Thin Places Launch & Video Trailer

While I have been at work on the development and writing of Thin Places: Six Postures for Creating and Practicing Missional Community for over a year, the contents are the culmination of over 10 years of lived theology, story and practice.  While I love to write, this project has been uniquely fulfilling as it is …

The Disease of Building Theology in the Theoretical

This blog was first posted on Tony Campolo’s Red Letter Christian’s online publication on 5/6/12… I love and am enlivened by intellectual stimulation, specifically in relation to the integration of theology and ethics.  In many ways, I feel that I am hardwired for this stuff.  The other night my NieuCommunities’ tribe was taking an extended …

St. Patrick: More Than Green Beer & Four Leaf Clovers

There have been few historical Christian communities that have had a more significant role in shaping our community’s postures of life and mission than that of St. Patrick and the Celtic Christians.  Living as a “sent” people who were committed to rhythms of common life, this band of early Christians embodied missional-monastic community in a context …

When Dreams Meet Reality: Life in Intentional Community

After years of being a youth pastor, I remember the time I came home from yet another event that required endless administration, energy and resources and asked myself, “Is this what it means to be the Church?  And if so, there have to be better ways to embody the supposed life-giving, relational aspects of Jesus …

Teenagers, Tragedy and a New Story

I spent this past week living on a small houseboat with bunch of freshman boys on Lake Shasta.  While living in extremely intimate quarters with 70 teenagers (4 houseboats) can be quite intimidating (and odoriferous!), it was not what intimidated me most about this time.  Having committed to speak for this annual “Houseboats” trip close …