Ministry Matters - Stop sitting on your assets | Innovating care in early Christian community

Are we complaining more about what we don't have and missing out on what we do? Stop sitting on your assets by Joe Daniels, Jr. and Christie Latona   Ministry without utilizing assets is like a sports car without a country road. When we don’t utilize our assets, we miss the greater possibilities for ministry, and we are usually consumed by scarcity thinking. Too often our people, churches, and judicatories complain about what they don’t have instead of discovering, celebrating, and using what they do have. Too often our people, churches, and judicatories forget the assets in our communities and our congregations. Read here

How can church-as-institution still be a vital source of life and hope? Innovating care in early Christian community by C. Kavin Rowe   Charities abound in our time. Indeed, they have become so much a part of the fabric of our culture that their existence is taken for granted. No one is surprised after a major hurricane, say, that Samaritan’s Purse shows up on-site passing out water and food and helping to rebuild. No one is shocked when in the checkout line the clerk at the grocery store asks if you want to “round up” to help children with cancer. Charities have made it possible to help people near and far, even those whom we don’t know and never will, with a click of the mouse or a “sure, I’ll round up.” Read here

How are some churches continuing to innovate and thrive, while others seem to be stuck? My church is tired! How do we overcome missional paralysis? by Michael Adam Beck   In this time of liminality, we have to manage the tension of caring for what is, while creating what will be. I used to talk about sustaining the inherited church, while planting fresh expressions in the community. Now we have had to redefine the center and create new ways to care for our people. In addition to cultivating new digital, smaller, and hybrid forms of church. Read here

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