The Forgotten Ways
I came accross an online course very randomly at the end of January and immediately just new that I had to do it. Sometimes there are feelings you just can’t explain. And whilst I was convinced I should sign up for this course, I also was convinced that my friend Simon (who REALLY needs to get set up with a VOX blog!!) should do it too. And so we signed up. It’s a 6 month course framed around a new book by Alan Hirsch called The Forgotten Ways. To be honest, I had heard of neither Alan or the book, but had heard of a previous book Alan co-wrote called The Shaping of Things to Come.
I’ve now read through the whole of Alan’s book and can’t recommend it highly enough. For those of you who are leading churches or looking to pioneer new ones, this is must reading in my opinion. I’m so glad I’m now on this course and able to process the material. It’s thought provoking, challenging, and extremely stretching.
The motivation behind the book being written was really a longing to figure out how the number of Christians in the world grew from 25,000 one hundred years after Christ’s death to up to 20 million in AD 310. And, not only that, but how did the Chinese underground church grow from 2 million to over 100 million in just 60 years? The book is really an exploration of Alan’s discoveries as he grappled with these questions and then a translation of his findings for our 21st century western context.
I’ll post some more thoughts another time, but for those of you who are interested in finding out a bit more about the book or the online course, you can follow the below links:
February 27th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
i think all of us readers would love to hear your thoughts about the online course - sounds like a really cool opportunity with some sharp thinkers.
February 28th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Thanks for this Sam. I’m awaiting the arrival of ‘The Forgotten Ways’ from Amazon at this very moment (well, hopefully within a fortnight). It would be good to hear more about the course.
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:55 am
I have been debating about heading out to Origins in May, but maybe this course would be a better investment?!? What do you think?
March 5th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Chris - to be honest, I’d recommend both. I’m not sure they can be put into an either/or category. They are both very different experiences.
If I had to choose one though, I’d choose Origins. Why? Simply because that’s my tribe.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Hey Sam… your’s and Rachel’s emails are getting kicked back to me. Have you changed emails?
Mike
March 8th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Sam– your emails keep continue to return…
Wanted to let you and Rachel know about an IMN online Conversation today at 5:00 EST… we have a NEW chat site that i need to get you the link for…. any suggestions?
March 8th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Hi Mike, yeah, those emails are down at the moment. Did you see my emails with alternative addresses?
March 8th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
just tried your alternative… and it got kicked back too (firewall)
March 8th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
do you have an IM account? Skype or AIM or Messenger ?
March 15th, 2007 at 1:57 am
Well… I’m going to origins. Can’t afford the course, too, so it will have to wait.