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From Sunday February 24th - Pastor Tim Lundy & Fellowship Bible Church

February 29, 2008

From our time in Little Rock, AR on 2/24/08
(this entry is being written today from the InxPot Coffee Shop at the base of Keystone Mountain in Keystone, CO)

Last Sunday we traveled from Memphis, TN to Dallas, TX and stopped in Little Rock to spend a few minutes with Pastor Tim Lundy from Fellowship Bible Church. We didn't know how much time we would be able to spend with Pastor Tim but he ended up letting us hang out with him in the parking lot for over an hour; guess it was a good thing he wasn't preaching that morning :). It's fun to be able to share the story of the Catalyst Road Trip and all that has been happening... the Polaroid pictures from different people we meet with are starting to take over the inside of the vanagon - it's awesome!

We began to film Pastor Tim's response to a question about leadership when we had some unexpected visitors come by the van. They told us that they wanted to see what was going wtih the "hippy van" in the parking lot! Let it be known - the only smoke that you will find coming from the vanagon will be smoke from a busted engine! (video)

Our unexpected visitors ended up including another pastor from Fellowship Bible Church, Russell Rainey. We were blessed to be able to talk with both Tim and Russell about the story of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock... the video below highlights some of our time together revealing more about their hope to be a "starfish" church as well as how they are connecting the older generation with the younger generation... AND you will even get a chance to meet Lloyd, an unsung hero for their church who came be the van to make sure everything was alright - it's pretty funny.

"Starfish Church" - referenced from the ideas found in the book, "The Starfish and the Spider." Napster cripples the global musis industry... Wikepedia turns Encyclopedia Briticana obsolete overnight... Craigslist stands toe to toe with newspaper giants... example after example about how decentralization stregthens the life of a movement. The video below highlights more of what we learned from Pastors Tim and Russell.

How do you influence your community? Learn how Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, AR engages their community with "Irrestible Influence" through what they call Sharefest - www.sharefest.com

Posted by Catalyst Roadtrip at 08:41 PM • Permalink • Comments (0)

The Emerging Definition

The Emerging Church has been a very interesting (and confusing!) topic for the last few years. Here are two recent articles that have emerged from the blogosphere regarding the Emerging Church. It appears that a definition for the Emerging Church is emerging from the confusion.

Dan Kimball (who wrote the lovely book: "They Like Jesus but Not The Church") shares a diagram he found - it seems to depict different levels of emergence.

Mark Driscoll shares his classification of the emerging churches. Also see this short youtube video from him

For clarification, in case you haven't heard this one yet, "Emergent" is not equal to "Emerging". Emergent is the conversation being had by many different denominations and is facilitated by folks like Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Brian McClaren and others. Emergent tends to be labeled more "controversial", while emerging is a more broad term referring to many churches employing new methods and ideas.

There has been a fair amount of demonizing of the term "emerging church". But I think it's in our best interest, as the body of Christ - rather than name calling - to civilly discuss how and why we disagree.

Posted by Catalyst Admin at 09:36 AM • Permalink • Comments (2)

The American Religious Landscape

February 27, 2008

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has recently published a new survey on Americans' religious affiliations.

CNN did an article based on this research. However, the claims made in the article are distorted and overblown. The article claims:

The U.S. religious marketplace is extremely volatile, with nearly half of American adults leaving the faith tradition of their upbringing to either switch allegiances or abandon religious affiliation altogether, a new survey finds.

This is skewed because they include those who changed denominations. The following numbers are taken from the report on change in religious affiliation (found here):

11% of Americans (about 20% of Protestants) were raised protestant and left the entire group (to become atheist or join another, non-protestant religion) as an adult. But 8.4% of Americans became Protestant from another religion (including atheism).

10.1% of Americans were raised Catholic (about 33% of Catholics) and left the group (to become atheist, protestant or another religion). 2.6% of Americans became Catholic.

3.9% of Americans were raised Atheist/Agnostic/Nothing and switched to a religion. But 12.7% of Americans were "raised" another religion and joined this group - the largest of any increase.

All other religions had increases and decreases of less than 1% of Americans, totalling no more than 4.1% of Americans.

See the report details here - my numbers taken from Chapter 2.

Posted by Catalyst Admin at 08:29 AM • Permalink • Comments (0)

RELEVANT 5-year Anniversary

February 26, 2008

RELEVANT Magazine is celebrating its 5-year Anniversary by hosting a free party at their offices, Saturday, March 8th. 6pm to question mark.

Up and coming band Seabird will be playing. Their song, Not Alone, from their recent album, Let Me Go On, is sure to be the next indie hit.

For long-time fans of RELEVANT, this is sure to be a wonderful time of awesomeness. If you attend, be sure to get a picture with Jesse Phillips, our Catalyst delegate.

Will you be attending?

Posted by Catalyst Admin at 09:17 AM • Permalink • Comments (0)

February 26, 2008 - Denver, CO

10:06PM
The Catalyst Road Trip has landed in Denver, CO. Unfortunately the Vanagon has been left in Dallas (or fortunately because it only goes 40mph up hill :)) Part of the Catalyst team and some of our other friends will be suffering for the next four days in Vail; hey, somebody has to do it! We will be back in Dallas Sunday evening, March 2nd and then back on the road meeting with people Monday, March 3rd.

We are still working on updates from our time with Pastor Tim Lundy in Little Rock, AR this past Sunday, our meeting with the three pastors from C|Life Church in Forney, TX Monday night, and then today's morning meetings with a couple key leaders from the Dallas area including time with Pastor Ed Young from Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX. The flu bug has caught up with the Vanagon so we are moving a little slower than usual, thanks for your patience!

If you have not yet been to the wonderful state of Colorado, stop what you're doing, pull up your favorite airline website and book a flight immediately! It's absolutely gorgeous out here...

Stay tuned!

Your Friendly Vanagon Vagabonds!

Posted by Catalyst Roadtrip at 09:06 AM • Permalink • Comments (0)

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