February 2012
1 post
Reflections On Soma School
Reflections On Soma School
I spent the last week of January in Tacoma, Washington doing a week long immersion with Soma Communities. Going into the week I was fairly familiar with Soma and had borrowed much of what they do for our church plant. Heading into the week I hoped to nail down a few questions I had about their systems and solidify my understanding of what they are doing. I expected to...
December 2011
3 posts
My 5 Favorite Community Meals
One of the most important parts of our Gospel Community meeting is the meal. Meals have a sacred quality to them and have a way of bringing people together around the table (see Tim Chester’s book for a in depth exposition of this). Just consider how many important events throughout the bible took place around a meal. In our Gospel Communities, meals provide a simple way for people to start...
My Top 3 Most Recommended Resources On Missional...
Every time I talk with someone interested in learning more about missional communities, I usually end up pointing them to the three resources I listed below. They have been extremely helpful for me and have influenced much of what we do at Redeemer. I hope you find them helpful as well.
1. Soma School Manual - This 32 page PDF was extremely helpful to me over the past two years as I hashed out...
A Few Helpful Technology Tools For Church...
As a church planter I quickly discovered that in the early stages of a church plant you wear nearly every hat in the church. Thankfully I have been able to find a few resources that have proved to be a huge help to me and our young church plant. I hope that other planters and pastors might find these helpful as well.
1. The Table Project – Just after we moved down to the Austin area to plant I...
September 2011
1 post
Gospel Community Life - The Weekly Meeting
I am constantly reminding our people that Gospel Community is not a meeting, just as the church is not an event on Sunday mornings. Nevertheless, every Gospel Community at Redeemer meets on a weekly basis. The meeting is an important part of the community life, and for many it is the starting point for understanding what exactly Gospel Community (GC here after) is. So let me give you a brief...
August 2011
2 posts
Everyday Contexts
Life has a variety of contexts. Contexts are the surroundings or environments in which we all live. We believe that Jesus is Lord over all contexts of life. To help us see how Jesus transforms each context of life, we speak of everyday contexts. Everyday contexts include a variety of settings in which we hope to distinguish and define what it would look like for Jesus to redeem each context....
30 Ways To Bless Your Workplace
A few weeks ago I posted some very practical ideas for engaging your neighborhood with the Gospel. To follow that up I have compiled 30 ideas for engaging people in your workplace. The workplace is an everyday context where many people spend the majority of their time. It is important for us to know what it looks like to bring gospel intentionality to our jobs. Hopefully this will help spark a few...
July 2011
5 posts
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Rethinking Our Meals Part 1: Saying Grace
Over the past few years I have grown a great appreciation for the importance of meals. Our family has slowly grown into a lifestyle of regularly sharing meals with friends and neighbors. There is no doubt a great measure of grace conveyed through a thoughtfully prepared, slowly shared meal. As our family experienced this practically, I wanted to develop a deeper understanding of why meals are so...
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Practical Ways To Engage Your Neighborhood
Recently I made a list of 100 ways to engage your neighborhood. I have found that it is often helpful to have practical ideas to start engaging the people around me. Most of the things on this list are normal, everyday things that many people are already doing. The hope is that we would do these things with Gospel intentionality. This means we do them:
In the normal rhythms of life pursuing to...
Redeemer's Core Values
We recently finished our core values. Here they are.
Redeemer’s Core Values
1. Gospel Centered
The Gospel is wonderful news. God has not left humanity in its own mess, but graciously acted in history to defeat evil and reconcile sinners to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Everything we do is rooted in and empowered by the Gospel. We will always go back to the Gospel,...
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Church Plant Names
Before we decided to go with Redeemer, we had some fun thinking up creative names for our church plant. Feel free to take any of them if you want. Just don’t give me the credit for it.
Our List of Possible Church Plant Names
Round Rock Stone Church
Maranantha Communty of Exuberant Praise
Round Rock Hearth of the Earth Church
Soma Deo Missio Eclessia Imago Dei Church
Spirit Lives...
January 2011
1 post
Our First Month In Round Rock
It’s hard to believe that we have already been in Round Rock nearly a month. It feels like we are finally starting to find a sense of normalcy to our daily routine. Transitioning to a new community was a bigger change than we anticipated but God has given us a ton of grace in the move. Here are just a few on the things that we are thankful for in our move.
Help Moving Out & In - From...