When I began writing this book five years ago it was mostly about wanting to capture some of my memories before forgetting them. I called it a “book,” but didn’t think much of it ever being published. It was more about just getting
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Last summer I spent many of my evenings listening to the voices of the multivocational ministers that had agreed to participate in the Canadian Multivocational Ministry Project. I was working on transcribing recorded interviews to pass along to the research team for analysis. A few nights a week, after my 1-year-old son was in bed I would go down into our basement to the computer tucked in a corner next to the furnace….
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Often things don’t survive translation from one medium to another. Different mediums tell stories in different ways. Every medium has its own unique rule sets and constraints. Every medium has its own inherent strengths and weaknesses….
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For the first time in nearly 3 years my current church plant, Cypher Church, held what I’ll call a “conventional” worship service. You know the one: 5 songs, 1 by Hillsong, announcements, and a 20-45 minute sermon. We don’t worship in this way so it was novel to do once.
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When I think of Canada, I often think of big – big landscapes, big mountains, big open spaces. But Canada is also small – small populations (relatively speaking on a global scale), small towns, small beauty.
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While many in the church today lament the loss of power, influence, and attendance, there is a growing group …A book review of Thrive: Ideas to Lead the Church in Post-Christendom.
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I am connected with Vision Ministries Canada, and Jay Gurnett thought the Design Shop would be helpful as we got closer to making our church plant a reality. When I came to the Design Shop in April 2018 we had
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Urban life is the reality for most Westerners now. In Canada 82% of our citizens live in cities. William Cronon notes that for many of us cities have “represented all that [is] most unnatural about human life… a cancer on an otherwise beautiful landscape”
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Calgary is home to one of the largest metro populations of religious “nones” in the country. Over a 1/3 of the population would check the box, “no religious affiliation” when asked. The contemporary church, rooted in Christendom, struggles to connect with the emerging majority demographic. It’s here where we decided to immerse a church with intention knowing full well we had few answers coming in. First off, who’s we?
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When was the last time a church coach or lead pastor was fired for not hitting a discipleship quota? Never. What we measure describes what we deem the most important in the community. By this metric
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