There's The Steeple... Here's The Church

Hiatus

2007-09-01T17:33:00.000-04:00

There's a good deal on my plate at the moment, and yesterday I decided to take a (hopefully brief) hiatus from recording my audio book. There are 10 "episodes" available here now, if you are just now coming across this site. And, if you are able to read the print version, you can either buy the book (top right side of this page) or, head to my bookstore and download the PDF!

I will return. Sooner than later, I hope. For now, print is your best option. ;-)

Thanks for listening.
Greg Campbell

08 - Institutions and Labels

2007-08-24T15:33:00.000-04:00

Do we really have to label everything? Must every facet of life be institutionalized? Those are some queustions raised in this chapter. We take things that are meant to be relational - like the church, which is the body of Christ, a family - and we turn it into something. An entity that exists on its own - even with the church. Is it really possible to live life without needing to create a structure, an institution, or labels for doing so?

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the printed book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

07 - CH??CH

2007-08-17T01:59:00.000-04:00

CH??CH. What's missing? U R! The words adorn many a church marquee across the nation. But instead of just filling a pew on a weekly basis, perhaps those words are more true than we know. Has the focus of our gatherings shifted from being a family, and spending time "one anothering" to basically just "going through the motions"? If so, that's not what it seems the church is meant to be. The Bible describes the church as a community of people where no one was in need, they met together, shared life together every day. Not to sit in rows, always listening to one person sing or talk, but to be together. To "one another".

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the printed book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

06 - Quantifiable

2007-08-10T11:56:00.000-04:00

Everything boils down to numbers. We want things to be measurable - quantifiable. We need to see results. But the numbers in God's Kingdom do not "add up" as they do in our world. So they become irrelevant. God's Kingdom should not be - and is not - quantifiable.

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the printed book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

05 - The Borders

2007-08-03T01:14:00.000-04:00

We tend to look at people as either "IN" or "OUT" of God's Kingdom, but Jesus did not seem to. Not that there aren't boundaries... they just didn't seem as important to Jesus as they are to us. He didn't approach everyone with Border Goggles on...

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the printed book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

04 - Building The Kingdom

2007-07-27T02:00:00.000-04:00

A quote from a magazine began the train of thought for this chapter. Do we really build the Kingdom, or does the Kingdom simply exist, as God has built it. Is the Kingdom a way of life rather than a physical, tangible, quantifiable entity? Those thoughts are discussed in this week's chapter.

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the printed book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

03B - A Bigger View Of Church (Part 2)

2007-07-20T08:04:00.001-04:00

"So, after 2000 years, how do you think he's doing?"

That was the question posed by a speaker to a group of church leaders regarding how Jesus is building his church. If you think of church as the fragmented bunch of denominations around the world that continue to split over even very minor disputes... then you'd have to say, "Not very well!"

But what if the Church is much bigger than that?

This chapter includes a reading of Wayne Jacobsen's article Living in the Relational Church. (Used by permission of the author.) To read more from Wayne Jacobsen, visit his website: LifeStream.org.

(This audio chapter is Part 2 of a single chapter of the book. Part 1 was published last week.)

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the printed book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

03 - A Bigger View Of Church (Part 1)

2007-07-13T10:36:00.000-04:00

"So, after 2000 years, how do you think he's doing?"

That was the question posed by a speaker to a group of church leaders regarding how Jesus is building his church. If you think of church as the fragmented bunch of denominations around the world that continue to split over even very minor disputes... then you'd have to say, "Not very well!"

But what if the Church is much bigger than that?

This chapter includes a reading of Wayne Jacobsen's article Living in the Relational Church. (Used by permission of the author.) To read more from Wayne Jacobsen, visit his website: LifeStream.org.

(Because of the included article, the chapter will be split into two segments, with Part 2 to be published here next week.)

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the printed book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

02 - The Emerging Church

2007-07-06T23:57:00.000-04:00

You may have heard this term before - perhaps quite a bit. It's loosely applied to many variations on a theme of corporate life together as believers. But what seems to be apparent is that though it's really applied broadly, it's still very much the same thing we've always done, just with new packaging. The same game, by a different name.

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the printed book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

01 - Redefining Church

2007-06-29T10:10:00.000-04:00

To begin the book, I really just wanted to lay out there what "church" really is. There are so many different ways we use that word, it can get very confusing! So I take a look at some scriptures, and example of "church" from the Bible... and hopefully set a foundation for some of the other stuff that is considered throughout the remainder of the book.

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. Or, use the feeds to the right to subscribe in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.

Now available through iTunes!

2007-06-25T17:28:00.000-04:00

Apple notified me via e-mail over the weekend that the podcast of There's The Steeple... Here's The Church is now available via the iTunes store! I checked it out and all seems to be working great. You can click on the link in the right side bar to sign up with one click, and receive any future postings in your iTunes library automatically when you are connected to the internet. It's like magic! :-)

I do have a request as well. If you are familiar with the book already, or even if you just like the Introduction so far... please leave a comment or a rating at iTunes. I think this will help folks find the book, which is the reason I am putting it out there on iTunes for free. So if you don't mind, click on the Review or Comment link or whatever it is on my iTunes page. (Direct link to the page is immediately below...)

HTC Audiobook at iTunes

Thanks for your help, and enjoy the book!

00 - Introduction

2007-06-22T16:17:00.000-04:00

The first installment of the Audiobook version of There's The Steeple... Here's The Church has been posted! The first chapter is the introduction, and perhaps one of the longer chapters. It gives you a little background on where I am coming from, and hopefully is a good preparation for the thoughts that follow.

I am going to try and stay on this, maybe record a few chapters at a time and hopefully release a new chapter each week (perhaps on Fridays?). I would love participation in this so feel free to leave comments here, or e-mail me using the link at the top of this page.

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the book using the link at the top of this page, or visit the GregsHead.net Bookstore to view all of my books. A free PDF version of Here's The Church is also available at that link.

Click on the Podcast icon to download, or listen. The link to the podcast in iTunes will be posted as soon as it's available.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-18342ecf4b07c7a1e4c7ccf0b48a7375}

Not The Norm

2006-11-11T03:04:00.000-05:00

All my life I have never been one to chase after "the norm". I have always been OK with being... "different". I was never motivated by the goal of just being different, I was just content with being or doing what I thought I wanted to do. That's pretty different.

Well, at the age of 32, nothing much has changed. I have lots of "different" stories to my life. If you know me well, you're quite certain that I am "different". I never dated anyone.. not even my wife. We made a mutual decision to "just get married". And, we never kissed prior to our wedding day, not even during the wedding ceremony! (We are expecting our 5th child now, so as you may have noticed, we have lifted the moratorium on kissing...) We homeschool our kids. I have never really been employed. I even continue to watch my Buffalo Bills when most others are beginning to lose interest.

And, perhaps the biggest shock to people who have known me for any good length of time, I don't go to church.

I am a follower of Jesus, and speak with him in an ongoing conversation throughout every day of my life. I am learning from him and want to be like him as much as I am able. I long to live a life that loves God (and lives loved by God), and that loves people as he does. But, I still don't go to church.

Why? What's wrong with church? Am I bitter? Did something bad happen? Many believe this to be the only explanation for a good, "Bible-believing Christian" to avoid attending weekend services. It's certainly not. At least, not from my perspective. The answer is more complicated than one post can pretend to address, and even more complicated than one form of media.

So I am going to offer another.

In July of this year, I published a book of thoughts collected from my website, GregsHead.net in a book titled, "There's The Steeple... Here's The Church". Referencing of course the child's rhyme, "Here's the church, Here's The Steeple..." in an attempt to re-define what we call "church". The term has come to mean so many things that it really is not. It's not a building, or a time, or a service, or a ceremony, or a 501c3 organization... it's the living, breathing body of Christ. His followers on the earth.

If you too have grown tired of the church simply being an hour on a weekend when we listen to a few people present their thoughts on God to a stationery, passive audience, who are then offered myriad programs to continue the "faith journey" throughout the week... come along with me as we re-think the corporate life of believers and followers of Jesus.

I will be posting new audio chapters here as often as possible, read word for word from the book published in July 2006. If you hear thoughts that match your own, or perhaps you hear something put to words that you haven't quite yet been able to, you might want to consider purchasing a copy of the book to read ahead, or read along. If you are unable to do so, please e-mail me and let's begin a discussion of the thoughts presented here. My motivation is not to change your thinking, or to gain a following for me or anyone else who may think as I do. My motivation is only to see the Church living daily in the fullness of God's grace both received and given out.

May your journey with him be far more than you could ask or imagine. Enjoy the ride.