2010 February | nickblevins.com

Here are my five favorite blog posts from the week;

Catalyst Space – What Pastors Can Learn from Steve Jobs – Interesting ideas about preaching and communicating taken from Steve Jobs

Bobby Gruenewald – Teens & Technology: A Survey – I've never even heard of a few of those most popular websites, dang.

Rich Barrett – Salary Caps for CEOs? – Great thoughts about God's perspective on rich people.

Seth Godin – No More Big Events – Interesting thought that could have ramifications on church planting. His follow up post is relevant as well.

Tony Morgan – Does the Church Need a Building? – The obvious answer is no, but if it's extremely helpful to reaching unchurched people in your context, then yes.

Friday Five

Here are my five favorite blog posts from the week:

Brad Lomenick – What Makes a Great Team? – Brad talks about qualities of a great team in light of the Super Bowl teams and circumstances surrounding them.

Ben Arment – Calling All Angels – Cool story. I don't think you can believe in Jesus and not believe in angels.

Craig Groeschel – Actions Versus Intentions – Craig talks about how we judge ourselves based on intention and others based on action. Powerfully true.

Tony Morgan – Change – Tony lists some characteristics of change, and they are important because of the one he mentiond – organizations that don't change die

Carey Nieuwhof – Shift Responsibility, Fuel Your Growth – Carey asks the question: Who is responsible for your spiritual growth? Hopefully you're not surprised to find out it's YOU.

Friday Five

The Friday Five is making a return…at least for this week. Here are the 5 favorite blog posts I read this week:

Seth Godin – Random Rules for Ideas Worth Spreading – It's ridiculous how Seth produces amazing content almost daily.

Ben Arment – The Anatomy of a Crowd – I'm REALLY looking forward to the release of Ben's new book, Church in the Making, where he explores some of the sociological factors in church planting.

Carey Nieuwhof – Crisis Reveals Character – It's been said that crisis or adversity builds character, but even if that's true it definitely reveals true character first. How we respond depends on if it builds it.

ChurchCrunch – 10 Reasons Why Your Church Should Seriously Consider Google Apps – Google rocks, period.

Ed Stetzer – What is a Missional Church? – Ed posted the same video I posted the other day, and people shared their thoughts in the comments.

Missional vs Attractional – A False Dichotomy

I watched this video today:

The video seeks to describe the "missional" church. I have an issue with this video because it indirectly seems to claim that other church models are not missional. Missional is really just carrying out God's mission, which could be summed up when Jesus said his purpose was to seek and save the lost and our purpose is to make disciples (followers of Jesus) of all people.

Sometimes the other model that is not named in the video is called "attractional", based on the idea that the church attracts people to services, events, etc. I think this is a false dichotomy and Christians and churches should be both.

The "attractional" model is inherently missional anyway, because all churches will tell you that most of their guests are invited, so somebody was being missional to them before they visited church. Missional models are attractional whether they like it or not, because just like churches, we as individuals are either attractive or not in terms of how we live our life. I'm not talking about appearance. I'm talking about living a life that makes others take notice and ask why.

It would be easier if it didn't matter how we looked, talked, loved, or lived as individuals and as churches while we try to help people find their way back to God. But, that is not the case. People will not listen to what we have to say unless something about us "attracts" them rather than pushes them away.