07.22.08
feeding the beast
A couple of years back Mike Bishop asked some great questions:
“If you are reading this and have some vested interest in a community of faith – whatever your flavor, old-school or new-school, emerging or submerging – do yourself a favor and stop caring about the following things:
1. The number of people in your church. Really, it doesn’t matter.
2. The “relevancy” of your common worship.
3. How often or if ever a new person shows up at one of your common worship times.
4. The size of your church budget, building, or paid staff.
5. What any other church in the world is doing – good or bad or otherwise.
“And please start caring about the following things:
1. Actively looking for the evidence of God’s kingdom – where what he wants done is done – at work, at home, at Starbucks (heaven forbid), at the beach, and anywhere else you might find yourself in the course of living your normal life.
2. Simple, honest worship.
3. Having friends that don’t give a rip about your church. Maybe you might just rub off on them.
4. Giving away money to people who need it; using existing, familiar (and free) spaces for common worship such as homes, restaurants, parks, or community centers; flattening the organization’s need for paid leadership and support roles.
5. Go on a unique, unreproducible journey with a group of people and rejoice with other groups of people who do the same.
In the Coracle » » “Feeding the Beast” » Pat Loughery’s thoughts on life, faith, sports, motorcycles, photography, music and other details said,
July 22, 2008 at 6:55 am
[...] Len just posted a blog entry at Nextreformation that I think is important to consider. A couple of years back Mike Bishop asked some great questions: [...]
Jonathan Brink said,
July 22, 2008 at 9:38 am
That was awesome Len. Thank you for sharing it with us.
An Unreproducable Journey « Missio Dei said,
July 23, 2008 at 11:01 am
[...] Today I learned a new phrase that really caught my attention. It comes from Len Hjarmalson’s post, Feeding the Beast. He says, Go on a unique, unreproducible journey with a group of people… [...]
Michael Creel said,
July 25, 2008 at 11:52 am
Love it!
Fits well with organic church, people of The Way on the way (journey).
Missional Meanderings « Missional Church Network said,
July 27, 2008 at 11:44 pm
[...] Consider Len Hjalmarson’s “Feeding the Beast.” If you are reading this and have some vested interest in a community of faith – whatever your flavor, old-school or new-school, emerging or submerging – do yourself a favor and stop caring about the following things: [...]
church whisperer said,
July 28, 2008 at 7:20 am
Really, really on the mark! Every church leader should learn this. As a church mediator, I suspect that a huge number of the conflicts with which I have worked would have been resolved if the leaders understood these few simple concepts. Thanks for sharing this, Len. And thanks for your blog. I’ll be back often.
Who is Mike Bishop and is this from a book, article, etc.?
len said,
July 28, 2008 at 11:27 am
Mike’s blog..
http://www.whatischurch.com/vc/
A Few Things I Wish Every Church Understood « Church Whisperer said,
July 29, 2008 at 2:21 am
[...] A Few Things I Wish Every Church Understood 29 07 2008 I just found these comments at Len Hjalmarson’s blog, nextreformation.com. [...]
camel crossing » Feeding the beast said,
August 20, 2008 at 11:01 pm
[...] grabbed from NextReformation [...]
Clonazepam. said,
April 13, 2009 at 4:11 pm
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