From 5/9/06
So I still haven't read any of his stuff but he's on the list of must reads once the MDiv is done.
The takeaways from his interview:
1) He Loves the Church. He spoke at length specifically about his church, imago in Portland. As I've been checking out North Point a lot these days it was interesting to get a glimpse of a church going about things totally differently but clearly effectively. Besides size, the whole philosophy of staff/congregant relationship is completely different. Where at NP the staff seems to be the brains and the engine behind everything, at Imago it seems to be the people. According to Miller, the staff exists to help the congregation carry out their visions. From what I can tell, NP is driven by the staff and the church jumps on board. As I said, both work - it's nice to see different takes.
2) A passion for big issues. A question was asked about what are the biggest challenges facing the church. 2 Things - the Homosexual question; and the Africa Humanitarian question. Basically he sees a church with half their theology right. On homosexual issue, many leaders are technically "right" but they lack love. On the humanitarian issue, we care in word but often not in deed. We need to put our resources where our mouth is. And he admits that many churches are doing this very well - he just has a vision that the church could do so much more. What if the church was known for solving the AIDS and water crises, and not for hating gays?
3) He has no internet at the house! At least at the time of this podcast he didn't. And why not? Because there were no internet filters for Mac at the time. Wow! Not only does Miller have great integrity, he has some guts and humility to come out and say they this in public. I am very challenged and encouraged by openness.
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