faithrunner

(c) 2012 New Hope Publishers My next book is here!  ( The Kindle version ) I am most excited about this one because it combines my love for physical exercise with my love for Scripture and spiritual exercise.  Thanks to those of you who helped pick the cover . It looks great! A New Way of Living: practicing the Beatitudes in everyday life, published by New Hope Publishers , is a training manual for spiritual growth . It follows the foundational path of spiritual development Jesus laid out at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount, we call the Beatitudes. ( Matthew 5:3-10 ) My goal in the book is to apply what I have learned from running, cycling, and hiking to spiritual growth and wellness. I share spiritual exercises that create margin in our lives so that the characteristics Jesus describes in the Beatitudes can grow and flourish. Just as we develop physical wellness through a series of exercises and disciplines, we develop spiritual wellness through t...

Baker Books The Legacy Church LifeGroup Team is attending a 1-Day conference with ForgeDallas , a subset of ForgeAmerica . The main speaker is Michael Frost , who is known for his work and writing in the missional church movement. Ryan Hairston is a friend of Legacy, and he is our host. I'll be blogging from the conference throughout the day to give you a flavor of what we are seeing and hearing. The team is ready to go! Return the adventure to the venture! "I have come from your future to tell you are on the same decline as we [in Australia] are...that is why we formed Forge." David Bosch the mission of God is "to alert all people to the universal reign of God through Christ." God could not reign anymore if he wanted to! It is already total, complete, unfettered and utter. "Our God reigns!" Isaiah declared during captivity. Still true no matter the evidence to the contrary. Gods people are to be a trailer [movie preview] of the ag...

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...