Top 10 Missional Posts in 2013

I started blogging in March 2010. My first few posts were quite whiny. I started out yacking about whatever front-of-the-lobe-ideas I had on the church. The tone of my posts were bloated with ideation and mere opinion. I have to confess they weren't extremely helpful. It was my wife that pushed me to move beyond pontificating on ideas and instead write about what we were learning on the ground; the good, the awkward and the ugly. Thanks to her, in the end of 2010 my blog took on a narrowed focus. I began scribbling solely on dynamics piloted and practiced in mission, community and discipleship from our minimalistic approach. This has limited the voice of my blog but I'm grateful. I'm a newbie when it comes to throwing my thoughts into the cyber circus but 2013 was good year. This December the blog hit 70,000 reads since March 2010 with the majority of them being in 2012 and 2013.  

The following posts received the most traffic in 2013

1. The Subterranean Life

"We need to upend the flight of radical that is bored 

with the mechanics of being vitally ordinary."

2. Hero-Complex in Discipleship

"No matter what tool you employ in discipleship, it must include a power sabotaging element." 

3. Missional Ordinariness

"It's honorable to want to 'save the city' but it's humbled by learning to 'love your neighbor'. 

4. How Will Missional Survive the Future?

"The individualistic framework threatens the future of the Missional movement."

5. Bitterness On the Missional Edge

"Bitterness goes where we go and it paralyzes our energy for mission and community."

6. The Missional Minimum

"The reign of Jesus must take on a local, communal tangibility or it will merely blow out to sea as a cliche."

7. Missional Discipleship Cannot Be Microwaved

"We should be compelled to kindle a culture that disciples one another outside of formal, organized programs."

8. Missional Communities Peel Back Pride

"I'm just starting to adjust to people being unimpressed and even a bit repelled." 

9. Where's the Spirit in a Missional Community 

"I've noticed that when faced with paring back the complexities of church life, some discover they're more dependent on the packaging than the contents."  

10. Go Small, Go Missional

"Looking around at the Christian landscape it’s obvious we do organizations and events really well but we are really poor at the nuance of relationship."

Honorable Mention: Substitute Community

"It is possible to put together the semblance of community 'a little of this and a little of that' and end up with a self-selected substitute community."