Thought this was interesting twist on New Years Resolutions, supposedly from Satan’s perspective.
10. Look at Porn More.
9. Read the Bible Less.
8. Drink Alone Often.
7. Isolate Yourself from Other Men
Read the rest here with explanations.
What Do you Do, for Work?
In curious of the breakdown for employment in our church. ACL people please take the poll and fill in the blank if your field of work isn’t listed.
The Statesman Reviews Austin City Life
The amiable Religion reporter, Joshunda Sanders, visited Austin City Life on Sunday and gave us a nice review in the Austin Statesman Of Sacred & Secular blog. An excerpt:
More than once, Dodson referred to Austin City Life as an “imperfect church clinging to a perfect Christ.” with “Christ meeting us at our messy parts.” What occurred to me through this repetition was the sense of welcoming a newcomer feels in the presence of the community at the church. My experience at some churches is that people feel like they already have to be on the path to perfection before they can go to church, but Dodson explained that the redeemed are a people who are not only not perfect; “The difference between them and the those who are not redeemed is that the redeemed exchange their badness for grace.”
What Does a Gospel-centered Church of Missional Communities Really Look Like?
One of the dangerous things about publishing and writing online is that you can get an exaggerated presence. People begin to inflate your ideas, your church, your leadership well beyond their actual capacity. I think this is a real danger among church planters. We’re all “trying to make a mark for God” by employing the latest missional thinking. We comb the web for innovative ideas, best practices, and training in order to make the “best mark for the glory of God.”
I want to deflate any exaggeration that might be out there about Austin City Life or my own leadership. Not just to deflate, but to bring balance and realism into the picture. A lot of young church planters are captivated by methodologies and best practices. These methods and practices are often downloaded without any effort to rethink them for their own vision and context. That, too, is dangerous.
At the risk of promoting more uncritical downloads, and with the hope of bringing realistic balance to what I write, I thought I would point to some actual stories of Gospel, Community, and Mission told by our own people on a Sunday morning. We often bring people up to share about how God is working in their life during a SUnday gathering. We do this, not to be cool, but to a) As the psalmist says “tell of the works of the Lord b) to reinforce that church is a family not an event c) to encourage others.
This past Sunday was a vision/story-telling Sunday. I brought three people up from our community, who are not leaders, to share how they experienced God’s goodness in 2010 in the areas of Gospel, Community, and Mission. The stories are earthy, inspiring, real. They are not canned. And because of that, I hope you’ll find them helpful. They are little windows into an imperfect church, clinging to a perfect Christ, that is trying to live by the gospel, in community, on mission.
- NEW: Here is an objective report in an article from our local paper on this service.
- The stories are part of the message, RENEW: Thanks for the Past, Hope for the Future
- Here is an excerpt from one of the stories.
- Here is a great Q&A session with Steve Timmis, where he gives a snapshot of normal life in a Gospel Community.