Jose Humphreys

Also see: Open Source Preaching Pt. 1
I had a sermon prepared for our church’s weekly gathering at the National Black Theater.  I also had a question prepared at the beginning of this sermon.  In anticipation of preaching about The Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father” in particular, I began the sermon by asking our community, “When we [...]

Church planting has some intense moments of  loneliness.  This is what I’m hearing from both seasoned planters and “rookies” alike.  I’ve experienced it  for myself as someone who is a new church planter and pastor here in East Harlem.  I’m finding more and more, loneliness is not so much about whether people around, but the [...]

I continue my readings of They Like Jesus but not the Church.  Author Dan Kimball writes about Charles Templeton, a powerful evangelist and close friend of Billy Graham.  Templeton eventually doubt his faith and abandons it all together.  He became one of Christianity’s greatest critics too, writing a book called Farewell to God: My Reasons [...]

Having relationships only with Christians made it difficult to obey the teachings of Jesus about being on a mission for him and being salt and light to the world…I started to feel convicted that I had become a part of the Christian subculture, that strange bubble which little by little sucks you into it, and [...]

In both the introduction and first chapter of They Like Jesus but not the Church, Dan Kimbal talks about people’s misconceptions of Christians. He partly attributes this to a few Christians on television, who pretty much represent the whole bunch of us. Meanwhile there’s a whole generation of twenty to thirty something [...]

But not the Church…
I just received this book via Amazon.  At first glance some folks might think the author, Dan Kimball, is just another person who is attempting to deconstruct and criticize the church.  This aint the case though.  As I perused some of the chapters, you see that he’s a [...]

I recently read some core values that belonged to a certain missional church in the northwest. The church was a restart and looking to reach a new community with changing demographics. The core value that caught my eye at the time was, “A willingness to inconvenience ourselves for the gospel.”
It’s interesting, in a [...]

About community that is… But community is hard work.
I don’t like to lose my privacy. I often want the world to be about my own concerns. Meanwhile it seems so much easier to hang around people we’ve known for years, and do life with them.
It’s so much easier to have church [...]

I ran into an old pal, Marco, on Myspace. I got some feedback about Conversations from his Myspace blog. I had invited him to Conversations and he had alot to say about it. Here’s an excerpt.
So I went to “Conversations with God” hosted by Jose and his wife. It was an [...]

Man, we had a great time at our Conversations gathering. And I’m not just saying that. I felt so energized at the end of a long day. Our team had low energy going in-it was crazy-we all felt the same vibe of tiredness, but really drew strength from our time together. [...]

I’ve been doing a whole lot of reading for seminary, but this book by Dan Kimball seems worth the interruption. Here’s a review by Scot Mcknight.

We are having a once a month church plant gathering called Conversations. Our first one took place yesterday at American Bible Society and was a wonderful experience. We experimented with different sacred spaces of prayer. The first was “concern for the other”, which had slides of New York City and people on the [...]

I received this book via author Tim King last week. I happened to be homebound due to knee surgery, so it was the perfect opportunity to read it through.

Furious Pursuit: Why God Will Never Let You Go looks at the whole notion of chasing after God, and essentially turns this paradigm on its head. [...]

The church will always be a foreigner in the city until it learns to love the city. If we are going to be truly effective in urban ministry, we must first give ourselves permission to fall in love with our city.
Got that quote from Lindy Erin’s blog.
A group of us got together Friday and Saturday [...]

Spiritual growth can be unpredictable and unconventional. For years I’ve read or heard about how spiritual growth is this systematic process that included the traditional ingredients. You know what I’m talking about: prayer, fasting, church attendance, and listening to sound preaching. In other words, Hammer is to nail, as screwdriver is to [...]