Missing Pieces...

One of my Outlook folders is titled, "Blog Ideas".  And whenever I run across something that has to do with Community Christian Church, NewThing Network or something I think is interesting I just slide it over there until I can eventually include it in a post.  I'd say about 50% of the stuff never makes it to my blog.  Occasionally I take a look at all the stuff that missed making my blog and and I throw it all into a single post.  So that you don't feel like you missed out on anything - here are all the missing pieces.

• A lead article in the Leadership Network Advance is titled Churches Responding To The Age Wave and it features Community Christian Church's Carillon Campus and Earl Ferguson.
• I've been reading Alan Hirsh's book Forgotten Ways (a great read that I highly recommend) and checking out his blog too.  Here are a couple posts that are worth reading:  Church Follows Mission and Distilling The Message.  And if you like that stuff, check out my dinner conversation with Alan last month.
• Did you know that according to a study done by the University of Chicago that Pastors ranked the highest in job satisfaction and general happiness out of any occupation?
• Bill Carroll has some great pics and a quick review of some the fun we had when the NewThing Network Lead Pastors were in town for the NewThing Gathering.  Matt Payne also gives his own review of this (at the least) annual gathering.
• John Jackson gives us his list of leaders who make me think.  Brian Jones lists the biggest Christian Church influencers.
• Not sure what to make of this, but Floating Axhead says that we are moving toward "One Church" and that the NewThing Network is one of those leading the way.
• Mark Nelson tells us why he believes in The Big Idea.  And Josh Reich lists The Big Idea on his list of must read books for preaching.  And if you love The Big Idea we have a date for the very first Big Idea Practicum - September 17 & 18.
• John Ciesniewski made a big impression on David Putnam of ChurchPlanters.com after a recent visit to CCC when they discussed FTE's.
• Dave Travis of Leadership Network tells us that he has received more than 50 reports from large churches where they have baptized in the hundreds on a single weekend.
• Matt Mahaffey is going to plant a new church in Miami on January 20th.  I think this church plant has big potential. He paid a visit to CCC and talks about it on his blog.

Comments

[Matt Mehaffey]

Thanks for the shout out and for the hospitality of your team. It means a great deal to our whole team.

[John Jackson]

Hey Dave...keep it up with these "consolidated" miscellaneous posts...good stuff here. Glad to see that things are still hopping for ya!

[Gregor]

One of the things I really enjoy about your blog is how often you put a link into something that you are thinking about. I read the “one church” post and see it as a double edged sword. I found it interesting because it is something that I think about a lot. I think a unified body in Christ is what Jesus truly wanted and unfortunately that seems to have ended long ago due to man and not Jesus. I am a believer that the church has always been there and that tradition is very important (the early church fathers had insight that we just don’t have today) but man drifts away from time to time…part of what seems to ebb and flow is tradition established by a church body which people eventually argue against and then a schism occurs. Tradition can be a lot of things…interpretation of scripture, ways to celebrate, etc…

The inklings of the conformist trend discussed in the post (everyone is beginning to listen to the same music, preach and discuss the same ideas, and beginning to dress the same) are a bit scary to me. In earlier posts about multi-site you seemed to favor and hope for more of a multi-cultural approach which I think is awesome!

Are you concerned at all with what is beginning to appear that the masses (no pun intended for any Catholics that might be reading) are being led by a group of “in” ministers who are men and may be fallible just as the original church was hundreds of years ago? Is this establishing a post-modern apostolic tradition that may be as “fallible” or even less sound as many believe it was hundreds of years ago? Is non-denominational becoming a new denomination?