We’ve included below, for your convenience, some of the questions (and challenges) that came from my articles that we will talk about on today’s show. Just click on the “read more…” link below.

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** The Four Turnings **
QUESTION: You wrote a series of articles on your blog a while back around the theme of four turnings that people need to go through. Can you explain a little bit more what these are and how they work together in practice?

QUESTION: “I think turnings 2 (community) and 4 (mission) are the most needed and yet the most difficult to see happen in an established church. More often Christians and Churches turn in on themselves, their comfort, their preference etc. I wonder if however its turning number one which is in fact the crucial one? Until we accept and live out the Lordship of Christ we will have little incentive to embrace the other other turns he calls on us to make.” (From James)

QUOTE: “Instead, we should invite new believers to enlist in some form of Christ following community that is engaged in some form of Christ following activity. [Whether the form is apostolic, entrepreneurial, traditional, emerging organic, etc matters little. What matters is the missional heartbeat of the commuity]. Here they will “feed” others, be a steward of everything they have and are for the sake of the world, enter into a dialogue, and to engage and enjoy the world. This community will be defined by its deeds and actions rather than by its creeds alone.” Alex McManus

QUESTION: Why is this so important? How does a leader of a church that hasn’t operated this way move towards this way of being the church?

QUESTION: “mmmm…, this is both scary; yet…., sounds soooo right? As I embark on this church plant movement – what shapes it? What forms it? What income can I hope to make outside of the normal “paid clergy” areas as an aging 46+ yr old man? These are the kinds of thoughts and more that run through my head? Can you do both? Is it possilbe to have a “traditional” group who serves as the umbrella for what we think and know should be the norm?” (Rich, in response to turning to community)

** Conversion **
You wrote an article a while back that began with these questions: “How are women and men “saved”? Are we saved by cognitive acceptance of certain dogmas? Are we saved by the direction of our lives? Or both or neither.” You went on to focus on the story of Cornelius and also to talk about closed set and centered set thinking. Could you unpack these a little for us?

QUESTION: “Okay, so I get the wooing part from God. Once a Hindu, Muslim, or Pagan responds to that wooing and comes to Christ (the man standing on the horizon) what does he become?” You answered this by saying that he becomes human. This was followed up with another questions: “I am a bit fuzzy about what becoming “human again” really looks like if I am a Christ follower? If I understand you correctly are you saying that the process that is going to the same end is being human again? I thought being human was THE problem and not the GOAL?”

QUESTION: “I think that your observation about ‘Christianity’ and the west is an interesting one. i’ll have to find out more (and maybe try to find out first-hand) how well the term ‘Christ-following Muslim’ is accepted. if there is no lateral conversion (and i’m more than willing to agree to that), does the phrase ‘Christ-following Muslim’ really have integrity as a label? does it similarly work for ‘Christ-following Buddhist’ or ‘Christ-following Hindu’? the movement toward becoming human again i think probably causes us to rethink how quickly we want to identify ourselves using any religious membership tags.”

QUESTION: “Alex, I beg to differ on this blog. I think you are confusing labels (description) with who followers of Christ truly become (identity). Just because the term “Christian” didn’t come about until Acts 11 does not mean the concept of what a “Christian” is did not exist. Quite the contrary. It is because these Christ-followers’ behavior that eventually the name “Christian,” meaning follower of Christ in Greek and was originally a derogatory term, came about. So, what do Christ-followers become? By definition of original Greek, Christians.”