If I were to start a new emerging church…

(AND THIS IS A BIG IF)… …

here is a short list of names I would NOT use because they are just SOOOO hip and kool and rad… … …

and already / over- used… … … …

(list to be updated as necessary — feel free to help add to this list)

The GIST

Liquid

Vox Venaie

The Vine

New Generation

House of Mercy

Apex

Vaux

The Ooze

Tribal Generation

Axxess

Vine and Branches

Bournemouth

Sanctus 1

Revelation Church

Matthew’s House

Read the rest of this entry »

Teens Conference (aka TC) is the annual 2-day evangelistic conference for High School students run by Ambassadors for Christ in Canada. Aimed at reaching the English (and Cantonese) speaking Chinese youth in the Greater Toronto Area, Rev. Arthur Wong of my home church (TJCAC) just had the privilege of being the speaker for this year’s Senior conference (they have so many kids attending that they need to split the conference up into Jr and Sr). I myself have attended numerous TCs in my younger years, and it has certainly played a significant part of the spiritual journeys of the young Chinese Christian generation in the Southern Ontario.

That Many Would Be Saved

Like all Christian conferences, it has its positives and negatives. There’s usually a lot of loud screaming and cheering that went along with highly competitive team games, numerous hormone-driven adolescent “macking” opportunities, and all-around adrenaline-driven teen rowdiness. Combine that with evangelistic preaching, emotion-filled hands-raising worship music, intimate fellowship, and applicable Bible studies, what this results in is in quite a fun-filled 2 days in the middle of March Break. By the end of the two days, you usually lose your voice from screaming cheers and singing at the top of your lungs — a supposed sign that you’ve really met with the Lord. Read the rest of this entry »

I just read the 9Marks review of Christian Schwarz’s “Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches“, and if you’ve been part of a church who has gone through the NCD surveys like I have, then I highly suggest this you read this short review of the book. The reviewer, Greg Gilbert, is an Elder at Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, a PhD student in Church History at SBTS, and Director of Research for Southern’s President’s office. I met him personally when I went to visit Third Avenue in September, which was great to put a face behind the publications I’ve read from him.

I have not read much of anything on the Natural Church Development (NCD) model of church growth, and so, it was good to finally read a review from a respectable Christian source. I myself have done the NCD survey and answered that big list of NCD questions when my home church here in Toronto did it. I had never been for it, but at the time, it looked like the least pragmatic church growth model I knew of and also the least poisonous in my opinion at the time. Further, I was also concerned when my home church implemented the Willow Creek “Promiseland” children’s program for its lots of fun but little on Scripture methods. Today, a few years after all the NCD hoopla, now being a Southern Baptist, and very much affirming of the biblical principles of growing a church like the “9 marks”, I am continually concerned with all pragmatic “research-based” church growth methods. Believe you me, I have all the intention of studying more on the Church Growth Movement, but for now, let us see what our friends at 9Marks have concluded. Read the rest of this entry »