Supernatural on Campus

The speakers at Supernatural at UCLA are Banning Libscher, Jaeson Ma and Neil Cole. I dont know Banning Liebscher, but I am sure he is the reasl deal since he is hanging with Jaeson and Neil - this conference should be a good time.

Here is what it is about: Campus Church Networks presents "Supernatural on Campus" a college revival conference to equip and empower student missionaries to awaken a generation to the love of God, make disciples and move in signs, wonders, and miracles to transform their campuses for God's glory. Cool.

Keoke is the Man

Any time I can get anywhere near the west coast, I like to log time with Keoke King. Keoke is director of Metamore - Campus Crusade in the bay area . . . and a great thinker and dear friend.

On Wed I had a great time hanging out with Keoke in the city - we hit the de Young Fine Art Museum in Golden Gate Park and enjoyed the best cup of coffee I have supped. Meanwhile, Keoke challenge my ministry assumptions with well seasoned doses of reality.

One thing intriguing to watch with Keoke and his crew at Metamore is the G3 concept. G3s are a variation of Neil Cole's Life Transformation Groups wired for the student world. Great stuff. You can download more here:

Keokeo and his team also use myspace and other web stuff to plant new works. They are always moving and learning in the bay area.

Neil Cole - Detox

Linda, Stacie Fletcher and spent a wonderful evening with Neil Cole last night. I appreciate Neil's hard work and diligence in decoding simple, replicable and multiplying. When talking to Neil it becomes obvious that much of what we hope is multiplication is simply fancy addition.

One of the interesting points that Neil often brings up in our conversations is what he refers to as Detox. Part of moving ahead in simple replicable forms means individuals detoxing from what has become standard operating procedure in western Christianity (that can hamper our growth and obedience).

• It involves listening primarily to God via the scriptures, prayer and silence (as compared to speakers and books).
  
• It involves looking at the gospels (Jesus) as the key source of learning and mission.
  
• It involves a paradigm shift in understanding the priesthood of the believer (as opposed to defaulting to a professional clergy class for guidance - we can do it, yes we can).

I am sure it involves other issues as well, but these stand out to me. And this is not to say that books and speakers and such is bad, but that we must move to our primary source being our own engagement with Jesus and scripture. This may sound obvious, but we are a Christian culture littered with many good and meaningful things - that may prevent us from hearing from God and then acting on it.

And now page 104 [more disciple making]

Hirsch goes on to say that he thinks we have lost the art of disciple making. He identifies three reasons as at least partly responsible:

• We have reduced it to the assimilation of intellectual ideas
• The abiding impact of cultural Christianity embedded in our understanding of church.
• The phenomenon of consumerism pushes against a true following of Jesus.

This appears to me to be the values of knowledge, safety and comfort. As a result, we have lowered the bar for participation in the Christian community to the lowest common denominator.

Alan goes on to say that the phenomenal Jesus movements of the past operated against this type of intuition - the early methods seem to go directly against many of our basic church growth principles (and yet they grew much much faster and deeper). In fact, it was difficult to join, but not complicated.

Alan then leans on Neil Cole's often quoted line regarding this principle - 'We want to lower the bar of how church [movement] is done and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple.'