Link to Five Practices

Bishop Robert Schnase, author of Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, finds time to keep an interesting and informative blog. The blog is on the website for his book. Check it out. The book offers inspiring guidance to local churches that want to be effective members of the body of Christ. Before the book was published, I was in Houston to do a workshop at an event. At the hotel I saw a colleague, Steve Cox, sitting in the lobby. He told me he was trying to practice "radical hospitality" by waiting for someone who was arriving late. He just wanted her to see a familiar face. He had been sitting in the lobby for quite a while and had no idea what time she would arrive. I was impressed. Later, I found that this "radical hospitality" idea was one of the five practices Bishop Schnase would introduce to Missouri Conference and write about in his book. Since hospitality is so basic to the way of Christ, I am glad to see it reframed and communicated so well in the book. In the names of the five practices, the adjectives make all the difference! Radical. Passionate. Intentional. Risk-taking. Extravagant. Edgy stuff to add to hospitality, worship, faith-development, mission, and generosity. Putting these time-honored practices with the adjectives produces a kind of synergy, the something more that would not exist without pairing the words. The adjectives blast open the practices and make us see them in new ways.