Hey there,

As you can probably see, I have not regularly blogged at this address for some time.  However, I am still getting a fair bit of traffic here.  I am now blogging at my new site A Living Alternative, Our Missional Pilgrimage.  I would greatly appreciate it if you headed over there to take a look.

Also, if you have a blog, I would appreciate any linkage.  Believe it or not, by doing so, you will be helping support our inner city ministry & church plant.  Thanks!

Peace,
Jamie Arpin-Ricci

I am excited to announce that this blog has now moved to a new home:

Please update all links to the new location!

When I decided to participate in this “What Is Missional?” Syncroblog, I was initially nervous. After all, I am not a theologian or a particularly accomplished “practitioner”. However, I am passionately committed to follow Christ, along with my community, to become the peculiar people He has called us to be. After all, the stakes are high. I am not exploring this out of curiosity or intellectual interest, but because I see in my inner city neighbourhood (and moreso in my own life) the desperate need for saving transformation. And so I will try to wrestle it our here.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons that the term “missional” get so over-used, misused and abused is that it cannot be understood apart from the “mission” that is at its root (both etymologically and conceptually). At the heart of God’s mission is the Gospel. While “What is the Gospel?” could be a Syncroblog in and of itself, I have always started with this very basic premise…

Missional Synchroblog What Is Missional? Missional Community Gospel Jesus

When I consider St. Francis, I am continually amazed at the incredible impact he has had (and still has) on the lives of people, both Christian and otherwise. Though we can point to his excesses (like his refusal to have any of his followers even touch money or extreme self-impoverishment after the supposed example of Jesus), we must stop to consider why he is widely embraced and is the subject of more books and biographies than any other saint in history (a point made more interesting we recognize that he is also one of the least educated of saints).

St. Francis Franciscan Missional Sermon On The Mount Jesus

In my last post, I shared about some of the books I have reading. A few moments ago I finished “New Monasticism: What It Has To Say To Today’s Church” by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. When it arrived I was surprised at how thin it was, at only 147 pages. However, this book did not disappoint. It is one of the more inspiring and helpful books I have read in some time. Let me give you an overview.

Missional Books New+Monasticism Jonathan+Wilson-Hartgrove Book+Review

The following is from the end of the chapter on community in David Augsburder’s book “Dissident Discipleship”. I challenge you to spend some time in prayerful consideration of these questions:

How can I learn a spirituality that nurtures human wholeness unless I commit myself to do all I can and contribute all I can to building a community where we together are seeking ways to practice imitation of Christ? Or will I have to be content with a spirituality of desirable but finally optional vitures?

Community Missional Church Quote

For the past 6 years, we have been a small group of YWAM missionaries living and serving in Winnipeg’s inner city. For the past four of those years, we have all lived together in a duplex my wife & I bought- a former gang house that was restored by Lazarus Housing and sold to us by our friend and neighbour, the late Harry Lehotsky. While we were primarily program-centered for the first few years, we differentiated many YWAM centres with a strong theology of place alongside our theology of going.

Missional Missional+Community Church+Planting New+Monasticism St+Francis Anabaptist Mennonite Church

When I started this new blog, I chose the name “A Living Alternative” with a very specific intention. When asked why he did not rebuke the sinfulness of the people around him, St. Francis of Assis responded:

In an era where Christians are largely known for the sin they oppose, this wisdom could not be more timely. Francis calls us to face the compromises of our culture by becoming living alternatives with how we live. As sin is defined, not by what it is, but by what it fails to be (thus it’s meaning “to miss the mark”), so to our approach to facing the systemic sin in our world should be battled by becoming that which is fails to be. For example, in the face of rampant individualism, we must embrace radical community, not simply condemn it as wrong.

Along this line, I am starting this meme to challenge your creativity:

Missional, Meme

Last week I asked for some questions from you, the readers of this blog. Thankfully, in the 11th hour two people posted some great questions, which I have been thinking about over the last day or so. The first set of questions come from my friend Duncan (whose blog is a daily must for me):

I’d really like to ask you about what books you read in your life that you found most helpful to bring you to the point of where you are at?

Who has influenced you most?

What’s your hopes for Winnipeg, Canada and the church for the next decade?

The next ones come from another blogger I follow faithfully, Mary:

What is your favorite passage of Scripture and why?

Is there a passage of Scripture with which you are currently wrestling?

On this line, Grace tagged me in this meme (started by Brother Maynard), asking what my favourite book of the Bible is and why:

To read my answers, visit my new blog:

Missional, Meme, Books, Church