peace / 7 practises of effective ministry rant


my computer is acting extra slow which is making me kinda nervous. the above is a print by my new favourite artist - dale. (dng23.com) dale comes to our church. i am going to frame the above print and display it at first@night. i also want to linck to his web-site form the first@night site.

dale has an amazing testimony which sounds like it waslifted from a movie. god's hand is really on him - god has protected him. i think his career in art is really going to take off.

brunch this morning. then hibernated for the rest of the day. finished up the sermon - i hate cramming it in on a saturday. will work harder next week. also plan on taking monday off - i feel like a thousand different voices have been talking at me this past week. need some air to clear my head.

my cousin from san diego is in town w. 4 of her friends. she dropped by for dinner - i'll probably catch up w. her again tomorrow afternoon.

tomorrow's sermon - gen 31 - jacob splits w. laban. through all the oppression and injustice god was always watching and at the right time intervened. cool.

i added this about 10 minutes after i wrote all of the above - i just finished reading this book called "7 practises of effective ministry" by andy stanley and a couple of other guys from a mega-church in atlanta. i don't recall reacting so strongly negatively to a book before. the pastors at fbc have to read this book together to discuss it - this book is the distillation of the 7 guiding principles for this church called northpoint community in atlanta.

i believe these guys are sincere and they are leading many people to christ. but they have so capitualted to the consumer driven culture we live in, that it is seriously problematic to me.

the 2 most problematic ideas they propose are:

don't preach all the bible because some parts are more important then others

a preacher should ask "is this helpful" before asking "is this true" when he/she prepares a message.

there are a few weak tips on leadership but overall this is a poor book and i regret that this book was selected for us to study together.

"wipe your tears away."

Comments

Anonymous said…
I don't know I agree with you.... When visiting your church I noticed that you didn't have a latte machine... how would you ever expect an all powerful God to work in your church if you don't have a latte machine. :-).

ps. I added a link to dng23.com.... he does have cool stuff
2:17 PM
Santosh said…
cool on the link part

we are working on the latte machine and also theater style vibrating massage seats so people can endure the sermons
3:42 PM
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