funny boy Brant hanson takes Al Quaeda out

All the talk about Al Quaeda makes me think of my friend Brant Hanson’s post w hile back.  this has already featured here once, but it is so good that it has to be posted again! So, this is from Brant….

Alan (me), in his book, points out that Al-Qaeda is almost impossible to stop. This [...]

acting our way into a new way of thinking

As should be obvious by now, we need to develop our ways of knowing God to be able to be true disciples. But it goes beyond just adding right actions and feelings to the equation of right knowledge, I believe the place for us to start is by focusing on the action piece [...]

the full monty (…of discipleship)

Not forgetting Orthodoxy: Having noted that orthodoxy (right belief) is not enough, I am not suggesting that it is not important. Far from it! Right belief is an irreplaceable element of any discipleship in the way of Jesus. However the church nearly always sees orthodoxy narrowly,  as a commitment to propositional truth, assuming [...]

going troppo! the way of obedience

Bonhoeffer believed that the only way to truly comprehend the revelation of God in scripture is by approaching it with the pre-commitment to obey it. For those interested in weird theological terms, he calls this ‘tropological exegesis’ or simply ‘tropology’.  Bonhoeffer can therefore speak of discipleship as a ‘problem of exegesis’ and goes on to [...]

orthopathy…or the way of the heart.

As we have seen, engagement with Jesus must move us beyond being spectators to participants. If we wish to become like him we must learn to actively participate in Jesus, actively applying him and his teachings to our lives. We cannot be disinterested spectators when it comes to Jesus. In fact, in the encounters described [...]

context and socialization in leadership development

I have long believed that leadership, or the lack of it, is a significant key to either the renewal, or the decline, of the church.  If this is true, that leadership critical to our success or failure, then we must ask the question as to why we are in our current state of demise, and [...]

hitting the road with jesus

We are all familiar with the gospel stories where Jesus selects a band of disciples, lives his life with them, ministers with them, and mentors them.  This approach to the formation of followers was common in the Israel of Jesus’ day.  Most rabbis would initiate and develop their schools of thought through similar means.  It [...]

leadership is an extension of discipleship

If this is not already obvious by now let me say it more explicitly: the quality of the church’s leadership is directly proportional to the quality of discipleship. if we fail in the area of making disciples we should not be surprised if we fail in the area of leadership development. I think many of [...]

inspirational v. institutional leadership (take II)

INFLUENCE is a hard thing to quantify. But you know it when you encounter it. It is as interesting as well as profound that the NT word for authority is exousia, which quite literally means “out of oneself’ (out of one’s own substance.) When one probes the nature of spiritual authority in scripture, it [...]

inspirational v. institutional leadership

THE Academy Award winning movie depicting the life of Mohandas Gandhi opens with the state funeral of the remarkable man who had so transformed India. An American radio commentator narrates the meaning of his life to the rest of the world. In his narration, he observes that before them was a man who was [...]

is there a difference between radical & moderate islam?

I don’t normally comment on political topics on this blog, but I have long held that fundamentalist Islam is actually the normative form of it and not the other way around. The moderates claim that radical Islam is the aberration, what do you think? Check this out…

I am not merely trying to be belligerent [...]

passing the baton

Closely linked to the idea of the imitation of Christ is the idea of embodiment, which involves the dual tasks of patterning, and modeling. When we look at the phenomenal movements in history we will find that these people movements found a way to translate the grand themes of the Gospel (Kingdom of God, [...]

obedience as worship

When one looks at the Gospel records themselves it is clear that “…Jesus did not ask for homage but obedience. He always had much more to lose from his friends than from his enemies. Admiration has always blunted his sword. It serves to dull the original outrage of his mission. Veneration assumes [...]

50 ways to leave your lover

Human beings, including Jesus’ disciples, have become artful in developing ways in which to escape from the all-encompassing claims of God in Jesus. Any discussion about true encounters with God must therefore include ways in which we try and avoid him, to qualify the God relationship, to ameliorate the tension he creates in our lives. [...]

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