community
The Church Should Embrace Sex Offenders
For over a decade, Sonrise Church’s Light My Way program has been ministering to society’s most downtrodden people. Ex-cons, prostitutes, meth addicts, the impoverished, and the homeless are all welcome at the church’s modern nine-acre campus. What really makes Light…
How Church Life Can Be Both Organic & Organized
Caesar Kalinowski offers practical tips on how the ideas of “organic” and “organized” apply to life in a community of Christians. These terms are often spoken of as binary opposites, but Caesar points out how both are needed for…
Being The Right Church Is Better Than Griping About The Wrong Church
A very popular phrase I hear is that we are the church. So I would encourage you, if you are dissatisfied with an aspect of your church (not including faulty doctrine, of course) rather than trying to find the…
4 Bad Reasons For Joining A Church
Like many in my generation, I’ve done some moving around and with each new move I’ve had to begin the difficult process of searching for a new church home. If you’re like most, a day is coming when you…
Finding Community In A Consumer Culture
Community is core to the Christian faith. From the very beginning, fellowship and life together have characterized Christ’s disciples. But the centrality of Christian community to the church doesn’t mean that it’s easy—nor does it mean it always looks…
New Atheists Are Better At Church Than Christians Are
As I observe the tactics of the New Atheism, it causes me to wonder. Are we, the Christian church leaning on our services, on our rhetoric, or on our programs as the hope for our neighbors? Because if we…
Moving From Churchy World To Authentic Community
I resigned as a staff pastor and went on a rather long journey. I was searching for the type of genuine spiritual community found in the Bible: one without unnecessary church buildings, institutional hierarchy or imaginary titles. After all, the church Paul…
Shallow Small Group: Funny Because It’s True
It’s Friday. How about we have a little fun. And what’s more fun than poking fun at ourselves. We’ve all had that shallow small group experience before. Am I right or am I right?…
What It Looks Like To Be The Church
For Throwback Thursday, I’d like to recall a post that features a video from Jeff Vanderstelt of Soma Community in Tacoma, WA. This video offers examples of what it can look like for a group of people to be…
Community Church That Is Truly In The Community | Tim Soerens
Today’s Throwback Thursday article recalls our previous post of an excellent conversation with Tim Soerens, the co-founding director of the Parish Collective. See what Tim has to say about disciples of Jesus committing to loving a place and how…
Let Consumer Church Perish And Let The Parish Thrive
A movement is growing that will radically shift this generation’s understanding of that perennially elusive word: church. Oddly enough, if you go looking for this movement on a Sunday morning you’ll probably come up empty. Thousands of Christians are reclaiming…
Bringing Back The Family Meal
In recent years, sociologists and educators across the political spectrum have encouraged families to do one simple thing to maintain connection with one another: eat. The issue isn’t just eating, of course. That’s a non-negotiable for all biological organisms.…
Midrash: A Communal Approach To Reading Scripture
“Attached to every synagogue is a place devoted to the study of sacred writings and Holy Scripture. This area is called the Beit Midrash, the house of learning or study. Midrash literally means “investigation.” Here the Jewish people would…
Being The People Of God
This 14 minute video offers flesh-and-blood examples of what it looks like for the people of God to live as a community on mission, as opposed to a bunch of people trying to do church. Jeff Vanderstelt of Soma…
Community Church That Is Truly In The Community
Enjoy this thoughtful conversation with Tim Soerens, the co-founding director of the Parish Collective, a faith based social enterprise that convenes leaders for holistic renewal rooted in particular neighborhoods while linking collaboratively across the city and beyond.…
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