Categotry Archives: changing mindsets

by

Re-Thinking Worship (Part 2: The Overflow)

2 comments

Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, worship

Have you ever considered how true worship happens?

One of the most significant differences I see between Christ-following and other religions and belief systems of the world is in the area of worship. There’s a picture in Revelation 5 that illustrates this point.

This is a preview of Re-Thinking Worship (Part 2: The Overflow). Read the full post (871 words, 1 image, estimated 3:29 mins reading time)

by

Re-Thinking Worship (Part One of Many: "Weightier Things")

15 comments

Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, worship

A few months ago, I mentioned the irony that I am a worship leader but bored with worship music as I know it. I’m just in the beginning stages of re-thinking this…but I think I’m beginning to understand why.

Worship has always been at the foundation of our ministry, and part of our life-calling. We’ve led worship and taught the principles of worship to many people in many places. And I have experienced God’s presence in remarkable ways in the atmosphere of worship. But now I’m getting little glimpses of understanding that tell me that all this stuff I thought I was expert in has just been barely scratching the surface. And I think the reason this is dawning on me is the very fact that I am bored with all this. My heart for God hasn’t gone away, but it’s like all this just isn’t enough anymore.

This is a preview of Re-Thinking Worship (Part One of Many: "Weightier Things"). Read the full post (980 words, 2 images, estimated 3:55 mins reading time)

by

Just Some Stuff I’ve Learned

10 comments

Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought

Sometimes it takes looking back just a bit to see how much God has used your experiences to shape you.

It’s as if I can look at myself now, and the “me” back a few years ago, and it looks like two different people. Since embarking on this journey of deconstruction, I can hardly believe how my thinking and actions have changed over the years.

Here are a few examples of what I mean:

This is a preview of Just Some Stuff I’ve Learned. Read the full post (452 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

by

Jumping into Mission (or More Like, Easing into It)

5 comments

Categories: changing mindsets, Meanderings (look it up)

I want to share something kind of exciting that has been happening with our home church group the past few weeks.

For quite awhile now, we’ve been talking about becoming more missional in our approach to faith. The concept that Jesus is already working in the earth, and that we simply need to look for what He’s doing and step into that–this is a revolutionary concept to most of us. (Most of our backgrounds have to do with Jesus-as-a-sales-pitch evangelism, something that we all felt guilty for not doing, but avoided nonetheless.) So we’ve been praying for some time, both for God to show us how to be more aware of His mission in the course of our lives, and for some direction for how we could walk it out as a group.

This is a preview of Jumping into Mission (or More Like, Easing into It). Read the full post (1001 words, 2 images, estimated 4:00 mins reading time)

by

The Show Must Go On?

4 comments

Categories: changing mindsets, church, food for thought, movies

I’m thinking of old movie, one of those formulaic wartime entertainment feel-good musicals, called Diamond Horseshoe. The plot isn’t too memorable, but there’s an interesting standing joke throughout the movie. The Diamond Horseshoe is one of those old-timey nightclubs with the stage show. Early in the movie, the manager repeats the well-known mantra, “The show must go on!” To which one of the main characters asks, simply, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why must the show go on?”

This question gets repeated several times through the movie, and it frustrates everyone because, of course, nobody really knows why the show must go on. It just has to. The show must go on, because it must. Because…it just has to.

This is a preview of The Show Must Go On?. Read the full post (917 words, 2 images, estimated 3:40 mins reading time)

by

What Could Be

No comments yet

Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought

My stream of thought is continuing, and one thing is leading to another. I’d like to elaborate on these ideas from my last post…

“…some of us are even wondering what we need to do with our gifts, because we mistakenly defined our gifts by the system in which we were working.”

“There are probably a dozen other applications for our gifts that we haven’t even thought of, because we were so conditioned to the parameters of institutional church.”

“Part of our problem is we’ve been conditioned to have someone else do our thinking and praying on our behalf.”

This is a preview of What Could Be. Read the full post (741 words, 1 image, estimated 2:58 mins reading time)

by

On the Other Hand…

4 comments

Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought

In closing my last post, I included the following:

“…for the moment, this new place outside the walls might look like a wasteland, just more wilderness. But look at it through a different lens, and it becomes wide-open spaces, a place with amazing potential–potential far greater than we could ever hope for inside the walls.”

I’d like to elaborate on this idea just a little.

This is a preview of On the Other Hand…. Read the full post (648 words, 1 image, estimated 2:36 mins reading time)

by

Word of Warning

6 comments

Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought

Barb has strongly urged me, and a few other bloggers, to post the following disclaimer:

Beware all who land on this site. This site may enable you to see truth for the first time. Seeing truth may be just what you are looking for but you need to be careful. Once you have tasted truth you will never be able to stomach lies. You are on dangerous ground if you ever want to fit into the established system. You may [lose] all your friends. You may not have anyone left to worship with. Your children may be left only to you to raise. God will not be controlled any longer. He will be good but no longer safe in that you will not be able to predict his every move. And as for many of your friends. You will need to be willing to loose them. They may (probably will) shun you, dismiss you and turn away from you despite what you now may think. You need to think long and hard about this because it will [affect] your life. Please be careful with this site. Only enter at your own risk.

This is a preview of Word of Warning. Read the full post (365 words, 2 images, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

by

Outside the Box: Not Just About Being Weird

1 comment

Categories: changing mindsets, church, food for thought

Here’s a question for any gamers out there. Have you ever been playing some sort of puzzle game and found yourself apparently stuck? Like, you’re in a room with no apparent way out, or you have a door you must open but you cannot figure out how?

I have a sure-fire way of getting out of those predicaments: go to a hints website and find a cheat. 🙂 No, seriously. I have no patience with stuff like that. Actually, what intrigues me about finding a hint is how simple the solution usually is–if only you approach the problem from a slightly different angle. When I get the hint, I usually have a V-8 moment. (*Smack* “Why didn’t I see that before??”)

This is a preview of Outside the Box: Not Just About Being Weird. Read the full post (938 words, 2 images, estimated 3:45 mins reading time)

by

Covered Wagon or Bandwagon

6 comments

Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought

So I’m pondering the current trends I’m seeing, reading about, and experiencing–both away from more traditional forms of church and toward new expressions. Emergent, missional, organic, and other terms–these are words that are used in an attempt to explain what God is showing us, to explain what we are doing, and how it is different from the traditional approach.

The way I see it, there are generally two different approaches people have when venturing into new territory like this. For our purposes, let’s call them the “covered wagon approach” and the “bandwagon approach.”

This is a preview of Covered Wagon or Bandwagon. Read the full post (1004 words, 2 images, estimated 4:01 mins reading time)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12