Phil Goodacre saw Andrew Jones do a teaching in the UK. He has posted his notes on the talk. There’s quite a bit to think about in his post. Some of my favorite things are:

We then moved on to look at Luke 10, from which I noted down a number of things that grabbed me.

We are told to enter other people’s houses, rather than us dragging them into ours. What does this say about the way we do mission, and the way we do church???

God HAS prepared a harvest. The harvest IS out there. We must learn to find where God’s favour is.

The 72 were told to go out, eat, drink, heal etc etc. THEN tell people about the Kingdom of God. Is this the way we do it? Or are we often in a hurry to get all the ‘God stuff’ in right at the beginning. People need to experience the Kingdom of God before we start banging on about it verbally.

A definition of ministry was presented that seems so simple, but is really quite profound:
1. giving gifts
2. telling stories
3. throwing parties
4. making friends
[philgoodacre.blogspot]

I just love the definition of ministry. However, I realize I only do one of those things well! I do have some work to do.

What is odd, is that even though I resonate with the emerging church and such, I’m a product of a modern church institution. I’m finding I want to learn some ‘new’ lessons while feeling some ‘pangs’ of guilt of moving away from the established way of doing things. I figure at some time the church I serve will figure this out too (I think some of them already have).

A case in point: My wife and I were discussing our VBS which is coming up. She asked the question, “Why do we do VBS?” It was a good question because I realized I really didn’t have a good answer for it. The ‘real’ answer was, “Well, VBS is what churches do in the summer time. It is what we must do as a church to be considered to be a legitimate church.” Hmm…I’m finding that I’m driven to do a lot so I can feel like I am a legitimate pastor and serve a legitimate church. I want to stop it….being legitimate that is…..