Dallas Willard, author of books about Christian spiritual formation, writes, "We must flatly say that one of the greatest contemporary barriers to meaningful spiritual formation in Christlikeness is overconfidence in the spiritual efficacy of 'regular church services,' of whatever kind they may be. Though they are vital, they are not enough. It is that simple."

This drives pastors crazy because we know it's true.

Regular church services are most of what some churches do. Close to half of my week as a pastor is spent preparing for services. Most congregations structure their buildings around space for services. When we say that we're going to church, we're really talking about attending a service. If we cut back what we do as a church, the last thing we'd ever cut is our regular church service.

For a long time, many of us thought that the world needed better church services. We produced services with better music, drama, and practical sermons. We built our entire evangelistic strategies around getting people to come to our church services. It hasn't worked.

read the rest of darryl's article here.

wednesday nite
kelsey's in langley, 7:30 pm
for anyone interested in creative new expressions of faith communities

St. Patrick's Day

Three Irish nuns told a priest that they had sinned.
The first nun laughed and said: "I was romantic with a man"
The priest said: “Drink holy water."
The second nun laughed and said: "I was involved in a fight"
The priest said: "Drink holy water."
The third nun laughed even more. "I peed in the holy water"

next greenhouse

Thursday March 29 at 7:30, location TBA

Resonate Greenhouse

Greenhouses are basically organic networks for church planters and those interested in creating new forms of church. We get together, we tell stories, we inspire one another... Led by Pernell Goodyear of the FRWY.ca and Jared Siebert of the Life Cycle Project.

Why are we doing this?

One of the things that the Resonate community has heard over the last couple of years has been a desire for face to face communication. While it has happened all over the place informally, one of the things that we have been working towards in 2006 is the formation of local learning communities.

We have started:

ECHO | A monthly conversation on theology, worship, church and Christianity in today's rapidly changing culture.

Cultivate Learning Parties | We have also started Cultivate, it's a yearly non-conference to explore different aspects of church planting and new forms of church.

And now we have Resonate Greenhouses for church planters. In 2005, Pernell and Jared started to invite church planters and people feeling God's call to plant churches together to talk and dream about what God was calling them to do. That original network has grown and changed into others throughout Southern Ontario, Montreal, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Calgary.

Interested in joining us on our journey to change the world?

If you want more information, contact Jared at jared AT fmc-canada.org or Pernell at pernell AT frwy.ca. For the lastest local information, check out our local network websites or check out the Resonate Soapbox blog for some stories from the road.