A Friend, a Conference, and Books

I just had lunch with a guy who has been part of Veritas for two years. We have been meeting regularly for the last few months. He will be moving to the Philly area to go to Eastern in the fall and so he won't be around to attend Veritas (at least as much as when he was in E-Town). As I am excited for him, part of me will miss the theological discussions that we had over lunch and at CRU. So Alan...may God go with you as you seek to partner with the Kingdom in being a blessing to the world. It has been a real blessing knowing you and challenging each other in our journeys.

Tomorrow Kim and I leave for a conference. This conference, I am sure, will help challenge us, encourage us, and spur us towards the future of the Veritas mission and ministry. If you think of it between now (tuesday) and Saturday, say a prayer for us. For safety in travel, for renewed sense of vision and mission, and for wisdom as we return and seek to implement the vision/dreams in the future.

As always I am reading a lot of different books at the present time. Here are a few that I would recommend to anyone.

1. Surprised by Hope by NT Wright
2. Mere Discipleship by Lee Camp
3. Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne
4. Colossians Remixed by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat
5. Live to Tell: Evangelism in a Postmodern Age by Brad Kallenberg.
6. Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective by Craig Carter

Congregations that believe it

The other week I was in Kansas City for the Everything Must Change tour with Brian McLaren. We were there as part of the Prelude conference sponsored by YouthFront. I spent 3 days in the Prelude conference and a day and a half in the EMC tour. While we were in Kansas City we went looking for the building where Jacob's Well meets (an Emerging Church in Kansas City pastored by Tim Keel). We finally found it and looked around at the building (unfortunately we couldn't get inside to see the sanctuary). It was a beautiful building and got me thinking about a future vision of my own.

I came home and found an article about Jacob's Well and in the midst of the article is a quote that fits very well with my previous post about Embodied Apologetics. The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin said it this way, ""How can this strange story of God made man, of a crucified savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible? . . . I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: congregations that believe it." And so my prayer for Veritas is that we would be an embodied apologetic for the Kingdom of God and the Gospel.

Keep praying for us as we seek God's direction for the future of Veritas. Next week Kim and I are attending a conference that will help us in the future and with the ministry and mission of Veritas. (one of the workshops is on being a missional church while another is about house church networks....these two are right up our alley so to speak)