as most of you know if you’ve been reading the carnival for long, i am passionate about the wild & beautiful body of Christ. and even though i have personally lost a lot of hope in many aspects of the “institution”, i firmly believe that God is alive-and-well through pockets of people & that his mission is being carried out in all kinds of amazing ways throughout the world.
i am privileged to be part of a gathering in the DC area hosted by the transFORM network april 30-may 2nd in a that focuses on cultivating missional communities across a wide variety of contexts.
what i love about the conversation is that it is about practice. i don’t think the world needs a bunch more people sitting around talking about theology. i do think the world needs a bunch more people courageously engaging in experiencing & spreading Jesus’ love in really tangible ways.
i recently was part of a roundtable discussion hosted by my friend jonathan brink. it was so encouraging to me on so many levels because the other participants (don & pam heatley from vision community church and phil & stephanie shepherd from the eucatastrophe and jonathan from thrive) are in the trenches trying to live out what they deeply believe about what it means to follow Christ and cultivate authentic commmunity that extends the hands and feet and heart of Jesus beyond just words. the questions centered on the idea of what drew us to the missional conversation (i tend to prefer the word “incarnational”), what it looks like in our context, and how do we respond to the idea that “missional” is only focused on social justice. of course for me it’s always fun to listen to other practitioners & dreamers and to get to share what i am learning through the refuge community, too.
it’s kind of long, but i hope you’ll listen to it. these are stories of people not just talking about it but actually doing it.
enjoy:
- or if you prefer, free download from itunes
as always, i’d love to hear some of your thoughts.
ps: if you can pull off DC, let me know so we can hang out. it’s free & you can RSVP & get more info here.