I connected with a church planter out in Chicago, who is a bit of a marketing whiz.  He has built a website called “Eat Jesus.com” where church planters and church leaders contribute articles based on the theme of how to be “self-feeding” Christians.  I have been asked to contribute articles there, and I am excited to be involved.  Check it out – subscribe, and learn.

It’s a great idea – too many Christians these days only eat “pablum” – spoon-fed Scripture by their pastor every Sunday, with a midweek snack, maybe, if they are involved in some kind of small group or larger group like Young Adults or Youth or Singles or Young Marrieds or Old Timers or MOPS or Men’s Ministry or Women’s Ministry… you get the picture.

Tell me: how healthy are you if you are only fed a bowl of pablum twice a week?  You’d be pretty anemic and starving to death.  Tell me: how often do you need to be eating physical food to nourish your physical body?  Twice?  Three times a day?  More?  Now tell me – if God made our physical bodies to need food regularly – like multiple times a day, how healthy will we be spiritually, if we only feed  spiritually twice a week? Now you get the idea of how important it is that we as Christians become self-feeding.  Our pastors cannot feed us as often as we need to be spiritually healthy.  If we are wondering why our spiritual life seems barren or fruitless, we need look no further than our feeding habits.  A starving, emaciated faith does not produce much fruit.

Jesus said in John 6:53-58, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.   Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.   Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.   This is the bread that came down from heaven.  Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” He is speaking about spiritual nourishment.  It doesn’t get plainer than that.  Eatjesus.com and live.

(Crossposted to Confessions of a Shiftless Mind.)

Two new things are about to debut on the blog.

First, a help for you,  the reader.  We are going to be including at the bottom of each post related posts, helpfully linked by a wonderful wordpress script.  So, if you are interested in learning more about what we have written about the subject at hand, check out those links.

Secondly, We’re going to get a little more… multimedia.

Right now, as we speak, Cheryl and I are working on plans to start video blogging.  Yes, that’s right.  At currently unspecificed intervals, we will start putting original video content on here, talking about our church planting experiences, and our growth becoming church planters.  Cheryl’s got a background for this kind of thing, so I expect it should be at the least well-produced, if not enlightening and entertaining!

So stay tuned!

Lots of good articles in my RSS reader this morning.  If you don’t have an RSS feed reader (even if you’re not a big blog fan) I recommend it heartily.  It condenses hours of blog surfing down to minutes.  If you ever came across websites or blogs that you thought you’d like to read more regularly but forget their address, or don’t get around to it often, RSS is for you.

I just got on the bandwagon, even though I’d surf by their sites frequently before.  But here are two three excellent links to links with good stuff from my RSS feeds:

• Church Planting Novice found a great article at Subtext with excellent tips for conversationally bringing up the Gospel.  No “Did you know you’re going to hell?” type transitions here.
• The Pyromaniacs took a break from picking fights to link to the Jollyblogger’s cautious thoughts about the nature of marital problems in general.  He contends that it would be better for Christian spouses to treat each other as enemies! How’s that for controversial?  Read it – he makes more sense than you think!
• Mark Driscoll’s blog talks this morning about the spiritual discipline of studying.  I was shocked by the reference to 2 Peter 2:15, as it is the lead verse for Awana (stands for “approved workmen who are not ashamed”).  This will definitely be a talking point for my next team meeting.  More specifically, I have a leader who is worried about whether he is capable of studying the Bible.  I need to meet with him individually I think, encourage him and see if we can overcome this concern.

Hope you find these as interesting as I did!

From a quote on a blog I read occasionally,

“Emergents are multiplying, and for most of those participating in the movement this multiplicity is not perceived as a challenge but as an opportunity for forging transversal differentiated networks oriented by and toward reformative communion that empowers persons to share in the self-giving love of Jesus’ way of acting in the world.  Isn’t this what church should be?” (Source)

Heh.  I love blogging.  One of the reasons I love it is it allows you to participate in conversations that grow you and because it is public, it can grow others too.

But sometimes I read something that’s like sand in the gears of my mind.  Everything slows down while I try to understand what was written.  My intention isn’t to slam the author or the blogger who cited it, but sometimes things need to be in layman-speak, or you cut off a large segment of your potential crowd.

I try not to write over the heads of anyone here, mainly because I think if you’re going to talk to people – ordinary people and try to communicate about Jesus, you can’t speak over their heads.  You can’t use Christianese.  (By the way, if you need help translating Christianese, see this site.)  I mean, eyes glaze over soon enough as soon as the name of Jesus is mentioned (unless you’re swearing, strangely enough).  I don’t want them glazing over because of my word choice – and I slip in polysyllabic words too often as it is!

Funny thing is, I think what the author is saying is that these new “emergent” communities are trying to share the gospel.  Same as me.  Funny how it can be expressed so differently!

No sign of hurricanes. Unless that yellow patch kicks up into something… but if it doesn’t, it is still conceivable that a hurricane could form and move while we are gone. We should be so lucky. I love storms… though I don’t know if Cheryl would echo that sentiment.

Plane seats booked, rides arranged. Bonus: Westjet will allow us to bring a stoller or playpen with us as “carryon” in addition to regular carryon! That should help.

Don’t expect any blogging to be done while we are down there though I am still hopeful I will get a few minutes on the computer here and there.

If you’re in the Surrey area over the next couple of weeks, our Sundays should be very interesting.  We’re having the leadership couple for our Freedom Session program starting this fall speak on July 26, about their journey.  Then, on August 2 we will have the guy who started “Catholics for Jesus” come and speak.  Apparently he has a heck of a story as well.  I will be sorry to miss these two weekends.