Tag: church vision development

2_01: Leonard Sweet – How Almonds Keep Us Focused on Jesus

2_01: Leonard Sweet – How Almonds Keep Us Focused on Jesus

Breakthrough Ideas with Len:

  • Show me a weakness inventory and I will show you where God can bless others through your life.
  • Our translation of the word “Word” for LOGOS is inadequate; we must embrace the tension.
  • In a “well curve world” we should live out of the overlap of opposites coming together.
  • Our world is both getting more global and more tribal – don’t resolve the tension and celebrate them.
  • We were made for this in between place… paradoxy is orthodoxy.
  • All middles are going, and churches who want to play safe in the middle will be going too.
  • The sanctuary should not be a safe place from risk, but instead be a safe place to take risk and bring the extremes together.
  • What does it mean for us to bring the extremes together and not resolve the tension?
  • Churches will be getting bigger and getting smaller, we cannot be afraid of the opposites.
  • The Early church had to be properly oriented – facing East toward the future of Christ’s return.
  • The double orienting of every church is toward the future and toward Christ.
  • Are we keeping our eyes on the future, or are we getting lost in programmatic distractions?
  • If we can keep our focus on Christ, we can have a future.

Breakthrough Resources in this Episode:

LeonardSweet.com 

Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

Napkin Scribbles Podcast

Author of more than two hundred articles, 1500+ published sermons and sixty books, Leonard Sweet’s recent publications include the groundbreaking textbook on preaching, Giving Blood: A Fresh Paradigm for Preaching, the best-seller From Tablet to TableThe Bad Habits of Jesus, and the fall 2019 release of the twenty-year successor to SoulTsunamiRings of Fire: Walking in Faith Through a Volcanic Future.

Len often appears on the “50 Most Influential Christians in America” listings, and in 2010 was selected by the top non-English Christian website as one of the “Top 10 Influential World Christians of 2010”. His “Napkin Scribbles” podcasts can be accessed on leonardsweet.com or spotify. His Twitter and Facebook microblogs are ranked as some of the highest in the religious world.

Len works with graduate students at four institutions: Drew University, where he has occupied the E. Stanley Jones Chair, George Fox University, Tabor College, and Evangelical Seminary, where he currently holds the Charles Wesley Senior Professorship of Doctoral Studies. In 2015 he launched his own homiletics resource preachthestory.com. One of the most sought-after speakers in the religious world today, he resides on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands.