Greening Your Hood Through Intentional Community

One of the most sincere pastors I have ever met is Leroy Barber. According to his bio, Leroy has spent more than 20 years working to eradicate poverty, confront homelessness, and heal racism. As with most bios, this one doesn't fully portray Leroy's life and ministry. Leroy leads an intentional community in one of the poorest communities in Atlanta. The members of his church reside in the community where they work together to improve the lives of those in the community through restoration projects, maintaining a community garden, and petitioning the government for livability improvements. They have also founded Community Grounds, a neighborhood coffee shop that provides a gathering place for the children, seniors and teens in the community. In addition to these life commitments, Leroy is President of Mission Year, a national urban initiative that introduces 18-29 year old to communal living through year long commitments, and author of New Neighbor, a fantastic book that merges life principles with art.

Leroy spoke at Flourish Conference on what it means to "Green Your Hood," and I know he opened many ideas to a new way of living. He is not only a pastor's pastor, he is a an undeniable example of what it means to holistically follow Christ through sacrificial living and caring for all of creation.

Great Commission Resurgence

A new effort to revitalize and unite Southern Baptists is underway called The Great Commission Resurgence. It is being spearheaded by several Southern Baptist leaders, including SBC President Johnny Hunt and Daniel Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

This effort has now launched a website with a declaration that is available for electronic signing. I like this effort and support the principles outlined in the declaration including biblical inerrancy, convention reform, and perhaps most intriguing, "A Commitment to Methodological Diversity that is Biblically Informed." If you are a Southern Baptist who wants to see the SBC revitalized as an efficient, Gospel-centered, mission-minded denomination, check this website out.

Seminoles, Road Trips and Missionality

This weekend, I did something I have never done before: I went on a mission trip without ever leaving the United States. Depending on where you live, you may feel like you leave the United States every time you pull into your own neighborhood, but my trip left me deeply contemplative.

Over the weekend, a group of 12 young adults and I drove down to Tallahassee, FL. to help launch a new church plant, The Well. This is a fast-growing church that is culturally relevant, but preaches the revealed truth of God's word without apology. The pastor, Dean Inserra, has become one of my best friends, and I cannot stress enough the potential he and his young church have.

They are one of the few churches I have been with that "get it." Unlike many "contemporary" churches, they don't believe sitting on a stool and singing "Shout to the Lord" make you culturally-relevant. When I say they "get it," I mean they understand that Americans are now living in - not approaching - a post-Christian culture and if we don't transform our thinking they church will continue to lose it's legitimacy.

This truth is as evident in Tallahassee as it is anywhere in the country. Tallahassee is not only the capital of Florida, it is a college town (FSU, Florida A&M, and TCC). Just take FSU, for example. Among the thousands of incoming freshman seminoles, 77% claim "no religious affiliation." In addition, only about 20% of Tallahassee residents will attend a religious service in a given week. But you wouldn't know this from driving through because the streets are littered with massive churches and massive, empty parking lots. I am convinced that churches must transform their thinking, and not just in Tallahassee.

One of the appealing things about the emergent church movement to me is that they grasp this concepts. They tell us that the United States is a mission field much like other countries in other continents. After all, how many of us even used the word "missional" before the gestation of emergent and emerging leaders?

The difference between evangelism and missions in American gets smaller and smaller. Like Dean and The Well, we must transform our minds and start being the church where we live, eat, work and play.

Does your church "get it?"

Tell me about your own mission field.