127. From Sunday-centric to Mission-centric, with Jon Ritner, author of Positively Irritating

Jon Ritner is the author of Positively Irritating: Embracing a Post-Christian World to Form a More Faithful and Innovative Church and has served as lead at Ecclesia Hollywood for the last seven.

After serving as an executive pastor of a megachurch, Jon Ritner eventually made his way to a microchurch network in Brussels, Belgium.

Later, Jon Ritner and his wife moved to Hollywood to help churches adapt and innovate in an increasingly post-Christendom world.

The early church existed in a pluralistic pre-Christian culture.

Jon Ritner uses the metaphor of an oyster to help us understand that challenges, when approached with a posture of learning and embrace, can lead to beauty.

Thanks to Covid, we have just spent the last two years in a liminal space.

The mission of God is not just the conversion of every individual soul. It’s the redemption and restoration of all of creation.

Jon Ritner argues that ministry should happen throughout the week in all the places where God’s people are. Then they can come together to celebrate on Sundays.

For many people today, going to church is almost a cross-cultural experience.

Jon Ritner explains that many churches unconsciously create an insider-outsider divide when they announce that if someone wants to find belonging they have to come to the church.