Jane Loevinger is one of the pioneers in the area of ego development or how we see the world and how we make sense of our lives (including God, others and the universe around us) are what experts refer to as meaning making systems. Meaning making, or the development of the “self” or “ego,” is what goes on as we learn to make increasingly sophisticated meaning of the world around us.
A five year old thinks there are monsters under the bed at night. When we come in and turn on the light and show them there is nothing to be scared of we are often greeted with the explanation that “of course the monsters hide for the light they are only there in the dark.” This is the way a 5 year old makes sense of their world. If that was still going on at 13 years of age we would be concerned. Most of us are familiar with child development and the name of someone like Jean Piaget. We are less familiar with adult development. [read more...]
I had the opportunity this weekend to speak at an incredible church in Nassau that is led by one of my favorite dialogue partners, Christian McCabe. I have been on a journey with their staff and elders for about a year. They care about transformation. They are motivated to make sure real life change is actually happening. They are committed to a spirituality of awareness, a spirituality that is founded and rooted in Jesus’ invitation to Notice.
For those having compatibility issues you can purchase a mac or could click here for the link
I mentioned in my first post that the third thing I am more convinced of than ever is
3. People aren’t craving church, or sermons or bible study…the are dying to be in small community where real dialogue and doing life together happens.
We have done all we know to build membership and attendance figures. But I wonder if we have created belonging mechanisms instead of transformational organisms. And if I am honest I am past the wondering stage. transformational organism
2. The best ways of doing ministry have yet to be found and we are in an “idea” crisis
Idea crisis, creativity dearth, innovation desert. We have to own that part of what we are called to do is design, create and come up with better ways of doing it.
We have to own this one deeply, passionately and relentlessly. This is not because we have to be innovative or don’t like the way we have always done it. We have to own this because God is always doing a new thing and inviting us into new territory and terrain.
I am convinced the best ways are yet to be found and furthermore am totally convinced by my experience that some of those “best ways” are actually in the ideas that will come from people who we don’t know yet and who don’t follow Jesus yet. [read more...]
Well if you hit this site periodically you will notice a new graphic to the right of this post. We are very excited about our new e-learning section of this website. We are a couple months out from launch but the site is under serious construction as we get ready for our initial offering.
We have been trying to figure out the best way to broker the work I do that is shared with the churches I work with monthly, the conference speaking and writing I do. There is a small body of growing work that we want to make more widely available and this seems like the perfect avenue to make it happen.
If you want to be aware of the details, special offerings and the contours our approach to e-learning please visit the Morph 2.0 page by clicking here or on the image to your right and submit your email address and go through the confirmation process. This is going to be a pretty incredible venue. Videos, pdfs, podcasts, forums, calls, free one day conferences… get ready for 21st century learning at it’s very best.
In my post from the 8th I mentioned three things I more convinced of than ever before, and for where the church sits in culture and our needed response. I said… Spirituality will be more creational, relational and communitarian into the 21st century There are always two things in play when it comes the church’s role/response to culture. There is reflective and informed biblical reading and there is insightful and aware cultural sign post reading. We need both for the church to be effective. [read more...]
I am not real big on daily readers. But a couple years ago did Richard Rohr’s daily and wow was it good. This year I am doing Keatings new work. He is original as all get out and so helpful. The week I spent with Keating remains one of the most important weeks of my journey. This book does nothing be rekindle all those hours or listening to him retelling stories from the Gospels. It just doesn’t get much better.
I feel like three things are more clear to me after being gone 37 days in South Africa and Namibia. I will unpack these over the next three posts. But here they are briefly.
1. Spirituality will be more relational, creational and communitarian into the 21st century
I have mentioned this before but haven’t much unpacked it. I need to. I am more convinced than ever and I see these yearnings and core longings from the Nassau to Namibia and Stellenbosch to St. Louis. If we can break the textual addiction we have the relegates formation to bible study we are going to be dead in the water in the postmodern world. (and obviously I love the bible my latest book released 8 days ago is about the good Book)
2. The best ways of doing ministry have yet to be found and we are in an “idea” crisis
This was one of the core values we as a staff owned at the DNA level of our being when I was a local church pastor. We need church leaders that continue to think into new frontiers and arenas.
3. People aren’t craving church, or sermons or bible study…the are dying to be in small community where real dialogue and doing life together happens.
Many of us as leaders in the church still don’t seem to get this. We have been so conditioned by the old modern world where obligation and belonging were premium values we don’t seem to heard the wake up call of the information age…. it is ubiquitous therefore our brokering of it is of little value to this world. We will have to broker much more.
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About Velocity Culture
VelocityCulture.com is a web and conference based resource brokering the best leadership, cultural and theological resources. Through consulting, conference speaking, learning communities and e-learning all over the world and a redesigned seminary-like learning experience called III:TEXT, VelocityCulture.com is helping bring about deep shifts in the way people live, think and lead.
