The Enabler: Carl’s Ministry Blog

As I work on my The Illusion book, I came to a chapter on Place, entitled “The Illusion of the Exile”. Most of us live as Exiles, lost to Place. My own city of Portland was started by exiles looking for that lost Garden. Paul Tournier makes an incredible statement in his book […]

On December 4 I had the privilege of sitting in a conference with Tom White and George Otis as they shared about their perception of what God is doing today. The place where we met was a Rodeway Inn, and functions to the world as a part of that larger chain. In reality, it’s a […]

Dutch Sheets has an amazing prophetic ministry that has been carried from a deep burden for the coming of the Holy Spirit in America. To see his message for the Church in 2006, see:
Shift of 2006

Anyone doing research on the growth of the Church in America will tell you there is a serious problem. In the younger age group of the Millennials (born 1984-2000), only one in ten attends Church. And this is the generation that has to carry the church to the next generation. Most of the current Church […]

Carl will be speaking Sunday, 2/26/2006 at Bethlehem Church in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The service starts at 10:00 am. All are welcome. His title will be “Believing is Seeing“.
“Some things have to be believed to be seen.”
Ralph Hodgson

If you are a leader in your church or organization, you often have the challenge of leading change and finding resistance; that is, people don’t want to change. Church Growth leaders are telling us the institutional church is failing. What type of change is needed? How should this be led? It reminds me of the […]

(posted for dialog)
NORTHWEST CHURCH PLANTING WORKSHOP
MARCH 17-18
CASCADE COLLEGE, PORTLAND, OR
Leonard and Holly Allen will be our presenters at this year’s Northwest Church Planting Workshop. Leonard, director of ACU Press, author, and Restoration historian will present lessons on How the Trinity Grounds God’s Mission and How the Spirit Empowers God’s Mission. These are fundamental, theological insights, […]

THE SECOND CHANCE, starring MICHAEL W. SMITH, JEFF OBAFEMI CARR and directed by STEVE TAYLOR is a new movie from Sony Pictures opening in 35 cities nationwide on February 17, 2006. . The film tells the story of a white church in a wealthy suburb that discovers its “outreach” to an inner-city black congregation is […]

Our post quoting Andrew Strom is stirring a lot of interest. Let me carry the issue further by looking at the church attendance statistics by generation group. Generational definitions vary with the research, so we will define some boundaries here for our purposes.
Builders - Born 1926-1945
These are the people that built the institutions […]

Here is a VERY provacative book review of two books by Andrew Strom, a New Zealander:
BARNA’s ‘REVOLUTION’ - A Review by Andrew Strom.
2005 has seen the release of two of the most important and provocative books for the Western church in years. I am referring to James Rutz’s ‘MEGASHIFT’ and now George Barna’s ‘REVOLUTION’.
Even the […]