Dan

I got in a car accident last week and totaled my pickup.  I really loved that truck too, it was a great truck.  I got a new truck with the help of my car accident lawyer that helped me win the case and I really like the new one, but I didn't write this post to talk about trucks.  I want to talk about compassion, and how I have seen compassion.  I found something extremely disturbing.  This is a trend I have seen in church, in community and on blogs, and it's really starting to disturb me.  Compassion comes from the world in much greater supply than it does from God's people. When I have had … [Read more...] about Lessons for a Car Accident

One of my new ventures is in the area of church planting.  Here in Iowa, we have a lot of rural communities that are low population density, but have a lot of corn or soybeans or a combination of both.  The question then arises, how do we plant a church where there are more cows than people and little land that isn't used for farming?  Doesn't seem real practical to buy land and build a building.  Once I started thinking about it, who's idea is the "buy and land and build a building" model anyway? Now don't hear what I am not saying (cause that never happens).  There is a TON of value in … [Read more...] about How Much Does Culture Sour the Mix?

Greeting all my blogging friends. I have missed you all.  I have been away for a while and made some serious changed.  I resigned my position of Associate Pastor, working to start a non-profit, and trying to do more writing.  You can see by my lack of blogs that the last one hasn't been going to well.  I have left the church with a desire to reach out to those who are not coming to church.  I have spent much of my ministry in front line ministry, on high school and college campus doing outreach and evangelism.  That is where I feel led to go back, and with this in mind, I woke up to … [Read more...] about The Fights that Need Fighting

I have always believed that most issues come down to a core root or issue.  When you really start to cut things away and tear through the history, the baggage, the wording, the hurts and the fights, there is a point, a tip if you will that set the whole thing off.  As I was traveling this week too and from World Changers, I questioned, what is that point in the current debate?  There is so much overlap, and then some much fighting over what seems to be rhetoric, what is the splinter? Now, I have some presuppositions of my own, and most of you know them.  I have written about my concept of … [Read more...] about The Tip of the Calvinist/Traditionalist debate

I have drafted a statement that outlines Woven Theology. The whole document is in work, it's a large task to outline my theological views, and I am finding that this theology is common, but no one has put it down as a written statement. I hope this will help us in our disccusion and bring some unity by finding some common ground. Here is the link. http://jdanbarnes.blogspot.com/2012/06/statement-of-woven-theology.html … [Read more...] about Woven Theology Statement

Our modern SBC is. . . well a mess.  We have divisions, factions, dissensions, rivalries, and all sorts of things that the New Testament tells us to avoid.  We are broken into groups and clubs, and so many are in to many different groups, we forget who is on our side and who is the bad guy.  We can't agree on a whole lot, and it seems like we are divided to the point of destruction.  How did we get here?  What happened to us?  I have a few theories that I would like to toss out and see if we can't find something to agree on for a change. First, I think we gave the devil a foothold.  I don't … [Read more...] about How Did We Get Into This Mess (and How Do We Get Out)?

So I have been called a Calvinist. . . I'm a Wovenist, but whatever label you want to stick to me, I probably have the most in common with the New Calvinists, or the Young, Restless and Reformed. I have written a book on Evangelism, and I want to offer you all a copy in PDF, so you can see where I stand and maybe we can dialouge a little more clearly. Download it here. … [Read more...] about How I View Evangelism

There are a few places to go and find good solid wisdom.  The first of course is scripture.  We then have wise individuals in our midst, we have some wisdom in books and then there is the Jedi Master.  For being a little green guy, he is very wise in some of the things he instructs, and we would be wise to take them to heart.  At the end of his muppet life (In Return of the Jedi, there was no CGI), he told his young student Luke Skywalker to "pass on what you have learned".  Luke couldn't just keep the information to himself, he needed to train a new generation of Jedi. I'm not a Jedi, I'm … [Read more...] about Lessons from Master Yoda

I have become convinced that we have focused on the wrong thing too much today in the Christian faith. We have put so much effort into the things that we DO and not enough focus on NOT doing. Stay with me here, I'm not talking about a list of things not to do. I'm talking about not working so hard to justify ourselves. I am talking about surrender and I think that is one of our biggest struggles. Our flesh seems to be alive and well and we haven't put our flesh to death. We have instead found more acceptable ways of gratifying our pride and ego. We have Pharisee religiousness and it feeds our … [Read more...] about The Flesh and the Franchised Church

I am hesitant to call myself a Theologian, it sounds a little arrogant, so I am going to let you judge whether or not I deserve that title.  I am not sure how one gets the qualifications.  That is not the point of my blog, so you can drop a quick comment, but let's not focus on what the qualifications of theologian are. You probably know that I call myself a Wovenist, I have written some blogs about it and shared it in some comments.  Dave Miller's recent blog got me thinking more and more about it.  The reason I call it Woven Theology is because it's the weaving of man's responsibility and … [Read more...] about Meditations of a Woven Theologian