am convinced that no matter the programs , excellence factor, buildings, location, personalities, or marketing you have as part of your church, you will have little to no impact in touching or changing the hearts of those you seek to serve and reach without the Person of the Holy Spirit. You can gather a bunch of people to meet their felt needs and feed them good advice, but without the presence of the Holy Spirit you are only a helpful religious organization . I the Bible study guide of Acts I wrote for LifeBibleStudy , I said it this way:...

Our Excellent Mountain Adventures - or as Gene insists on referring to it, "Our special time at the cabin in the woods". (heavy sigh) 3 days in New Mexico hiking the tallest points in the Taos/Red River area followed by 4 days in the Colorado Rockies conquering three 14,000+ peaks. Yes we stayed in a cabin in New Mexico, courtesy of wonderful Life Group friends/family from Legacy. A 1958 cabin tucked way back in the woods alongside a small mountain lake, surrounded by pine forests and mountain ridges. Jason was nice enough to go out and buy a brand new FJ Cruiser for our trip and Gene was nice enough to show Jason some 4-wheel drive roads that put it to the test. Within an hour of arriving in Red River, we were climbing boulder strewn roads, exploring old silver mines and speeding across water-crossings and mud bogs. Gene was having a blast, goading Jason in to trying to destroy his new ride (well not EXACTLY new. It has 700 miles on it, so why not beat the hec...

Last week I traveled with some guys from different groups at Legacy Church to NM and CO for some hiking and camping. Goose Lake We "warmed up" the first day in Red River, NM, Saturday, September 1 , by hiking the Goose Creek Trail to Goose Lake and back. That 14.8 mile, about 3,000-foot elevation gain round trip almost did me in for the week, but it was worth it. The next morning, I preached at the Red River Community House Sunday morning worship service, and then we hiked to Lost Lake , 11,400 feet. We camped there overnight and made the summit of Wheeler Peak , 13,160 feet, Monday morning. It was windy and cold, but did not hamper our efforts. Wheeler Peak After we returned to our Lost Lake camp and packed our tents, we descended to Red River and had a delicious meal at Texas Red's and restful evening at the Banks' Cabin up Bitter Creek Road. We took all day Tuesday , September 4, to travel from Red River, NM, to Grizzly Gulch Campsite outside L...

This Side Up! I write and teach about leadership. There are as many definitions of leadership as there are those who try to define it. But, if the essence of leadership is influencing a group of people to reach a shared goal, then Sarah Morris, the Director of This Side Up Family Center is a leader . She is what I would classify a servant leader because her leadership is clearly for the benefit of the families the Center serves, not herself or her family. How do I know this about Sarah and her small group of volunteers and partners?   Liberty Mutual, Dallas, hosted for a second year their Like My Community social responsibility project. Through the use of social media, local non-profits, who were nominated by the agents of Liberty Mutual, invited their supporters to "like" them on the company's facebook page .  Sarah and her dedicated band of supporters out "liked" all the other non-profits , and This Side Up Family Center walked awa...

Calvin Miller I first met Calvin Miller via snail mail. I had read The Singer while in seminary, and his poetic imagery of Jesus as the Troubadour singing the song of God's love cut to the core of my beliefs about who I was as a follower of Jesus. The line that became Ground Zero for my revitalized relationship with Jesus and perspective on the church was: Life is the Song and not the Shrine. I wrote Calvin a note about what his book meant to me, and he wrote back--as he did I think everyone who wrote him.Our friendship had begun. I had stayed in touch with Calvin since that first letter through other hand-written notes, so when he came to Southwestern , I asked if I could take him to lunch. He accepted, and I was surprised when we walked out to the parking lot and got into his red Fiero . Pastor, seminary professor, artist, author, driving a red sports car? But when you got to know Calvin you learned his taste was demonstrated as much by that car as it was by his art a...