Missional Code Breaking: Twelve

Stetzer and Putman deal with church planting in chapters 11 and 12 of Breaking the Missional Code. Since the authors deal with this topic more completely elsewhere, I’ll skip those chapters for now and move to a summary of chapter 13, dealing with the dangers of compromise.
In a previous summary, we looked at the idea [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Eleven

The third part of the summary of Stetzer and Putman’s Breaking the Missional Code deals with the question, "What does Jesus mean by ‘all nations’?"
The authors define this idea within a contemporary situation by looking at three divisions:

people groups
population segments
cultural environments

Stetzer and Puman maintain that churches must "contextualize the disciple-making process to each specific group." [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Ten

Continuing on with a summary of Stetzer and Putman’s Breaking the Missional Code:
Yesterday, we went through the first question that they pose in their chapter on spiritual formation. Today, we’ll take a cursory look at their second question, “What does it mean to ‘make disciples’?”
The authors see people as moving through various stages of development [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Nine

Chapter 9 in Stetzer and Putman’s Breaking the Missional Code is one of the more interesting and important chapters in the whole book. I will skip summaries of some later chapters to devote a bit more time with this material.
Jesus said,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Eight

Stetzer and Putman, in Breaking the Missional Code, mention that interest in church planting in North America is increasing. Only two books were published on this subject between 1996 and 2002. Between 2002 and 2005, at least eight books were published, with more slated for publication in the near future. They point out that the [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Seven

Chapter 7 of Stetzer and Putman’s Breaking the Missional Code is about translating the gospel by using  communication methods that are understood by the people you are attempting to reach. It is also making sure that the ideas conveyed are moved from the head to the heart, from just knowledge to knowledge and action (or [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Six

In chapter six of Breaking the Missional Code, Stetzer and Putman spend some time on what leaders should be thinking about.
For leaders in code-breaking churches, these values are preeminent:
Spiritual FormationLeaders should first be concerned about their own spiritual formation. Stetzer and Putman identified that 71% of over 500 listed barriers that decrease the ability [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Five

Stetzer and Putman start chapter 5 of Breaking the Missional Code this way:
Change always happens, and most change is out of our control. What we can control is our response to a changing culture. The response by the missional congregation to change has prodcued emerging transitional patterns. As churches seek to break the code, they [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Four

Stetzer and Putman believe that the church growth movement, when it first began, was a good thing. Very little was written about the idea of “reaching” people before then. The church growth movement, however, became bogged down in “technique” (sometimes contradictory techniques) and pastors became frustrated.
Pastoral frustration led pastors away from books written by academicians [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Three

Do you and the people in your church set your minds and hearts on fulfilling the Great Commission?
If your answer is yes, then how much of the Great Commission do you try to fulfill? All of it? 25%? 50%? 75%?
Do you think these questions are a tad ridiculous? You might ask, “How can we know [...]

Missional Code Breaking: Two

Where culture is a strong influence on a person who first comes to know Christ, it is difficult for that person to become assimilated into a local church because there are times when that church’s culture is so foreign to what the new believer knows as normal. Sometimes cultural questions are simply matters of preference, [...]

Missional Code Breaking: One

Ed Stetzer and David Putman have written a fine book called Breaking The Missional Code. For the next however many weeks, I will be posting summaries and thoughts about the book’s main theme—that the culture has changed and churches will also need to change to maintain an effective ministry in their respective communities.
Stetzer and Putman [...]

Practicing in Public

It’s hard to believe a week went by already.
I was on the road last week without reliable access to either a computer or internet connection. I don’t feel as bad about that as I once did. But, nevertheless, it’s still something that tugs at my conscience.
I was out of the office four out of [...]

Media and the Mind

Interesting point by Scott Berkhimer who blogs at theopraxis:
I don't like to talk about postmodernity. I think it's overdiscussed and misunderstood. And, on some level, it misses the point entirely. What we as a culture are currently facing is, at least in part, the result of more than a century of significant shifts in our [...]

Freedom: One of Many Metaphors

Bob Robinson’s post today resonated with me for a variety of reasons, chiefly because of his insights into the gospel and what we call freedom. Here’s a sample:
The New Testament often describes the saving work of Christ in terms of freedom. Some don’t like to hear this, but the gospel is so vast that it [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Borders

The thrust of the chapter on The Borders of the Kingdom in Brian McLaren's The Secret Message of Jesus consists of this balancing act:
"…to be truly inclusive, the kingdom must exclude exclusive people; to be truly reconciling, the kingdom must not reconcile with those who refuse reconciliation; to achieve its purpose of gathering people, it [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Peace

When I first read Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus, I thought his chapter entitled The Peaceable Kingdom stood as the best in the book. And it is; though on a second and third reading, I can’t help but notice that this subject is more involved than the space that McLaren devotes to it. [...]

Wendell Berry and the “Great Economy”

After what I wrote yesterday about Brian McLaren's chapter on Language in The Secret Message of Jesus, I came across a book by Wendell Berry called Home Economics. In an essay entitled Economies,written some 22 years ago, Berry described a conversation he had with Wes Jackson about what kind of economy would be the most comprehensive and what [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Language

In the chapter on the Language of the Kingdom in The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren maintains that the language of the kingdom is currently misunderstood, especially in western society. He also maintains that the ideas contained within Jesus' kingdom manifesto are relevant for today. Jesus' kingdom language confronts head-on the "kingdoms" of our [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Ethics

In the chapter on Kingdom Ethics in The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren compares running a marathon to the spiritual life. You don't get up off the couch without any prior training and run 26 miles the first day. You work up to it, running short distances first, progessively adding time and distance until [...]