Radical Hospitality Received—Our Story When our family moved to San Francisco almost 19 years ago, the rental vacancy rate was 1%. Every available unit had potential renters lined up with candy, flowers, or several months advance payments in hand, and in the craziness, we just didn’t score high enough. We had only met Andrew Jones (tall skinny Kiwi) once, but …
Have you ever heard the term Alpha Cities? Another term people sometimes use for them is Global Cities. These are cities and the regions around them that are impactful, influential, and connected to the world. Think London, Paris, New York. There are also A++, A+, A- and so forth Alpha Cities, and there are Beta, and Gamma cities. It is …
San Francisco, my home for 18 years now, is sometimes called an “Alpha City.” It is strategically and globally linked to the rest of the world through commerce, the financial sector, and especially within the larger region, hundreds of thousands of temporary and permanent immigrants. The top Alpha Cities in North American include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, …
One of my favorite things to say about church planters is that almost anyone who knows and loves God, people and appropriately loves self can start a church of some kind. Here are a few people whose stories come to mind. There all named Bill. Bill Wagner: Racquetball and Iran Bill Wagner has planted ten churches in four countries: the …
While some family friends were visiting us from Florida, they were awakened by a flurry of text messages and e-mail alerts to some startling news. The building that housed their worship center and an array of community services was collapsing due to a water main leak. The news immediately included the awareness that the building had been unoccupied, and there …
“Then Paul stood up in the meeting of the Aeropagus and said: Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going …
It has been a year since my friend Allan Karr and I released our book, The Wholehearted Church Planter. This past fall, however, was the first time I actually formally used it to teach any group. The context: San Quentin Prison in a semester seminary class on Missions, Evangelism, and Church Planting. Yes. Along with dozens of others, serving as …
Okay, it may be true that sometimes, female church planters think a little differently and come up with different metaphors than their male counterparts. Yesterday was just one of those days. I was sitting in a classy hair salon in Walnut Creek, California, when a woman who seemed quite underprivileged walked by. I relished watching her be pampered, cared for, …
Sociologists say that people group themselves together in three ways: Affinity— Similar ethnic, socioeconomic, education, language, etc. background Kinship— Extended family, tribe, band, tight-knit relationships. Geography— Same neighborhood, block, apartment complex, etc. These same categories also function as organizing principles for people who start various kinds of churches. Affinity For several decades, the predominant approach has been affinity. We have …
The increased impact on evangelism is the main reason why I love to see new churches started. Sometimes though, the words we use when we talk about evangelism drive me crazy. “Believer” For example, the words “believer” and “unbeliever” embarrass me. A believer is “one who believes,” — a person who has faith in something or someone. Yes, it is …