The Engaging Cycle

02/16/2022

Fundamental 1 to the Engaging Cycle

This site is meant to be a focus point for the next stage in the development of the Church (by which we mean the “Capital C” Church and all its denominations). We can all thrash out the dozens of reasons for how we got here through all these machinations of the last “Broadcast Cycle” of the church. But moving on requires getting down to the fundamentals of why we are even here, the point…

Let me point to some of the videos from John Mark Comer who is at the front end of this movement of what they are calling “Practicing the Way” of Jesus: www.practicingtheway.org. You can listen to the first step here at the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/john-mark-comer-teachings/id1592847144?i=1000540863434 So, where does it start? Commitment to what is right and willingness to leave behind the baggage of the past. John Mark makes an important point from one of his heroes:

“The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it a reality.”
– Dallas Willard

Intentions are interesting information, but action is what matters… Ready to stand out and take some action???

https://engagingcycle.com/fundamentals/fundamental-1-to-the-engaging-cycle/

‎Show John Mark Comer Teachings, Ep Practicing the Way | Practicing the Way Vision Series E1 - 5 Nov 2021

01/12/2022

268 times??? Today's blog:

“Disciple” is used 268 times in the New Testament??? During the Broadcast Cycle of the church, all they talked about was converting people to be Christians, too bad they didn’t check their Bibles. The total number of times the word “Christian” is used in the New Testament? Three… Yes, 3,...

12/26/2021

The Testimony? Check out the latest blog post:
https://engagingcycle.com/uncategorized/the-testimony-need-to-get-that-business-deleted/

12/24/2021

The site post: https://engagingcycle.com/uncategorized/dunbars-number-the-broadcast-cycle-churches-wont-admit-to-this/

Dunbar's Number:
The Number That Broadcast Cycle Churches Won't Admit To Or Incorporate

Broadcast Cycle Churches have effectively disregarded the actual truth about the social fabrics we were created for. Why, because if the actual truth were acknowledged then they would have to do something way different. All the research was done by British Anthropologist Robin Dunbar...

The theory of Dunbar’s number holds that we can only really maintain about 150 connections at once. There are well-defined limits to the number of friends and acquaintances the average person can retain. But the question about whether these limits are the same in today’s digital world. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, became convinced that there was a ratio between brain sizes and group sizes through his studies of non-human primates. This ratio was mapped out using neuroimaging and observation of time spent on grooming, an important social behaviour of primates. Dunbar concluded that the size, relative to the body, of the neocortex – the part of the brain associated with cognition and language – is linked to the size of a cohesive social group. This ratio limits how much complexity a social system can handle.

Dunbar and his colleagues applied this basic principle to humans, examining historical, anthropological and contemporary psychological data about group sizes, including how big groups get before they split off or collapse. They found remarkable consistency around the number 150. Exceed 150, and a network is unlikely to last long or cohere well.

But 150 alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Other numbers are nested within the social brain hypothesis too. According to the theory, the tightest circle has just five people – loved ones. That’s followed by successive layers of 15 (good friends), 50 (friends), 150 (meaningful contacts), 500 (acquaintances) and 1500 (people you can recognise). People migrate in and out of these layers, but the idea is that space has to be carved out for any new entrants.

So what does that mean for the church? The simple truth is that organizing around numbers that are outside these parameters is a recipe for disaster. Why??? Because a creator created us that way. Most people also know that we also don't fly well... The church needs to take a hard look at these numbers for all future growth in the Engagement Cycle...

12/23/2021

12/23/2021

Bury Your Ordinary is a field manual to an entirely different way of life that starts with digging a deep hole, putting the “ordinary you” inside it, covering it with dirt, and walking away as a transformed person. Through intentional changes to your habits you will discover a deeper love...

Many Christians wonder, I read the Bible, pray, go to church—so why am I stuck spiritually? In Bury Your Ordinary, Pastor Justin Kendrick offers a clear map for spiritual growth to help readers discover:

The one change to your routine that will give you an entirely new way of living

How spiritual growth actually happens (you might be surprised)

How your habits can either free you or keep you bound

How to hear and understand God’s voice

Seven discipleship habits that lead to explosive spiritual growth

for God and a heart fully alive.

12/18/2021

Incredible podcast from the guys at Church Pulse Weekly, talking a bit about the latest Barna data and the church, but their guests were Amy Gannett & Justin Kendrick, who sit down with Carey Nieuwhof and David Kinnaman to talk about why theology matters for the next generation, the limitations of program-centered church models and why leaders can never graduate from discipleship…

‎Show ChurchPulse Weekly, Ep 092 | Church Planters, Amy Gannett & Justin Kendrick, on Theology and the Next Generation, What We're Missing About Discipleship, and How We Value Programs Over People - 15 Dec 2021

12/16/2021

Want to know more about the sort of Engagement that is needed right now, today, this day???

Where do we need engagement right now, today, this day??? Loneliness epidemic among Christians Incredible study published by Barna yesterday, the 15th December. Click **here** to read the full post… Three in 10 Americans Report Feeling Lonely At Least Once Each Day Even before the pandemic, loneli...

12/15/2021

https://engagingcycle.com/uncategorized/2021-top-searches-on-google/

The 15th of December has now become when all the social media and digital impact sites release their results for the year. Basically who did what and where. It gives a pretty good view of a whole lot of the culture as it is right now. And what does it value? All sides of “Engagement”. […]

12/15/2021

Today looking at this Scripture 4 today: “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” John‬ ‭6:35‬ ‭NIV‬‬

From the moment the baby is born it requires food, as it grows, that nature of the food changes. To live we need two things: some hard fuel and some liquid fuel. Bread in the old Testament was a symbol for the feeding that God did for his people every day for 40 years in the wilderness. The important part is the “every day“ part. We have to feed on God’s word every day or we starve. It is pretty easy to see why there is so little power in the Christian community presently, because there is so little actual bread and water being ingested.

Barna have told us that the average born-again Bible-believing Church-attending Christian spends 12.2 minutes a week reading the Bible, no wonder the “church” has no energy, it is starving…

So the questions is, where do you take your bread today???

12/14/2021

The Times They Are-A-Changin...
Pretty famous song from 40 years ago, but more relevant today than ever... One common thread of every time cycle that changes, across history, is the number of people who virtually revolt against the changing of that particular time cycle... Great talk from Kyle Ransom at Crossroads Church in Cincinnati that started out to be about the angel Gabriel breaking the news to both Elizabeth and the virgin Mary about babies. However, what he really came to tell these people is that the "times" had just totally changed. And the bearer of this news was none other than Gabriel himself. If you have a few minutes **Click Below** to listen to it.

The important note though is that "times" really do change, and now is one of them. We expect that only a minority will actually embrace it, but then it doesn't take a lot of people in this area to change the tilt of the earth...
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crossroads-church/id254202585?i=1000544602860

12/14/2021

This is the podcast…