Emergent Tulsa Cohort

Thursday, January 19, 2006

The Church

On February 2nd when we gather again we're going to be talking about the church.

Here's an article you might check out by Dave Crampton.

"Mission is not intended to originate from churches. It is not the church of God that has a mission to surrounding cultures, but the God of mission who has a church among the culture."

It all starts with God.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Next Gathering: Feb.2nd - The Church



We'll be discussing the Church next month for our gathering.
We'll have three presenters leading our time together followed by loads of discussion.

Our presenters will be:


Todd Littleton who is the Senior Pastor at Snow Hill Baptist Church in Tuttle, Oklahoma.



Kyle Meador who is a bartender by night at a local Italian eatery and co-pastor by day at Rivendell a not so traditional church.



Andy Mullins - who is the owner of Shepherd Boy Creative and November Sunday. Andy also has served as a youth pastor.

Evangelist- it's not a Christian word anymore


Guy Kowasaki Author and Business guru writes about being an Evangelist on this blog post:

"Out of curiosity, I went to SimplyHired, a vertical search engine for jobs, and looked for openings containing the keyword “evangelist.” Amazingly, there were 611 matches--and none were for churches. It seems that “evangelist” is now a secular, mainstream job title. Indeed, the first eight matches were for evangelist jobs at Microsoft--go figure."


very interesting in light of our conversation.

The Logic of Evangelism




Yesterday we talked about evangelism. I tried to stoke the conversation by bringing some quotes from one of the best books on evangelism I've read: The Logic of Evangelism by William J. Abraham.


What is especially striking is the way in which the gospel of the kingdom initially spread. It did not spread because of a carefully designed program of evangelism; nor did it start because the early disciples meditated on the Great Commission and felt that they had better obey it to assuage their feelings of guilt. The church did not begin its evangelistic activity because it was terrified about the prospects that faced those who died without hearing about Christ; the Christian movement was not initiated by a band of professional evangelists eager to sign up a public relations firm and get the show on the road. Rather the gospel spread and the church grew because the sovereign hand of God was in the midst of the community that found itself surrounded by people who were puzzled and intrigued by what they saw happening. Pg. 37

Thus Christ’s death as an atonement for sin becomes in many quarters the heart of the message, and the whole drama of the coming of the rule of God in his birth and incarnation, in his life and ministry, in his death and resurrection, in his ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and in his continued presence in the worship and ministry of the church are all treated as a kind of scaffolding or backcloth to the salvation of the individual sinner. The impression one receives from the New Testament is very different from this . . . Pg. 59

Evangelism in the early church was rooted in the eschatological activity of God, which was inaugurated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and continued in the act of the Holy Spirit. Given what God had done in and through Christ and the Holy Spirit, it was only natural that Christians should proclaim the mighty acts of God in salvation and liberation, and that they should found communities committed to celebrating all that God had done. They were propelled by a wellspring of joy and love that was at once irrepressible and contagious. Pg. 92

We can best improve our thinking on evangelism by conceiving it as that set of intentional activities which is governed by the goal of initiating people into the kingdom of God for the first time. Pg. 95



One of the issues we tried to grapple with is the evangelical tendency to make evangelism hell-centric. In Scripture, evangelism is so much more than just making it hard for people to go to hell from your city.

Another issue that came up was urgency. Assuming that keeping people out of hell is not your primary motivation for doing evangelism, then where does the sense of urgency come from? Are hell-centric evangelists more likely to have a sense of urgency than those whose evangelism is motivated primarily by something else?

Monday, January 09, 2006

Gathering This Thursday!

Yep. We are meeting this thursday
10:30am at nordoggio's at 81st and Lewis.
See you then!
All are welcome.
Feel free to bring anyone who might benefit from this conversation!