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What's Christian Perfection got to do with Leadership

The mission of Covenant Discipleship groups is the formation of leaders in discipleship. These women and men contribute to the mission of the local congregation through their witne...

What's Christian Perfection got to do with Leadership

The mission of Covenant Discipleship groups is the formation of leaders in discipleship. These women and men contribute to the mission of the local congregation through their witne...

The Myth of the Congregational "Life Cycle"?

Companions, While I was a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the late 1980s, I read Robert Dale's book, To Dream Again, whose fundamental insight was based on desc...

So What CAN Congregations Do?

The 4 Core Competencies of Christian Congregations (+1 More for Methodists/Missionals!) Without going into all of the historical background I might present to justify this here, I ...

The Survey Says... Pew Report on Millennials: Implications between the Lines

The Pew Report on Millennials and Religion is now available for viewing and analysis online. There's lots of interesting data on the surface. You can see the full report here:http:...

Covenant Discipleship, Inc.

Think about how often you see this common abbreviation: “Inc.” When we see those letters after the name of a proper noun, we know they stand for the word, “Incorporated.” The abbre...

#SeeAllThePeople

What’s Wesleyan About Leadership?

We can get some good guidance for what Wesleyan leadership looks like with a review of the historic questions each bishop asks candidates for ordination at every annual conference ...

ReThink/ReBe Confirmation

On a blog I read fairly regularly (Dan Dick's outstanding United Methodeviations), one person spoke of the importance of actually “using” youth and younger adults “in church leader...

ReBe Evangelism

Once again, Dan Dick's blog, United Methodeviations, brings forward a critical issue that those of us in the emerging missional movement have been grappling with for some time-- ev...

ReBe Hymnal

Companions, As some of you may have heard by now, the effort to create a new United Methodist Hymnal for the United States has been officially halted. A link to the UMNS story/pres...

ReBe Fractalling Movement

Companions, In a blog post retweeted this morning by @emergentvillage, Mark Sayers makes the argument that "the emerging missional church" has already reached its critical carrying...

Who Comes to Worship: Consumers or Community?

The title says it all. How do we approach worship and help others do so in ways that help everyone get to functioning together as community rather than as a group of consumers prim...

On the Seating of the Saints...

First off, blessed All Saints Day! Second, great to see several of you posting things here in the past fews days. Remember, this forum is ours-- all of ours. Please use it to comme...