Brent has written an excellent post over on his Colossians Three Sixteen blog on the confusion surrounding the term “missional” and has done a good job of distinguish between a “missions-minded church” and a “missional church”.

Drawing largely from Ed Stetzer, Brent writes:

But we need to be careful and make a distinction between “Mission(s)-Minded” churches and “Missional” churches. Stetzer clarifies between the two terms (italics his):

The first refers more to an attitude of caring about missions, particularly overseas. Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound. Think of it this way: missional means being a missionary without ever leaving your zip code. You can see how a particular congregation or denomination can be mission-minded without being missional.

Practically, of course, this means that it is possible to have a church that does a lot overseas but nothing at home, as odd as that might initially sound. Stetzer argues that this arises, at least in part from a false dichotomy between “missions” and “evangelism.” Missions is for out there somewhere while evangelism is for here. He argues that “There is no basis, biblically or theologically, for the territorial distinction of missions and evangelism.”

Read the whole thing here.

It seems to me that certain periods of life are marked by certain music. In college, for me, it was anything by the Dave Matthews Band or Big Head Todd and the Monsters. Meg and I moved here to St. Louis in the summer of 2002 and agree that two albums specifically mark that time and transition of our life: John Mayer’s Room for Squares and Counting Crows’ Hard Candy.

In this same thread, Meg has correctly proclaimed Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago as the album marking our current stage of life. It’s mellow, it’s curious, and it’s unique. If you’re unfamiliar with Bon Iver, I strongly encourage you to give them a free listen at their MySpace page here (try “Skinny Love” which is my favorite track from For Emma, Forever Ago). If you like what you hear, surf your way over to Amazon and support them by buying the album. You won’t be disappointed.

Today I attended the Acts 29 Regional which was held at The Journey here in St. Louis.  You can read the description of the event here.

It was a great day and I really appreciated Daniel Montgomery’s (Lead Pastor of Sojourn Community Church) presentation of the Christ-centered church and Christ-centered life.  He really helped me to pull some concepts together that had been disorganized and floating around in my head.  When the audio comes available, I’ll post it here.

Through the course of the day, I also met with several church planters including a guy from Omaha, one from St. Charles, and another from O’Fallon.  I’m looking forward to getting to know these guys better and have greatly appreciated their time and patience with hanging out with me and listening to my craziness.

The main result from today was their encouragment for me to proceed with my application process soon and to begin to think about assessment this October.

Tomorrow night will be the second to last class in our study through the Old Testament Historical books.  In this session, we’ll be looking at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  The notes for tomorrow as well as the synthetic outline for Ezra-Nehemiah are below.

• Ezra-Nehemiah Synthetic Outline
• Ezra and Nehemiah

Next week will be our wrap up week in which we’ll step back and look at the Mission of God.

*See other resources regarding OT History here.

This is Part 2 of a blog series on Getting Things Done.  See also: Part 1 (Categorizing Your Tasks).

Living in Quadrant 2: Important/Not Urgent

In Part 1, I shared a model for categorizing tasks.  I stated that Quadrant 2 (Important/Not Urgent) is where we want to live and be.  This is the important quadrant to manage because failure to do so leads you to Quadrant 1 (Important/Urgent) in which the result is stress.  So the following are some ways to manage ourselves while in Quadrant 1:

Prepare

We all have important things to do and the best thing we can do is properly prepare to physically get them done.  I will share a methodology regarding specifically how to go about this in Part 3 of this series, but suffice it here to say that you must prepare.  You have to have a methodology, an organized way that allows you to properly prepare to get things done.

Plan

Closely related with preparation, is the plan.  How exactly and when exactly will you do Task 1, Task 2, Task 594?  We live busy lives, we have families to attend to, work to do, school and meetings to attend, homework to do, papers to write, books to read, fun to have, trips to take, projects to complete.  What is your plan to get these things done?  Are you just free-wheeling it and coasting, or have you sat down with a notebook and paper and actually planned how to get your stuff done?  Again, in Part 3, I’ll lay out a methodology.

Prevent

Prevention must be looked at from two perspectives: 1) Avoiding procrastination and 2) holding fast to your preparation and planning in order to prevent it from being overcome by other stuff.  When stuff is in your important/non-urgent quadrant, it is your responsibility to avoid procrastinating so that it does not make its way to important/urgent.  Similarly, when you have your preparation done and your plan set, you have to take some measures to protect that.  Accepting new tasks is a continual process, but with a carefully though-out plan, measures can be taken to organize your incoming tasks such that they do not negatively impact your workflow.

Train/Coach

When you’re actually able to work and live out of the important/non-urgent quadrant, take measures to train and coach others.  Try to get out of the “I’ll just do it myself” mentality while in this quadrant.  The goal here is an appropriate dose of delegation.  Often times when living in Quadrant 1 (Important/Urgent) this is not possible or feasible; but, if you can remain out of the urgent quadrant, take the time raise up others so that everything doesn’t necessarily have to funnel through you.

Build Relationships

This is one of those things that simply is important, but often not considered urgent.  Our tendency is to let this one slip.  Make it a part of your plan.  As you prepare and plan your methodology for getting things done, don’t overlook personal commitments. 

This post has been focused on living in Quadrant 2 where you focus on the important things while remaining (as much as possible) out of the realm of urgency.  In Part 3, we’ll look more in depth at the preparation and planning portions via the context of a methodology (largely based on the David Alan method).

Stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

I’m a little late with uploading the notes for tonight’s OT History class.  Tonight we’ll be looking at a broad overview of 1&2 Kings tonight and touching on 1&2 Chronicles as well.  The main intent for tonight is to help the class to be able to see how they should study Kings and Chronicles and give them some resources and thoughts on doing so.

Here are the notes for tonight’s class:

1&2 Kings Overview

Also, we’ll be drawing heavily on some of the handouts from last week.

*See other resources regarding OT History here.

Tim Challies shares a quote from Mortimer Adler, author of the classic How to Read a Book.  I read something similar in a book several years ago by J.P. Moreland  (Love the Lord Your God With All Your Mind) and allowed it to revolutionize the way I read books.

Here is a quote from Mortimer Adler, author of the classic How to Read a Book. In this piece he explains the importance of making a book your own.

 There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher’s icebox to your own. But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your blood stream to do you any good.

Confusion about what it means to “own” a book leads people to a false reverence for paper, binding, and type — a respect for the physical thing — the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. They forget that it is possible for a man to acquire the idea, to possess the beauty, which a great book contains, without staking his claim by pasting his bookplate inside the cover. Having a fine library doesn’t prove that its owner has a mind enriched by books; it proves nothing more than that he, his father, or his wife, was rich enough to buy them.

There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best sellers — unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books — a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or many — every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns books.) …

 But the soul of a book “can” be separate from its body. A book is more like the score of a piece of music than it is like a painting. No great musician confuses a symphony with the printed sheets of music. Arturo Toscanini reveres Brahms, but Toscanini’s score of the G minor Symphony is so thoroughly marked up that no one but the maestro himself can read it. The reason why a great conductor makes notations on his musical scores — marks them up again and again each time he returns to study them—is the reason why you should mark your books. If your respect for magnificent binding or typography gets in the way, buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author.

Recently I’ve decided to add a little more structure to how I go about my life.  I’m calling it “Life Admin.”  Basically, I’m making it my goal to sit down for an hour or so on the first Monday of the month blocking out some time to reflect on the previous month as well as look forward and pray about the upcoming month.  In doing so, I’m planning to reflect on the different areas of my life: God, Family, Ministry/Seminar/Church Planting, Self, Relationships, and Work.  I’ll elaborate more on those categories in a moment, but the intent here is to reflect back over the previous month with respect to how I’ve been doing in each of these areas - repenting and seeking for forgiveness in the areas I’ve neglected and praying forward for each area as the new month comes upon me.

At the end of each Life Admin session, I also plan to sketch out a few goals for the upcoming month.  A goal might be something as simple as: take my oldest daughter to a baseball game.  The point is to get it down and in front of me in my journal so I can come back to it.

The following expands each of the categories I plan to focus on:

God

Here I want to ask: How are things between me and God?  How is my relationship with Jesus?  How am I doing with trusting him?  How am I doing with surrendering to his will for my life and my family?  How am I doing with repenting of sin and seeking his forgiveness?  Have I been spending adequate time in prayer and in his Word?  What’s been working?  What isn’t?  How can I improve my relationship with Jesus?  In what ways can I better worship him throughout my day?

Family

There are two aspects to this one: individual focus and collective focus.  For my wife, I want to ask:  What has stood out to me recently about her?  How is she doing?  What are here greatest fears/anxieties right now?  What is she most excited about or interested in?  How can I encourage her?  How should I be praying for her?  How am I doing with respect to praying together with her?  How is our relationship doing?  When was our last date?  Have I spent adequate time focusing on her?  What are some ways I can focus on her in the coming month?  What are some specific ways I can show her my love?  What areas of myself do I need to work on with respect to her?  How can I best serve her?

For the girls, I’ll ask many of the same questions - specifically, have I been spending adequate one-on-one time with them?  What is something that I have done individually with each of them?  What are their fears/anxieties?  What are they most interested in and excited about?  How should I be praying for each of them?

Collectively, I want to ask myself: how am I doing as the spiritual head of my family?  Have I been making a regular effort for family prayer and reading God’s Word together?  What are some things we want to do as a family and what am I doing to make those happen?  Am I taking good care of my household?  Have I placed disproportionate time in other areas at the neglect of my family?

Ministry/Seminary/Church Planting

Have I been carving out time to serve?  How is seminary going?  Am I maximizing my learning experience with God’s Word, or am I going through the motions?  Have I been spending adequate time in preparation for teaching assignments?  What is going well?  What do I need to work on?  What do I need help with?  Have I over-committed myself?  Have I given all that I can?

Self

How am I doing?  How am I really doing?  Emotionally?  Physically?  Mentally?  Am I taking good care of myself?  Am I working out?  Why not?  Have I been having enough alone time?  How can I secure some “me time” in the coming month?  What is something that I will read in the next month for me (i.e. not for seminary, not for work, not for church classes, etc)?

Relationships

Have I been spending time with my brothers/sisters in Christ?  Have I been intentional about spending time with friends outside of church (or am I stuck in my Christian huddle)?  How am I doing with respect to connecting with my neighbors and co-workers?  What are some things that are going good?  Bad?  When was the last time I had a men’s night out?

Work

How is work going?  How have my stress levels been?  How has my attitude about work been while at work?  While at home?  Have I been working too many hours?  Not enough hours?  Have I been giving my employer my best?

The above is by no means an exhaustive listing of questions, but rather just a spewage of some of the things I want to ask myself and focus on as I reflect back and look forward.  I’m sure these areas will change and the questions too - the goal, however, is to get my mind in the habit of thinking in detail regarding how I’m living my life and how I’m managing my priorities.  It is so easy to just coast and not be intentional about people and things that are really important to us.  This is part of my attempt to not let myself coast.

You might live in the Bible Belt if…there are 7 churches between your house and the nearest grocery store (…and another one just one block further…and none of them are your home church).

Take a closer look by clicking on the Google map below.