Coolest Sentence of the Day

Coolest Sentence 63

2008-03-24T23:40:00.000-07:00

How might family ministry help our disconnected culture find connections, rather than making the disconnectedness worse through excluding the marginalized due to an inward-focused ministry emphasis?

From Dissertation Proposal

Coolest Sentence 62

2008-02-18T22:15:00.000-08:00

Active mission takes risks, engages the culture as a full participant in bringing about healing solutions to human pain, and proclaims with authority the gospel of Jesus Christ based on the incarnational platform of credibility for a life lived well.

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Coolest Sentence 61

2008-02-10T23:28:00.000-08:00

Everything is on the table within the parameters of orthodoxy and orthopraxy so that the mission of making disciples might bear great fruit for God's glory in ever-increasing measure.

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Coolest Sentence 60

2008-02-04T22:41:00.001-08:00

However, people in the world will be moved by the narratives of kindness, sacrifice, humility and giving which are beginning to emerge in the stories we share; they may even be moved to believe, so long as we share with authenticity the life of Christ, rather than revert to second and third tier theological priorities which usually only distract, rather than instruct.

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Coolest Sentence 59

2008-01-22T22:43:00.001-08:00

There can be a high level of awkwardness, even in Christian homes (especially in US American Evangelicalism, and certainly mainline and non-denomination contexts as well), when it comes to living out a lifestyle of discipleship which permeates the whole of our daily lives.

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Coolest Sentence 58

2008-01-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

I strongly feel that the placement of children's ministry at cross purposes with family ministry is an unnecessary and unhelpful false dichotomy which creates unhealthy tension, rather than constructive integrative ministry expression.

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Coolest Sentence 57

2007-12-28T21:16:00.000-08:00

In close cooperation with parents and families, let's develop and model practices and routines which are realistic and sustainable for families.

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Coolest Sentence 56

2007-12-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that family spiritual formation practices which embrace the mundane rhythms of daily living are most likely to become sustainable for the long-term, possibly even from generation to generation.

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Coolest Sentence 55

2007-11-29T20:38:00.000-08:00

I envision a focus on holistic family discipleship which is not inordinately dependant upon the academic model of education, but which permeates the normal rythms of everyday life in the real world where people actually live.

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Coolest Sentence 54

2007-11-26T21:32:00.000-08:00

This is a practical component to our ongoing church-wide discussions concerning how we might create authentic community in our congregation, with a special twist: the fully engaged participation of the littlest ones in our midst.

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Coolest Sentence 53

2007-11-17T23:51:00.000-08:00

I maintain it is possible to be a follower of Jesus Christ within the evangelical convictional tradition and also learn to engage in personal and community stewardship of our natural environment.

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Coolest Sentence 52

2007-11-12T10:38:00.000-08:00

Children's and family ministry is an intergenerational effort, requiring the intentional cooperation of all the generations in our homes, neighborhoods and our church campuses.

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Coolest Sentence 51

2007-11-10T08:04:00.000-08:00

I feel compelled to focus more attention on turning the hearts of families to each other, than to meet the cultural expectations to achieve certain standards of professional success in my area of ministry.

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Coolest Sentence 50

2007-11-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

For example, we might come to realize through the sharing of common narratives in our communities and homes, that the way we have been living our lives and doing church has left far too little margin for most churches or individuals to have a legitimate incarnational influence in the communities where we live and work.

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Coolest Sentence 49

2007-10-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

...only in truly safe, relational community will I find the generative redemptive accountability which can cut to the heart of the matter far better than check lists and condescending smiles or frowns.

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Coolest Sentence 48

2007-10-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

...I suspect that if the research is correct and if the church does not begin to take it seriously, much of what we now experience in evangelicalism will be washed ashore like driftwood which does not even realize it has been uprooted.

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Coolest Sentence 47

2007-10-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

I am interested in challenging myself and my church to move into a way of living and ministering in the culture which honors children as persons and families as integral to holistic community life, so that discipleship and mission flow hand-in-hand as natural expressions of faith.

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Coolest Sentence 46

2007-09-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

I maintain that the number one problem obscuring honest dialogue about real dissent and affecting interpersonal relationships -- whether it be in marriage, work, community or church -- is selfishness.

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Coolest Sentence 45

2007-08-12T20:24:00.000-07:00

Margins, properly conceived and maintained, prevent chaos by limiting the placement of text and thereby enhancing the focus and effectiveness of the content contained on each page.

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Coolest Sentence 44

2007-08-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

Let's recover the heart of why we do what we do and refrain from outsourcing our convictions to a paradigm of consumerist ideals.

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Coolest Sentence 43

2007-07-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

Ethnographic research incorporates a variety of modalities to gain a comprehensive perspective of a specific culture.

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Coolest Sentence 42

2007-07-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

There will be required a variety of contextualized strategies which are appropriate for specific situations.

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Coolest Sentence 41

2007-07-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

In essence, I hope to explore how the church might more effectively help families to engage in transformative discipleship within the daily routines of life so that parents and children will experience growing Christian spiritual maturity within their families and in accountability to the larger church community.

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Coolest Sentence 40

2007-07-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

My questions are birthed out of a sense of growing unease with the way things are in my specific ministry situation, and an indomitable hope that a better way forward is available.

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Coolest Sentence 39

2007-06-16T22:02:00.001-07:00

It (Leadership) means considering the needs of the many and the needs of the few, rather than simply an either/or dichotomy.

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Coolest Sentence 38

2007-06-09T21:03:00.001-07:00

The problem with transference is that by assigning what we perceive to be reality to the motives underlying another person's behavior, we risk placing filters on our perspectives, skewing our understanding of their behavior.

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Coolest Sentence 37

2007-06-02T20:32:00.001-07:00

If our lives are soaked in the Scriptures, tilled by the soil of unceasing prayer, and cared for by the loving accountability of our church family, then we will be more likely to deal with difficult people with a sincere smile which disarms their vitriol.

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Coolest Sentence 36

2007-05-31T23:50:00.000-07:00

The leadership dynamics inherent in the balance of delegation and accessibility need not create a mutually exclusive ethos.

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Coolest Sentence 35

2007-05-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

From my perspective, media can and should play a part in appropriate situations, but it falls far short in engaging all the senses in a robust ministry context.

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Coolest Sentence 34

2007-04-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Yet Scripture places the responsibility of parenthood upon parents within the context of the larger Christian community, rather than exclusively on either parents alone or the church alone in an unbalanced antithesis.

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Coolest Sentence 33

2007-04-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

Along with God’s empowerment and wisdom, chief among them (evangelism and discipleship) is the understanding that it requires winsome missional cultural sensitivity, a grasp of God’s biblical redemptive narrative and the place of humankind in his story, an understanding of God’s expectations on us concerning social justice and its relationship to communicating the gospel to the world, and a maturing self-awareness about the ministry ethos which characterizes our specific ministry contexts so that we might make adjustments where appropriate according to God’s leading.

Coolest Sentence 32

2007-04-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

As we glimpse into the great silence we may find courage to embrace seasons of intentional silence in our own lives, all with a view toward hearing God's whisper in the stillness of our solitude.

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Coolest Sentence 31

2007-04-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

There are interesting functional interactive dynamics which take place in each and every ministry session.

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Coolest Sentence 30

2007-03-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

First, there seems to be an emerging desire to move children's ministry from simply an apparent one dimensional segregated church activity to a more integrated ethos of family located and focused ministry.

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Coolest Sentence 29

2007-03-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

So if some of the poems seem sad, angry, or neutral but definitely not overtly religious, don't lament.

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Cool Sentence 28

2007-03-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

Secular has become a perjorative term and I do not believe for a minute that God intends for us to disregard the sacred responsibility of conducting ourselves as Christians within the necessary activities of life, whether they are the mundane of everyday living, or the sublime of creative arts.

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Coolest Sentence 27

2007-03-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

Notoriety, status and pedigree continue their slide down the slippery slope in their loss of appeal to me.

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Coolest Sentence 26

2007-03-08T22:46:00.000-08:00

The generation that is rising up out of the ashes of broken homes around the world is in a very dangerous place full of peril and simultaneously is at an exciting time of grand opportunity.

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Coolest Sentence 25

2007-03-07T21:15:00.001-08:00

It relies on the the ear as well, working its vocal mystery in the ebb and flow of time with vocalizations, pauses, startling observations and musicality.

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Coolest Sentence 24

2007-03-06T21:45:00.000-08:00

Poetry is more than simply a creative configuration of words set in structures meant to please the eye through use of form and space.

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Coolest Sentence 23

2007-03-04T16:06:00.000-08:00

In my church, I am beginning to address the apparent disconnect between saying that we support the parents in their journey of discipleship for themselves and their kids and actually taking substantive intentional steps to do so.

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Coolest Sentence 22

2007-03-03T20:15:00.000-08:00

Positivism focuses strictly on absolutes, often naively so.

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Coolest Sentence 21

2007-03-02T21:11:00.000-08:00

The individualism inherent in modernism as a given of the Enlightenment project has produced a consumption focused, consumer driven ethos which leads parishioners, especially those within evangelicalism in the USA, to buy into a segmented taste-testing brand of spirituality.

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Coolest Sentence 20

2007-03-01T18:25:00.000-08:00

Postmodernity (probably more accurately late modernity), in all its angst ridden glory, is raising substantial questions about the assumptions of modernity.

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Coolest Sentence 19

2007-02-28T13:03:00.000-08:00

For critical realists, the goal is a metatheology leading to community based theology rather than simply the systematic comprehensive theology of modernity or the deconstructionist and pluralist theology of postmodernity.

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Coolest Sentence 18

2007-02-27T07:25:00.000-08:00

However, I would add that there is much to be thankful for in certain elements of postmodernity and the emerging church movement in the Western hemisphere, namely the call for holistic gospel and ways of doing church, and a move away from Greek dualism, which unfortunately separates concern for the soul from concern for health and social justice.

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Coolest Sentence 17

2007-02-26T07:34:00.001-08:00

Globalism posits the necessity of the text in context, which is to say doing theology within the rubric of the social sciences so that the text truly can be communicated and understood within varied human contexts.

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Coolest Sentence 16

2007-02-25T07:30:00.000-08:00

And the church will return to its rightful place as a community of sacrament, word, equipping discipleship, and mission.

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Coolest Sentence 15

2007-02-24T07:47:00.000-08:00

It is a healthy thing to ask questions within a culturally contextual framework which is informed first and foremost by faithfulness to the biblical text.

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Coolest Sentence 14

2007-02-23T13:44:00.000-08:00

Are we capable of irenic interaction in a gracious mutual context of sharing, holding to our first order principles yet also finding common ground upon which to base ongoing conversation?

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Coolest Sentence 13

2007-02-22T00:04:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in the tangle of philosophical and theological bramble there is a better way forward.

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Coolest Sentence 12

2007-02-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

I maintain that children’s ministry is the privilege for which the entire community of faith is responsible.

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Coolest Sentence 11

2007-02-20T07:13:00.000-08:00

But Christian Spiritual formation reaches into the nooks and crevices of where we live day to day.

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Coolet Sentence 10

2007-02-19T07:39:00.001-08:00

Discipleship is a mosaic, non-linear but no less intentional.

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Coolest Sentence 9

2007-02-18T07:23:00.001-08:00

Wouldn't that seem the missionally winsome ethos to embrace as we strive to understand emerging culture in this post Christendom world?

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Coolest Sentence 8

2007-02-17T17:25:00.000-08:00

As surely as the coyote wails outside my window, millions of marginalized people silently wail outside yours.

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Coolest Sentence 7

2007-02-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

Fierce lightning lit up the heavens, lashing tracers of bright arcs in carefully choreographed liturgical dance directly above and across the visible horizon.

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Coolest Sentence 6

2007-02-15T07:05:00.000-08:00

While there can be certain transferable principles, especially in view of careful exegetical treatment of the biblical corpus, it is equally true that principles need to be contextually applied to the unique challenges of a specific ministry setting.

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Coolest Sentence 5

2007-02-14T07:15:00.000-08:00

Rather, it requires thoughtful integration of theological reflection, biblical hermenuetic and pastoral praxis.

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Coolest Sentence 4

2007-02-13T07:47:00.000-08:00

How should we develop in our daily routines and interactions the integral rythms of a missional life which we observe in Jesus and the apostles in the biblical text?

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Coolest Sentence 3

2007-02-12T07:26:00.000-08:00

Mixtures of languages and tribal regionalized narratives struggle to live in harmony with one in another, mostly failing miserably, but not always.

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Coolest Sentence 2

2007-02-11T08:17:00.000-08:00

It is the practices, the rythms of living, the veritable dust which is his, that we find coated on ourselves as we live out his life through ours.

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Coolest Sentence 1

2007-02-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

This is my first attempt. I should add that I got this idea from another blogger who is really quite brilliant. Her blog is called The Best Sentence of the Day.

What are the epistemological tensions between community and otherness? What implications might this have for our hermenuetic?

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