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Some practices or habits we engage in are thin, like exercising or brushing our teeth. We do these habits toward a particular end, to be in shape and have clean teeth. Thin practices don’t touch on our identity. “It would be an odd thing, for instance, for me to think of myself first and foremost as a ‘tooth brusher.’ These practices or habits don’t touch our love or fundamental desire.”

Thick practices or (liturgies) are rituals of ultimate concern, rituals that are identity-forming and telos-laden, that embed particular visions of the good life, and do so in a way that seeks to trump other ritual formations.

So what kind of liturgies do the people in the congregation you serve in embody? How do they increase people’s honesty and love for God? How do they help shape people for God’s purposes in the world?

JR Woodward, Creating a Missional Culture: Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World

Habits that Change the World

Posted by Chris on April 22, 2013 In Growth, Life, Mission , , , , , ,
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Brennan Manning: I’ll Meet You Where You’re At

Chris —  April 16, 2013

RIP, Ragamuffin.

In God, Growth, Mission ,
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The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.

Nietzsche

No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.

Jesus, Luke 9:62

Nietzsche and Jesus on Monday Morning

Posted by Chris on March 4, 2013 In Growth, Life ,
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“Ramon Lull [1235-1315] must rank as one of the greatest missionaries in the history of the church.  Others were filled with an equally ardent desire to preach the gospel to unbelievers, and if necessary to suffer for it; it was left to Lull to be the first to develop a theory of missions–not merely to wish to preach the gospel, but to work out in careful detail how it was to be done.” …He conceived a missionary methodology that could be summarized in three points:

1.  A comprehensive and accurate knowledge of the language

2.  The composition of a book in which the truth of the Christian religion should be demonstrated logically.

3. A willingness to be a faithful and courageous witness…even at the cost of life itself.

The New Global Mission: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone Samuel Escobar, quoting Stephen Neill
Read as part of the MAGL

The Most Important Missionary of All Time?

Posted by Chris on February 19, 2013 In Church, Culture, Mission , , , , ,
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…Self-regarding interest, in whatever guise it appears (and even the language of rights descents to self-interest when the theological roots of that language are forgotten) is an inadequate basis for moral action.

For Nicolas Lash, the gospel can be summed up in the simple statement ‘We have been made capable of friendship‘ –  with God and with one another.  To say this, seriously, against our actual background of brutality and devastation, of ancient and deep-rooted group and individual egotism, of terror, isolation, and exhausted disbelief, is to say something either very foolish or, if sensible, then very dark and strange indeed.  And yet, I have been taught by that particular people which identifies me more deeply than does my British nationality – namely, by Catholic Christianity – that I must learn to place my fundamental loyalty with no people, no possibility of friendship, more restricted than the human race.

Vinoth Ramachandra, Faiths in Conflict?

Capable of Friendship

Posted by Chris on February 12, 2013 In Culture, God, Mission , ,
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