You never are together [simply] to be together, you’re together because you have something you want to do, work that [needs to be done]. — Stanley Hauerwas In my prior post, I shared Robert Lupton’s challenge to the church to move away from charity that breeds dependency and toward...

As I shared earlier this week, I believe one of the primary roles of a minister is helping people cultivate the practice of listening to the sound of the genuine in themselves. However, ministers cannot do so authentically unless we cultivate the practice of listening to the sound of the...

I love people who are bold enough to tell the truth especially when the truth will mean rocking the boat.  Robert Lupton is a bold truth teller in his book “Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It.”  Below are just a few excerpts from...

In 2009 I wrote a post titled, “Empowering a Movement – A Search for Missional Structures”, about the oldest and in my opinion best expression of a truly misisonal church.  In the original post I shared insights from the writings of Elizabeth O’Connor, who was a long-time leader at...

In a comment to my post, “Is the Church Relevant?”  Karen Muntzing asks a great question: “Serving in a seeker sensitive church provides challenges to my understanding of the gospel, which tends to look more like the island of misfit toys. How do we form communities of authenticity and...

This past Friday, I had the privilege of sitting under the teachings of John W. Kinney, the Dean of the Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University. What an amazingly gifted preacher and teacher! Dr. Kinney shared with us that he has been meditating on how to raise...

If you had asked me when I was 25 why I did not go to church, I would likely have answered, “Why should I?”  I had grown up totally un-churched and for me church was irrelevant. At the age of 26, after three miscarriages, God became relevant.  I discovered the one thing this type A...

John Perkins’ book, Beyond Charity, was my first exposure to Christian community development.  It became the text we used in our Unity Works training and was the foundation for the emphasis placed on “indigenous leadership development” that is core to our ministry at Embrace Richmond....

Last March we moved our Embrace Richmond corporate offices onto the campus of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond (BTSR).   I love being at BTSR.  It has allowed me to have greater contact with the seminary community.  In the past two weeks, I have participated in several classes and...

A few years ago I attended a workshop on “Fresh Expressions” of the church conducted by Bob and Mary Hopkins.  It was the first time I began to connect what was happening through the ministry of Embrace Richmond with a movement of God that was far bigger than us. I started my ministerial...

What is “the church?”  I have been wrestling with this question for several years.  I used to think it was a “worshiping congregation.”  But, is that really a biblical definition? When we look at the Christian tradition, I would suggest that the first “churches” could be...

In my post yesterday, I both commended and challenged David Fitch in his missionary vision.  The basic disconnect for me in many of the more missional expressions of church planting is that emphasis is still on “building a church or gathering of Christians” and not on “building the...