This week I began my role as Associate Pastor at Willamette Christian Church in West Linn, but there was one project that needed to be finalized with the church we transitioned from: Foothills Community Church in Molalla. The project? A new website. I pitched the idea of revamping the old site back in January (actually suggested we use the great CMS Ekklesia360 ), and the discussions turned to a home-group system, where one team member provided the design mockup, and then I took the lead over the Summer in coding, styling and configuring the site to function (running Wordpress as the CMS). With...

Yesterday I shared a bit of our story — and realize their are so many gaps I left out. Since this really isn’t about us , but rather about Christ and His worth, those gaps will have to be like the cracks in a clay pot that reveals the excellency and worth of the object inside ( 2 Cor. 4 ). Please look past us and see the beauty of God. Here are the top five lessons I (think I) have learned over this past 50 month journey and beyond. All are interconnected: People are more important that what they do. Personalizing it: I am not what I do . That is, my identity is rooted in...

This week I embark on a new adventure as a pastor. It almost seems surreal to me. Really, I get to do full-time what I have felt God calling us to and shaping us for a decade? Is this for real? Kari and I have had glimpses and tremendous opportunities to serve in the Gospel, pastoring others (as a verb, not noun). Now the stakes are heightened. Tomorrow I’ll share 5 lessons learned over these last 50 months . For now, here are five signposts along the journey to being a pastor (stretching back before these last 4+ years). In 1998 I first sensed Christ’s call to enter the ministry....

Yesterday Kari and I had an encouraging meeting. A very, very encouraging meeting. At this meeting with the leaders of a local church we were blessed to make official on paper my new assignment by God to serve as a pastor. Next month I will join their pastoral team as associate pastor and Kari and I are overwhelmed by God and these church leaders for the opportunity. A person with more faith would have looked at our similar meeting two weeks ago and see that as the watershed moment. It really was, and it came as kind of a surprise. That was the day I was offered the role/position of associate...

Andreas Kostenberger writes about the mission of the church : The church’s mission–in both belief and practice–should be grounded in the biblical theology of mission. Reflection on the church’s mission should be predicated upon the affirmation of the full and sole authority of Scripture. The church’s mission should be conceived primarily in terms of the church’s faithfulness and responsiveness to the missionary mandate given by the Lord Jesus Christ as recorded in Scripture. The church’s understanding of its mission should be hermeneutically sound. The church’s mission...

"Most churches make the mistake of selecting as leaders the confident, the competent, and the successful. But what you most need in a leader is someone who has been broken by the knowledge of his or her sin, and even greater knowledge of Jesus’ costly grace. The number one leaders in every church ought to be the people who repent the most fully without excuses, because you don’t need any now; the most easily without bitterness; the most publicly and the most joyfully. They know their standing isn’t based on their performance." -Tim Keller SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title:...

Tim Chester, co-author of Total Church, was interviewed over on the Desiring God blog. Check it out. Good stuff.  I’ve been reading the book and am challenged on a number of levels. My soul and mind resonate with the subtitle: “A radical reshaping around Gospel and community.”  A helpful quote from Chester: One of our catchphrases is “ordinary people living ordinary life with gospel intentionality.” It means doing the chores, having meals, watching sports, and so on with an intention to talk about Jesus, to pastor one another with the gospel, and to share that gospel with...

Biblical truth is in the closed hand. (It doesn’t change!) But changing methodologies and adapting to culture is in the open hand. (It can change.) Keeping that in mind will be helpful when giving younger leaders are given opportunities to lead in the church. Mark Driscoll briefly discussed this in preparation to the 2006 DesiringGod conference. He makes a point that if younger men feel stifled and are not able to venture out and lead in creative ways, well, they will probably leave. [HT: Carey @ Paul+Timothy ] Be a Paul and raise up a Timothy, pouring out your life into him, and knowing...

On Sunday I was privileged again to preach in Wilsonville at Canyon Creek Church . This time the text was  Philippians 3:1-11 , and my title: "Worthless Doing and Priceless Knowing ." Asked to give a little synopsis for the church bulletin, this is what I wrote: We have natural bent towards religion. That is, we tend to find our identity by what we do, rather than in Who God is. It is easy to think we have done so much on our own, for our "gains" are clearly seen by looking at our own religious resumes and feeble good works — especially by comparison with others. Yet, in...

Only a few dozen pages into the new Total Church book. It arrived this week in the mail — 4 weeks before it’s official publishing date — and I was hoping to dig into it this weekend if possible. Last night I couldn’t put it down. Looking forward to interacting with the UK authors’ concepts, as they try to unfold what they mean by the subtitle: "A radical reshaping around Gospel and community." The publisher gives a summary: "As two pastors outline the biblical calling to make both the gospel and community central in the Christian life, they apply...