The Fall season and its holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving, offer us many opportunities to live as a "beautiful resistance" in our city. The following are suggestions for engaging the Fall season with both communal and missional intentionality. We recognize that…
Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have…
It’s been a little over a year since we lost our beloved daughter Erin to cancer. My wife and I will never get over it nor do we want to get over it. For some reason, this decision seems to…
Waiting. Waiting etches itself into the experience of every son and daughter of God through the pains of bondage, plague, drought, and storm. Sarah and Abraham waited for Isaac. Joseph waited for his brothers and God’s grace to make evil…
Early in the pandemic, it was said, “We are all in the same storm, but different boats.” This has proven to be true over the past year and a half, especially when it comes to missional communities or community groups.…
“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your…
A missional community is a way to organize the church to gather and send groups of people on the mission of God. Simply put, a missional community is a group of people who are learning to follow Jesus together in…
How many times have I thought, “Lord, why did you call me to this?” A little over a year ago my family moved into the overlooked neighborhood our missional community had been serving for four years—the same neighborhood where…
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The Story of Soma Queretaro "How are we going to do this?" my friend asked after agreeing to join me in planting a church in Queretaro City, Mexico. It was clear that this was not a simple move from one…
In three of the gospel accounts, Jesus, prior to beginning His ministry, was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. For 40 days He went without food and the comforts of life, yet He…
What is Lent? Lent is a forty-day-long journey through daily and sometimes hourly reminders of the gospel because our stomachs are hungry or our hearts are longing for something we seemingly can’t live without. Lent and the celebration of Easter…
(Enjoy this final post in Alan Hirsch's eleven-part series.) When the church gets its act together, it is the most potent force for the transformation of the world. One of the most profound ways to embody countercultural dissents against the…
(Post ten in an eleven-part series from Alan Hirsch. Read part eleven here.) The kingdom works covertly to undermine the way things are now and to initiate God’s rule in its place. Contrary to a narrow fundamentalist understanding of…
Once when my husband was on his way to a meeting, he saw a woman loudly screaming at the air as she stood in the middle of the street. Everyone nearby heard about the abuse she and her children…
We're about to embark on perhaps the strangest and best Easter of our lives. It will be an Easter without large brunches, egg hunts, and large worship services. In fact, it will be an Easter of sheltering in place, rising…
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I…
Words like son or daughter or even family bring up feelings that are personal to the stories in which we’ve experienced them. To some son or daughter is a positive descriptor, one that tells you that you belong, that…
I remember when one of the leaders in the Soma Family of Churches asked me if I thought missional communities would be a passing trend. He wasn’t questioning the validity of them, but he did wonder if this was…
A Formal Agreement about Gospel Partnership Matters We’ve explored official church membership from a fresh angle and looked at a biblical precedent for the formal process of recognizing gospel partners. Now, let’s survey some of the key reasons this…
“Hey, I listened to your podcast.” My fictional podcast had been released for weeks, and I could count on my fingers how many local friends had listened to it. This had been a sensitive source of tears, anger, and…
In part one, we evaluated some erroneous views of membership and aimed at a clear biblical definition. In this second segment, we'll explore the scriptural basis for a formal membership process and see how this fits within a family/missional…
My wife Bethany and I are suckers for weird artsy puppet shows, so of course we were pumped to see that Fort Worth’s Amphibian Theater was producing just that with Geppetto: Extraordinary Extremities. We grabbed a few friends and…
Hospitality is a practice to be cultivated for God’s glory, our good and the flourishing of others. It’s an invitation to worship the One who invites us in, feeds us, listens to us, knows us, and provides for our…
Who are Strangers? Hospitality is making space for people to be with us and to become within community—to be who they are and to become more like Christ. In Scripture, strangers are people who live in a society other than…
This is a guest post from Dave Miles, a planting pastor with Soma Blue Mountains in Sydney, Australia. Six years ago, Dave, his wife Glenda, and a wonderful team of people planted Soma Blue Mountains. Then, last year, they…
While I do want to fully treasure these years I have with my children, more than anything I want them to know without a doubt who I treasure and to come to treasure Him themselves. Last night, my eight-year-old…
We were created to declare His goodness; to revel in the depths of how satisfying He is. God has given us a mission to be family, missionaries, and servants. He calls us to be full of thanksgiving and constant…
It's Labor Day, which means summer officially comes to a close, and we all gear up for the "normal" life that fall brings. The summer has been really busy for us, too, and we want to highlight a few of…
Leaders, please set aside your objective plans for a moment. Helping people address their inner lives is probably the most important thing you’ll ever do. Many years ago I took my first trip to West Africa. On one of…
We live in a fast-paced and distracted world. Often we're distracted from the ways God has designed us to live and distracted from the daily priorities He wants us to pursue. As a follower of Jesus for almost forty years and…
Community is essential to our spiritual formation. “At the core of our being is this truth, we are designed for and defined by our relationships. We were born with a relentless longing to participate in the lives of others.…
How was a family like ours supposed to live out the practice of discipleship? The instruction in Matthew 28:19 seemed impossible for us. Roughly six years ago, a miserable “stomach flu” turned into cause for celebration; I was pregnant…
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