Back in March I asked the question: How Necessary is the Weekly Worship Gathering? We had a good discussion in the comments. Several months later, I find myself making plans for September 12th when The Fulcrum Community will launch weekly large group gatherings. In a future post, I’ll give my reasons for why a weekly […]
Jimmy Kimmel’s Summary of Christianity
Here’s how Jimmy Kimmel summed up Christianity on his show the other night: In a lot of religions, Christianity being one of them, the idea is that life is a test. That you go through your life and if you’re good you go to heaven or nirvana or whatever and if you’re bad you don’t, […]
June 3, 2010 by 8 Comments
Going Public
I just sent out the latest version of The Fulcrum Community Newsletter. Below is a snippet that I’ve adapted for the blog. We moved to Austin one year ago. As years go, this last one passed in a hurry. Looking back on it, it is easy to break it down into two clearly defined stages. […]
June 2, 2010 by 7 Comments
Lost in Thought
I stayed up late last night watching it and woke up early this morning thinking about it. Of course I’m talking about the Lost finale. If you’re not a Lostie then you can stop reading now. If you haven’t seen the finale yet, you probably ought to bookmark this post and move on as well. […]
May 24, 2010 by 8 Comments
It was a Good Home
As of 11AM this Friday–and assuming there are no ill-placed tornadoes in the next two days–we will no longer own a home in Oklahoma. I drove up to Tulsa earlier this week to get the last bit of our stuff from the house we’ve owned for the past seven years. Even though we’ve been living […]
May 19, 2010 by 6 Comments
Wednesday Nights Are Different Now
Another way that launching a new church is different from working in an established church is that Wednesday nights don’t suck anymore. Wednesday nights are the thing about my old life that I miss the least. A dirty little secret among many church staffers is that Wednesday night is their least favorite night of the […]
May 12, 2010 by 10 Comments
Losing It All (Why Jesus Might Give us a Noogie)
In a previous post, I shared my take on the “Parable of the Talents” in Matthew 25:14-30. I wish that Jesus would have had one of the guys invest and lose all of the talents he’d been given. How would the master respond that? If I were telling the story, here’s how I think the […]
May 10, 2010 by 1 Comment
Believing the Worst About God
Last week I did a teaching on the parable of the talents from Matthew 25:14-30. On the surface, it’s a fairly simple story. The master leaves large amounts of money with three servants. The master comes back expecting his servants to have made good use of the money and ready to show a profit. He […]
May 4, 2010 by 4 Comments
The Flinch Reflex
Please read The Hardest Thing You Will Ever Do for the context of this post. One thing I’ve had to learn to let go of while launching Fulcrum is the “flinch reflex” I picked up while working with established churches for 12 years. I’m easily bored with the status quo. I’m wired to try to […]
April 27, 2010 by 7 Comments
The Hardest Thing You Will Ever Do
One of the questions I’m occasionally asked is, “How is starting a new church different from trying to turn around an established one?” The short answer is that it’s different in every way imaginable. In the next several posts, I’ll explain why. Every time I start writing something like this I worry that some of […]
April 21, 2010 by 11 Comments
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons