“New times demand new words, because the old words don’t help us see the world differently.” Seth Godin
Here’s words that I throw into the blog with regular abandon that could be misunderstood, or more likely, not understood at all. Hope the following helps:
A is for apostolic. Everybody operating in the mode of an apostle (whether they are an ‘apostle or not’). Being sent by Jesus, to unreached territory, to spread the message, parent a new community, and multiply it. Classic examples: the early church, the methodist revival, the church in China.
B is for Badajoz. A city in the west of Spain where we live. You can read more here.
C is for culture of initiative. Embracing the fact that everybody is a leader. The priesthood of all believers. Or, in the words of John Wimber, “Everybody gets to play”. Make it happen rather than wait for instructions. This is a key value when it ocomes to being apostolic.
D is for discipleship. The process of helping people becoming more like Jesus. Mainly done through example and life-on-life instruction. Vital.
E is for e/c model. Prevalent model of church found in the UK and elsewhere, sunday services + paid staff + midweek groups + building. I appreciate this model, but also fear it has a few unintended consequences. We shouldn’t do away with this model, but we do need more alternatives.
F is for food. As in the stuff you eat. Best done together. Regularly.
G is for gatekeepers. Those that ‘pick’ people, bestow accreditation, those who say ‘this is acceptable, that is not acceptable’, or even, ‘this is hot, that is not’. People like the publishers, professors, professionals – thanks to various factors, including the internet, they’ve lost their gate.
H is for hospitality. The posture of opening your space to others in order to bless them. A summary of the gospel, commanded by the new testament, and a qualification for leadership.
I is for ‘is he?’ As in, ‘he’s not who we think he is, is he?’ A question I like to ask about Jesus of Nazareth.
J is for Joshua Project. The most comprehensive resource I’m aware of cataloguing the remaining unreached people groups. Fantastic ministry and resource. The ultimate blue ocean map. Found at www.joshuaproject.net.
K is for the Kingdom of God. The place where God rules and reigns. Jesus’ favourite topic. The thing we’re called to seek before all other things.
L is for the leadership clock. My best current thinking about leadership, trying to hold together the truths that Jesus is The Leader, everybody is a leader, and some people are given a position of leadership plus a few other things. Tricky.
M is for musicians. I am not one, but some of my friends are. I love it when they send me music. I put it on my blog.
N is for the narky Nazarene. A way I like to refer to Jesus because he is agressive, he chucks people out of temples, curses plants so they die, asks his followers if they are still so dull? He isn’t only narky, but perhaps he wouldn’t make it as a Cbeebies presenter.
O is for oceans. Are they red or blue? Red ocean = already reached space, where replication of activity will cause competition, eventually turning it blood red as it becomes cut throat. Blue ocean = unreached space where activity is new and there are endless possibilities. Innovation leads to cooperation. I like blue ocean.
P is for prayer. The activity of communicating with God. His son was so bothered about this, he made a whip and caused carnage in the temple. His passion was that his people would be a people of prayer, for all nations. I’d love this blog to be a blog of prayer, so there’s requests, ideas, teaching and answers.
Q is for questions. I like to pose these. I’m trying to be careful to ask them not to cast doubt on revealed truth, “did God really say?” But rather use them to reveal our own situation more clearly, “Where are you?” I might not always succeed at this.
R is for RSS feed, and other ways of subscribing. You can stay in touch with the blog really easily – through RSS, or put your email address in the box on the top right, or follow @brimsblog on Twitter. Need a tutorial? Click here.
S is for small groups. Which I believe are a standard part of the discipleship thing. There are posts about how to be part of a small group, how we can improve our small groups, how to multiply small groups.
T is for two windows. The 10/40 window, and the 1024 window. The 10/40 window refers to the region of the planet across Africa and Asia from 10 degrees latitude north of the equator to 40 degrees latitude north of the equator. The 1024 window is what you’re looking through right now. The term, coined by Andrew Jones, here is talking about the 1 Billion + and rapidly growing population who are connected online. Most of whom use a screen 1024 pixels across.
U is for unreached people groups. Ethnic-linguistic groups where the gospel has not been brought. There are somewhere around 6,000 of these, most of them in the 10/40 window. See the Joshua project for more information.
V is for video. I post videos regularly on the blog. So far I’ve done 1 and 2 Thessalonians in 14 sessions. The 7 signs in John’s gospel. And lots of random others, including two cooking videos. There will be another big video project starting soon.
W is for Well. The community I’ve been a part of for the last 4 years, based in Sutton, south London. They’ve been living out a lot of the themes on the blog for a while now. You can read all about them here.
X is for X rated language. Which due to the fact my mum subscribes is a lot less than it might have otherwise been.
Y is for You. Without which, this thing would just be a slightly bizzarre diary. Very grateful to all those who read – especially those who subscribe, share, comment, contribute, and, most of all, those who act.
Z is for Zoom 4HN microphone. Delivered in answer to prayer. Ha, and you thought I might struggle on that one.
