On this Christmas Eve, as we gear up for Christmas celebrations with church family, immediate family, friends in the neighborhoods, as we take a little time off to take in the magnitude of His coming, we also take time to reflect. It is a time of gratefulness to God. In this spirit, I give thanks for some great bloggers out there and some of their great work which has enriched me and provoked so much good thought in me this year. I couldn’t include everybody, only highlights. So here’s some linkage as a gift back to all bloggers, readers and contributors everywhere. This has been a great year for missional bloggage including some great resources and provocative posts that have furthered the missional conversation. Here is some of the year’s best bloggers and some of their posts from my reading this past year.
Scot McKnight For his posts on Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God. This book is rich and a huge contribution to Missional Theology. It is now the quintessential Biblical theology of Missio Dei. But it’s big and time consuming. Thanks to Scot for giving such a great introduction into this huge resource for all missional theologians pastors church planters. It starts here and goes on for 19 (20 in all) more posts.

JR Woodward truly does us all a big service by putting together this exhaustive primer on the Missional church. Put it on your favorites and refer to it over and over again. I know I do.

Len Hjalmarson quotes Al Roxburgh on leadership: “The primary work of leadership is to continually stand in the place (space) where it is compelled to ask the question of what God is about among this group of people who comprise this local church in this specific context at this particular time.” This essential concept to a missional ecclessiology is unfolded in Len’s piece entitled “Spaces Between” found here and here.

Bill Kinnon is the irrepressible bad boy of missional blogdom. He had so many good posts this year because he adamantly refuses to do anything but speak his mind. Here’s his excellent post on missional shampoo – pure Kinnon. This You Tube (via Darryl Dash) was compelling for me, but not for the reasons Bill himself gives.

Missional Order.com The spiritual disciplines – living the rhythms of missional formation are absolutely essential to the formation of missional community in the midst of post Christendom contexts. This blog is new and one of the best at providing resources for the learning of these liturgies of life. Here is a great sample here.

Dan Kimball was ever provoking important conversations this year. He started the year asking good questions about the “emerging church” here. Most recently he got us all embroiled in the missional versus the attractional debate here. Thanks Dan!

Trevin Wax conducted a defining interview of N T Wright and his theology. Wright is an absolutely pivotal resource for the missional church as we seek a broader more Biblical (but not diluted) soteriology for mission. The interview is here.

Steve McCoy‘s page on “missional in Suburbia” is another one of those time saver pages for those us desperately seeking missional life in the suburbs. Thanks Steve (and we’re praying for your wife’s health!).

Jesusmanifesto.com is a must read blog! It is packed with theological resources, cultural engagement and political theology like this post on the political option of Christian anarchism that challenges me and often changes my thinking (actually I pretty much am already here in regard to this post).

Ed Stetzer started a series of posts here on the “meaning of missional.” It started here and went on for several posts. Rick Meigs did a synchroblog this year on the same topic. Thanks to these two bloggers for awesome work!

Brother Maynard BroMay is one the best of the bloggers on the Mission. I still find these posts from a couple years ago helpful n children’s ministry in the new post Christendom contexts of missional church. His blog is a must read throughout the year for me.

Thanks to all these bloggers and many many more for their fine work this past year furthering the Kingdom of God in Christ.