New Site Coming Soon!
Hey Everyone,
As you’ve no doubt noticed, this site has been devoid of content for some time now. That’s going to be changing soon, but not
only will there be new content – the whole site is going to be revised.
The new site is going to be dedicated to E3 ministries, a non-profit church consulting and spiritual development firm specializing in Spiritual Retreats, Church Assessment and Life Coaching. There will be plenty of content that you’ll find helpful in your daily lives, but the articles will be more focused than before. In broad terms, the site will be organized around a Trinitarian Spirituality: Encounter with Father; Equipped by the Son; Engaged by the Spirit. 3 E’s, hence the name, E3.
As a result of all the changes, the site may be down for a bit, but keep an eye open for its return.
Grace,
Stan
Hope
Hope is the coin of the Christ-formed community. It makes us what we are, and it is the greatest gift we have to offer the world. Hope is the topic of the book Viral Hope by J.R. Woodward and friends. Check it out.
Faith
Faith is trusting that God is good and seeks only good for us. Faith allows us to move when every instinct says to stay.
Love
Love supersedes all laws and commands. It does not replace them, it redefines them, and it does so in terribly important ways.
For example, without love, honoring one’s parent may lead to the facilitation of a destructive behavior for which that parent will one day give account to God. Love does not allow for this. With love as the rule, honoring one’s parent may require the correction of a character flaw which is anything but honorable. Love doesn’t just seek to please, it seeks what is best for the other.
Love redefines all of the laws and breathes life into what otherwise brings only death.
Church Building
The past couple of weeks I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing some amazing church building at Pathways. Quite a few folks pulled together on weeknights and weekends to finish the construction of our new cafe (and library). The cafe is absolutely beautiful and it has already proven an invaluable addition to the practice of hospitality in and by the Pathways Community. But as beautiful as the cafe is, it’s not the cafe that excites me so much.
Perhaps I should have said, “I’ve witnessed some amazing church growth“. You see it’s the relational connection, the excitement that comes from accomplishing a large task, and the satisfaction of creating something that truly belongs to no one, yet belongs to everyone at the same time that stirs my heart. A building is just a building, and a cafe is just a cafe, but relationships are where life occurs. Churches are not in the business of building buildings, they’re in the business of building (or more aptly, growing) relationships. And that is exactly what I’ve seen happen over the past several weeks.
The experience has left me nearly bursting with pride not at what the Pathways community can do, but with whom the Pathways community is becoming. I’ve seen real church growth, and I’m anxious to see how this little step of faithfulness will translate in to greater leaps of faith.
