A faithful reader of the blog, John Nordlander, gave me a shout, asked me to dinner for a chat, and we went to the Hard Rock Cafe just two blocks down the charm known as 16th Avenue. He shared with me some of the redemptive things going on in Ideas World and then about the faith community he participates in here in Denver. He gave me a whole new appreciation for what innovative business ideas can do for planting churches and establishing missional communities.

And then later I spent an hour or so with good friends, Mark and Marilynn Novak. On Tuesday morning I got to have coffee with one of my favorite Covenant pastors, Don Johnson from Montecito Covenant. We had a French press coffee at Peets. Mighty fine. I’ll be back tomorrow for another.
My session on Tuesday was a sketch of A Community called Atonement. One of the main points for me as we try to provide a model of atonement, is that if we don’t begin in the right place, we can easily diminish atonement to microscopic proportions. For atonement to fit the way it is presented in the Bible, we have to factor in Jesus’ vision of the kingdom, God as a Trinity (perichoresis), humans as Eikons, sin as massive in proportions, the community of faith as the design of God, and eschatology as well. If all those aren’t in play, atonement gets reduced.
Tuesday evening I had dinner with Dave and Rene Morlan with their gang of church planters at his home; and lo and behold, the Jazztheologian, pastor Robert Gelinas, also came to the dinner. Geat to meet all of these Christians out here in Denver. Then Dave organized a great event at coffee house where he made a presentation on historical Jesus stuff and then asked me to participate in the Q&A. When I got back to the hotel I went out with about a dozen Covenant pastors where we had discussions about theology and church life. I’m always impressed with the theological interest of these pastors.