Lost Soles
The other day I noticed that my Timberland shoes are wearing out. I love these shoes because I bought them at an 80% discount and because they are waterproof, a key feature for rainy East Bay winters. The shoes depicted above have been worn out mainly on the sidewalks of Berkeley, California. Our town is very compact (100,000 people in 10 square miles) and values walking or biking over driving. So developing our relationship with the community means taking the time to be out on the street with people every time we get a chance. As the soles on my Timberlands have gotten thinner and thinner, I’ve noticed that our relationship with Berkeley seems to develop in four stages: 1. Tourist:…
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The first 360Church Ustream webcast 4 March 2010
Tonight we premiere our 360Church ustream broadcasts, featuring a talk given at one of our weekly meetings. If all our tech works properly, you can view the webcast live right here!
Streaming .TV shows by Ustream
Or, if it doesn’t work so well, you should be able to find it here
The Sixth Dysfunction of a Team
Good teams are where you find them. And these days they are everywhere—at least in name. I’ve witnessed many churches transition to “team-based” ministry simply by applying the word as a suffix to their existing groups (e.g., “The Ushers” become “The Ushering Team”). In the long-term this move usually accomplishes only one thing: convincing everyone that the whole “team” thing has no merit—which it doesn’t when handled that way. This trend is indicative of just how easy it is to get a really important idea really wrong. In his classic book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni outlines the primary ways in which good intentions turn into bad teams. The five include: 1. absence of trust 2. …
ContinueSidewalk University
Berkeley is a center of learning. In fact, one of our city’s nicknames is “The Athens of the Pacific.” The reference is not to the book of Acts, but to the golden age of Greek philosophy. A number of surveys identify Cal as the top-ranked public university in the United States. Sierra magazine even places it among the nation’s top ten “cool” schools. We understood the university’s reputation when we moved to Berkeley, but were unprepared for how much learning we would have to do just to become naturalized citizens. If life in the east bay could be thought of as a school, some of our recent classes might be something like this: APOLOGY 101: Jan and I often reflect on how many…
ContinueSidewalk Contextualization
Americans now send 35 billion text messages a day. That’s on top of the 2.2 trillion wireless minutes (100 billion more than last year) they spent actually speaking to each other. With all those electrons flying you would think communication would be easier than ever. Surely the tsunami of radio waves we all wade through every day has purged us of any barrier to full understanding. Not so. Our church planting project in Berkeley has proven that connectivity is not the same as connecting. In other words, having superb channels available is no guarantee of being understood by another person. Consider this example: our community features fairly consistent protocols for how and when to speak to someone you don’t know. They look…
ContinueThe AARP Generation Plants Churches
Recently I wrote an article on the potential of church planters who are over 50 years of age. My friend Curt Harlow calls this phenomenon the “Lipitor revivial.” The piece just went online with Enrichment Journal as “The AARP Generation Plants Churches.”
Renewal in the AG Video
George P. Wood shot a brief of video of me discussing renewal in the Assemblies of God while we were standing in the Houston airport. It’s not long, but it’s how I feel. You can find it at YouTube or right here:
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Earl Creps—a popular speaker and leader—is director of the Doctor of Ministry program and associate professor at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (AGTS) in Springfield, Missouri. He has been a pastor, ministries consultant, and university professor. Along the way, Creps earned a Ph.D. in communication at Northwestern University and a doctor of ministry degree in leadership at AGTS.
What is Earl doing? View or subscribe to Earl Creps' Google calendar. Or learn how to contact him directly.
