adam feldman blog

teacher of the year!

"Congratulations" are in order for my wife, Kimberly, who was recently honored as "Teacher of the Year" at her high school! (Of course, we didn't need anyone to tell us how special she is--we knew it all along!)

review: nbc's "kings"

NBC's new series, "Kings," premiered on Sunday night. I was casually flipping through channels when I stumbled upon it 15 minutes or so after it began. I was immediately snagged by the quality of production (think "24" or "Lost" production value). Kim and I watched the next 45 minutes and then turned the show off, missing the second half of the premiere. We were under the assumption that the show takes place in a future USAmerica where our nation abdicates democracy for a monarchy...but we were (happily) mistaken.

As I lay in bed that night I kept thinking about the few minutes that I saw and realized that what I was actually watching was a modern take on the story of Israel's King Saul and King David. Now, this would be painfully obvious to someone who had seen the first 15 minutes and was introduced to a few dead giveaways: the capital city is "Shiloh," the reverend's name is Rev. Samuels, David's father is named Jesse, David is a warrior who takes on a giant military tank called a "Goliath," oh, and, the nation fighting against David's army is called "Gath" (from where the Biblical Goliath hails).

So on Monday I watched the entirety of the "Kings" premiere on Hulu and was quite surprised how close to the Biblical record the writers went. Granted they took a few liberty's. King Silas' (the King Saul of "Kings") son, Jake, is not friends with David--at least, not yet. This is a difference from the David/Jonathan relationship in the OT. That said, Jake leads an ambush against Gath which is similar to Jonathan's ambush against the Philistines as recorded in 1 Samuel 14--except that Jake fails whereas Jonathan succeeded.

My verdict? I'm adding "Kings" to my weekly television queue. I recently dropped "Chuck" after a disappointing second season that depends way too much on sexual innuendo to keep the audience's attention, so "Kings" will take its place.

I am particularly interested to see how far they will go with the succession of Israel's Kings. Will they stop with David? Will they go on to show Solomon's building of the temple? How about Solomon's son, Rehoboam, who divides the kingdom? Will we see Elijah or Elisha? All fun things to think about.

Would I recommend "Kings?" Sure. Of course, I've only seen the first 2 hours, so who knows how the rest of the season will pan out. Anyone of Christian or Jewish faith would find it intriquing and entertaining to watch--bearing in mind that it is a fictional modernization of the story.

book review: planting churches in the real world

Title: Planting Churches In the Real World
Author: Joel Rainey
Genre: Church Planting; Missiology
Rating (1-5): 4.0
Review:

This church planting book is like few other church planting books that you will read. Most church planting books talk about the brokenness, heartache, evaporated dreams, crushed expectations, spiritual darkness and marital tension that accompany church planting in esoteric language as something that you can expect to happen, but rarely fully disclose the pain of it all. This book does, too. The difference is that Joel Rainey invites you into his own personal struggle through the non-glamorous side of church planting.

Then there are other church planting books written by planters who started a church and within 3 years were seeing well over 3,000 people in their weekly gatherings. While these books are inspiring and very beneficial for learning from a first-hand church planting practicioner, they are not the stories of the majority of church planters. The difference in this book is that Rainey freely acknowledges that most church plants start slow and rarely, if ever, grow to the large mass gatherings read about in other books.

Hence the title: Planting Churches in the Real World. I would add: "By a real world church planter!"

Highlights:

• Assess yourself: Dr. Rainey puts all the cards on the table essentially saying, "Here's what you can expect. Heartache and joy mixed together in the most exciting thing you could ever do." The first chapter is devoted to helping the reader determine if he/she is prepared and called to plant a church for the right reasons. While you'll find more academic assessments in other books, this book comes from personal experience in addtion to academic rationale.
• Ecclesiology & Missology: This book approaches church leadership structures and methods of church planting with a well informed Biblicial theology. Dr. Rainey addresses controversial issues like women in pastoral ministry head on.
• Accessible: This book is written for the masses. If anyone ever wonders if he/she is called to the unique ministry of church planting, this should be the first book they read. Other books can be read later to help round out the nuances of "how-to" plant a church (such as Malphurs' Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century or Stetzer's Planting Missional Churches).

Finally, I know Dr. Rainey personally--he was my own planting coach for my first two-and-a-half year planting Metanoia Church. There is no pretense in Dr. Rainey's writing. Who you read is who you meet in person. I find myself very fortunate to have been coached my someone as transparent and knowledgable as Dr. Rainey.

twittering the national ecclesia gathering

For those of you on my Twitter feed, you'll be pleased to know that I'll be tweeting the Ecclesia Network's national gathering: Forming Missional Congregations. The conference runs today through Friday and has some pretty big presenters: Darrell Guder (author of the book that started the whole missional dialogue), Eddie Gibbs, Mike Breen and Jon Tyson.