Church is the force field through which we must pass if we are to translate our knowledge of redemption into the life of the redeemed.
A Call to Adventure
This episode is a podcast edition of an audio file that has been on the site for quite some time. It is a message that Dan delivered to a The Vine, a gathering of all of the fellowships in the Summit network, back in January of 2014. The content deals with the nature of small-group churches and their relationship with what could be called “missionaries.” In the teaching, Dan argues that there are two essential parts of the church, those that go out with the message (expediti) and those that provide a stable location for believers to live and mature (communitas). This begs the question: is there someone in your fellowship that yearns to carry the gospel beyond your living room?
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A Million Bucks
Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if, instead of choosing to meet in homes 25+ years ago, we had gone the more traditional route.
So, why didn’t we?
Well, for one thing, my experience with oiling the machinery of church structures caused me to want to avoid the administrative responsibilities of such an effort. I wanted to focus more time on relationship than on getting our organization ironed out.
Another reason was the expense of doing church in the traditional way. Recently, I became curious what the costs might have been had we decided to get a building and function more like a “real” church.
If I had paid more attention during the four years I spent pastoring a small church in Vancouver I would have had some idea of the operational costs. Alas, I’ve never been much for budgets so I must have tuned that part out. Anyhow, I didn’t remember the numbers and I didn’t save any financial reports, so the question sent me to the web looking for the budget of a typical smallish church. Continue reading A Million Bucks