One thing is for sure: Robert Lupton is a master story teller. Taking license from the ancient tradition of midrash, a Jewish teaching method to dramatize Biblical accounts, Lupton turned the narrative of Nehemiah into a contemporary story in his book Renewing the City. Though not modernizing it by putting it into a 21st century […]
The Missional International Church Network (MICN, http://micn.org) defines an “international church” as a church that “primarily serve[s] people of various nationalities (expatriates) and church backgrounds living outside their passport (home) countries”, and a “missional” church as one that is “shaped by and oriented around the mission to which Christ has commissioned His followers”. During the […]
In Transforming Society, author Melba Padilla Maggay of the Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture, The Philippines, shares with her readers “perspectives, and lessons learned out of hard-won struggle” (1996). Quoting an Indian preacher, she views her writing as “one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread,” in this case food for […]
“There is a mistaken notion that our society has a problem in terms of effective human services. Our essential problem is weak communities,” concludes John McKnight in his book, The Careless Society (1995). The author proposes “a new vision for community,” one of “regeneration … of reassociating the exiled … of freeing ourselves from service […]
In The Abundant Community, authors McKnight and Block paint an idealistic picture of what a neighborhood community could look like and how to start making a difference. The authors state that “a neighborhood can raise a child, provide security, sustain our health, secure our income, and care for our vulnerable people”. Life in a competent […]
In The Power of Social Innovation, former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith makes a strong case for what he terms Civic Entrepreneurship. “To create truly vibrant cities,” says Goldsmith, “we need to invent new approaches” (2010). Not to argue against government participation, but to discover “new methods in order to provide opportunity, hope, and civic health […]
In The Spirit of Christ & The Postmodern City, author Viv Grigg continues and contributes to “an ongoing conversation about God and the cities”. The author extends his previous research to develop a theory of “Citywide Transforming Revival,” which is “a concept of synergistic revivals in multiple sectors of a mega-city” resulting “in long-term change […]
“In other words, ‘resident aliens’ lived neither as natives nor as tourists. Though they were not permanently rooted, neither were they merely travelers who were just passing through.” I found Center Church to be a typical Keller book: thoughtful, logical, biblical, humble, irenic, provocative and thankfully lacking dogmatism. I love the fact that while he […]
Once Upon a Time… The last verse of an old love song ponders the discontinuous nature of all human experience. “Once upon a time The world was sweeter than we knew Everything was ours How happy we were then But somehow once upon a time Never comes again” With nostalgia we look back to good […]
In Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today, author Craig Bartholomew is concerned with the recovery of the Christian view of place and practice of placemaking. In part 1, the author expounds extensively on biblical research, following the traces of place from Creation to Revelation. In the second part, place is traced […]