http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/244275399/

I am in Portugal, just finished a great conference with Christian Associates (a church planting movement in Europe.  I am on leadership team) I am utterly wasted, and this is the first time I have been able to look over the new site.  What do you think?  There is a little more ironing out to do, but I like.  I’ll eventually get around to posting again soon.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/244965239/

John 1:1-18 forms the central defining Scriptural text narrating to us of the marvelous coming of God into human history. But this text is far from the only one to probe this mystery.  All Christians acknowledge that In Jesus Christ God was fully present and that He moved into our neighborhood in an act of humble love the likes of which the world has never known. “When we talk of the Incarnation with a capital “I” we refer to that act of sublime love and humility whereby God takes it upon himself to enter into the depths of our world, our life, our reality in order that the redemption and consequent union between God and humanity may be brought about.  This ‘enfleshing’ of God is so radical and total that it qualifies all subsequent acts of God in his world.”

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/246694440/

The Incarnation not only qualifies God’s acts in the world, it must also qualify ours. If God’s central way of reaching his world was to incarnate himself in Jesus, then our way of reaching the world should likewise be incarnational. To act incarnationally therefore will mean in part that in our mission to those outside of the faith we will need to exercise a genuine identification and affinity with those we are attempting to reach. At the very least, it will probably mean moving into common geography/space and so set up a real and abiding presence among the group. But the basic motive of incarnational ministry is also revelatory—that they may come to know God through Jesus.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/248627302/

By living incarnationally we not only model the pattern of humanity set up in the Incarnation but we also create space for mission to take place in organic ways. In this way mission becomes something that ‘fits’ seamlessly into the ordinary rhythms of life, friendships, and community and is thus thoroughly contextualized. Thus these ‘practices’ form a working basis for genuine incarnational mission. But they also provide us with an entry point into an authentic experience of Jesus and His mission.  Lindy Croucher, a missionary to the poor in a order called UNOH, likens living incarnationally to the scene in Mary Poppins where Mary takes hold of the children’s hands and steps into the painting.  She says that for her, incarnational mission has been like “stepping into the Gospels.”  She feels that she is “living inside the Gospels” for the first time.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/250401034/

Book review of book by Patrick Hanlon called Primal Branding: Create Zealots for your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future.  Reviewed by David Mays.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/253006324/

By my reading of the Scriptures, even though it is a non-negotiable, ecclesiology is the most fluid of the central doctrines. The church is a dynamic cultural expression of the people of God in any given place. Worship style, social dynamics, liturgical expressions must the result from the process of contextualizing the gospel in any given culture. Church must follow mission. We engage first in incarnational mission and the church so to speak, comes out the back of it. But if it is consistent with incarnational practices, that church will take the shape of the cultural group it is trying to reach. Mission in the incarnational mode is highly sensitive to the cultural forms and rhythms of a people group because these are the means of meaningful relationship and influence. Incarnational mission thus engages people from within their cultural expression. Once this essential missional listening, observation, connecting, and networking has been done, then the forming of Jesus communities can take place. This is the only way to ensure that the Christian community truly incarnates itself and is fully contextualized. This can be diagrammatically represented as follows…

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/255319258/

Yes, at last! A worship leader who is recognizing the dangers of the over-romaticization (or is it the eroticization?) of worship. A very candid interview with Matt Redman…

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/255319257/

As we come to Easter, we are reminded of the absolute place that Jesus has over our minds, hearts, lives, and imaginations. Listen to the ever-worshipful Lesslie Newbigin here:
That which is disclosed in Jesus Christ is the very character and will from which all that is proceeds. For the believer who, by the [...]

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/258799931/

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/261493576/

At last, we have the German translation of The Shaping of Things to Come. How exciting. Click on the image below for see purchase information if you are German-speaking. Sorry that it has taken so long.I hope that God will use it to build his church in German-speaking lands.