One Punk under God

I saw this video from MTV over at YouthMinistryTV.com. It tells Jay Bakker's, the son of Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker, yeah that Jim and Tammy and Fae, story. Jay and his church Revolution are also the subject of a new Sundance series called One Punk under God

Of all the reactions a kid could have to the circus that was his life, starting a church for the disenfranchised and the people the rest of the church have chosen to overlook is pretty cool.




Tags Jay Bakker Christianity Church Sundance Channel
One Punk under God

Ethos NYC

I spent the last 2 1/2 days at the ETHOS NYC event, a leadership expereiment, at Columbia University. The event was lead by Erwin McManus and several of his team from Mosaic LA. I'm not a good note taker so here are some random quotes I jotted down.

Unless otherwise noted the quotes below are form Erwin McManus:
Ethos, defined as, The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, and practices of a group or society, cannot be created, cannot happen with only one person.

The Church as it exists right now is an institution, what Jesus started was a movement. Somewhere along the line, we lost our motion.

The predominant mindset will become the ethos.

The majority will not lead, a small group willing to risk greatly will lead.

Mystics live in relationship with invisible realities. (Could be my favorite one)

Talent doesn't point to passion.

Ambition is good, selfish ambition is bad.

We have screwed up Jesus' command in Matthew 28:20. He did not tell us to teach all nations all things but to obey all things...most of us already know too much, the question is how much do we obey?

Drawing the line of faith too close creates high maintenance discipleship. Pushing the line out...followers of Christ are those who give all.

If we listen well enough, most people will tell us how to lead them to Christ.

In response to what is the most effective thing you are doing to reach people for Christ:
"We throw parties. Our first party one person came, now 80-100 show up."
one of the Church planters of Mosaic Dusseldorf, sorry I am spacing on his name
"Instead of building a church building we built a coffee shop that sees 600-700 people a day. And we hold a couple services there on Saturday Nights"
Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church Washington DC

Emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable. It is not possible for a Christian to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.

Most people, in our congregations, live off other peoples spirituality.

My message has to be done by Thursday so I can take my day off on Friday and Sabbath on Saturday.

We violate the image of God in us when we don't practice taking sabbaths.
Pete Scazzero, Founder, New Life Fellowship, Queens, NY

Those are my notes, fragemented as they are. Lots of stuff still churning in my head, may be another post to come on ETHOS NYC: the aftermath






Ethos erwin mcmanus
leadership
Character

Is God Green?

I hate politics. I especially hate it when it gives God a bad name. I hate it even more when "God's people" give God a bad name. There are those instances, which are way too rare, when a few folks who claim to be followers of Christ stand out in the parade of political nonsense as admirable and worthy of imitation.

Is God Green? recently aired on PBS and you can view it in it's entirety here. It was an intestesting combination of why I hate politics, more and more, why I want to distance myself from the religous right and a few individuals whom I would do well to imitate.

Despite how I feel about politics it was a great piece. Thought provoking on many levels and worth the time to watch it.

On a side note, if you watch this thing, there are several clips of congregations singing. Why is it that the media shows only those congregations that are tone-deaf and/or rthymically impaired?

tags Christianity politics environmentalist