Jack Kerouac & The Use Of Labels

Some time ago, I picked up the original scroll version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, “the legendary first draft – rougher, wilder, and racier than the 1957 edition,” as the front cover states. I’d like to say that I bought this particular...

World Vision & The Problem With The Faith-Based Label

If you hadn’t noticed, the world of American Christendom/Evangelicalism is being rocked by the announcement by Richard Stearns of World Vision that they will not refuse to hire someone in a homosexual marriage legally recognised by the State...

A Proper Place For Passion

Within Communitas we value Kingdom Seeking, which includes a life of worship and passionate devotion to Christ.  I grew up in a denominational church. In so many ways I’m thankful for the rich Christian heritage this church passed along to me. I learned scripture...

Seeing God’s Presence In The Everyday

Whenever people from a certain background find out that I live and work among Muslims, and there is only a tiny percentage of practicing Christians in the country where I live, they always ask something like, ‘So, where does your spiritual nourishment come...

3 Things I Learned From Community Service

When my wife and I (Brandon and Kristi Wellcome) moved to Dublin to begin discovering how we might participate in God’s Kingdom, we were introduced to the work of Serve the City. As we sat in the kitchen of Alan and Sheryl McElwee (the legendary couple that...

Every Christ-Follower A Missionary

As I’ve become more familiar with CA’s “Kingdom Seeking” value and the practices we embrace, I’ve come to realize that we are wrestling to implement a paradigm of church that makes every Christ-follower in a church a “missionary” whose unique gifting...

Echoes Of God’s Kingdom: The Multi-Ethnic Advantage

I saw a headline recently that said “The Church is Too Generous to the Needy.” At first, it was hard for me to believe anyone could actually say there’s such a thing as “too much generosity,” particularly when in reference to God’s...

Humble Congregations

After almost eight years of leading a ”church laboratory”, trying to find new ways of how church has to be in order to survive the spiritual whirlwinds of change that are still drawing over Europe, I’m sometimes asked: ”So – what are your conclusions?! What does the...

Meeting Needs Unaware: The Gospel According To The iPhone

“Consumers don’t understand what they want until they see it.” This quote from Steve Jobs (former founder and CEO of Apple) reveals much of his innovative business genius. Jobs didn’t give a lot of time to market research. He was...

“Them” And “Us”

How do you feel when you see an image of a Muslim praying, like this one?  And how do you feel when you see an image of someone like Mother Theresa praying? If you are anything like me, as a Christian, you might feel separate or even negative towards the first...