More often than not, “partnering in missions,” means small churches give what little money they think they can afford to a larger church or a missions sending agency that will handle mobilization, screening, indoctrination, training, sending, and maintenance of missionaries on the field. This is not “partnering,” it’s outsourcing.

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The Counterintuitive Church (pt.5, What’s Wrong With Pragmatism?)

Posted April 2nd, 2009 by Ernest

PREVIOUSLY:  Let’s Be Clear Some might read my commentary about widespread pragmatism in the American church today and ask, “So what?” Others might share my concern, but see few alternatives. I have never wanted to be merely a critic, so here I’d like to draw some conclusions. Next, I’ll try to share some ideas for [...]

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Filed under:Church, Misunderstood, Philosophy, Trends

The Counterintuitive Church (pt.4, Let’s Be Clear)

Posted March 31st, 2009 by Ernest

PREVIOUSLY: Distribution So far, three parts into my multi-part series on the counterintuitive nature of life in Christ, and I’ve yet to receive any comments accusing me of being too negative or of harboring jealousy over the megachurch’s success. Clearly, I’ve either offended (or bored) away everyone who disagrees with me, or I’ve not been [...]

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Filed under:Church, Missions, Misunderstood, Trends

The Mom-and-Pop Church (Part 5)

Posted October 17th, 2008 by Ernest

This is the last (for now) part in a series of posts. I’m taking the long way around describing what I find to be a more missiologically sound church. Whenever we talk about our theology of church, we usually look back to the “first church” that we read about in the book of Acts. Some [...]

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Filed under:Church, Missiology

The Mom-and-Pop Church (Part 4)

Posted October 14th, 2008 by Ernest

Starbucks realizes that coffee drinkers are looking for local, unique, responsible, and sustainable. Independent coffee houses can be all of these things. It’s a lot harder for the mega-corporation, though. They’re too concerned with things like quality control, efficiency, brand, and, of course, money. The things that make Starbucks Starbucks are causing it’s current identity [...]

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Filed under:Church, Missiology

The First-Century Megachurch?

Posted September 30th, 2008 by Ernest

In the comment thread of Ed Stetzer’s recent post introducing a series on megachurches, I wrote: “I would argue that megachurches are intrinsically unhealthy because of the exorbitant building costs, reliance on attractional church programs, and the fact that your pastor doesn’t know your name.” A couple of Ed’s readers responded to my comment with, [...]

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