Blog Closed

I've been doing a horrible job posting to this blog, and realistically, I don't foresee being able to do any better going forward. So, this blog is closed.

Please bookmark the Missio Dei website, www.mdtx.org

and my personal blog, It's a Start

Yet another example of the Experience Economy

It's an undeniable fact of life in our times. How do we as a house-based congregation fit into this? run counter to it?

From this post on MYiTablet:

Turns out that when it comes to selling iPhones, Apple stores have AT&T well and truly beat; they outsold them seven to one. Now some of that is undoubtedly due to customers going into Apple stores knowing they want to pick up an Apple product, whereas AT&T sell a wide range of phones and who knows which one you’ll decide or be coerced into buying, but I think there’s also a big element of “occasion” to it.

Two Important Articles

First, a mention of the study I've been referencing a lot as we've discussed Nehemiah, Urban Ministry, and Missio Dei

Second, Poll: Trust in Organized Religion at Near-Record Low

googling 'House Church'

I know Wikipedia is pretty well-known, but I wanted to go ahead and link to the wiki on House Church there. It seems fair and thorough, from all I know, and from our limited experiences. Does this provoke any discussion with Missio Dei in mind?

I'm mainly posting this for reference, and for the extensive External Links section, but would love any and all comments here.

New Daily Houston Vlog

This will be fun to follow - could be a great way to learn about and celebrate our city ...

Chicago Church's Mac v. PC Parody

Very interesting. This church (Community Christian Church in the Chicago area) has a lot of influence in the church-planting world since one of the biggest trends in church-planting is the "multi-site" congregation, and they're having great success in drawing lots of people. Many congregations are forgoing establishing new congregations and starting "branches" (like banks - or, more similarly, like denominations a couple of generations ago - but most of them don't want to hear that comparison). While CCC's branches are just in the Chicago metro area, there are other big churches that are establishing "branches" in other cities and countries.

I'd love to hear your feedback on the ads. Here's my $0.02: in the original settings, as intros into sermons, I love them. But as viral videos, I don't see how they don't come across as "be a cool-Christ-follower like us, not a dorky, stoopid Christian like them", despite the protests of the creators. It hits home since a lot of my frustration with the church-planting movement centers on the fact that, while we use the language of evangelization and conversion of non-believers and nominal believers, in practice almost all of the "growth" of new churches comes from people who were involved with other churches. The on-the-street "marketing" and word-of-mouth for a lot of new churches - especially those with visions of being an attractional, attractive worship experience with large numbers of attendees - stresses how "different" the new church is from all the other churches. It seems to me that the reason these churches have to stress how different they are is that they are - in the words of Madison Ave - thinking in terms of capturing existing market share from "the competition" rather than creating "new customers".

HT: Judy

Spot on about Christian Television Today

From Mosaic Church in Southern Cal