Treat Everyone Like Royalty

Okay, it may be true that sometimes, female church planters think a little differently and come up with different metaphors than their male counterparts. Yesterday was just one of those days. I was sitting in a classy hair salon in Walnut Creek, California, when a woman who seemed quite underprivileged walked by. I relished watching her be pampered, cared for, …

Top 15 Posts of 2014

At V3, we’re committed to equipping you to start a movement. Over the last year, we’ve published dozens of articles from real life church planting practitioners. They have ranged from collections of resources, such as JR Woodward’s “Top Ten Books on Church Planting” to cutting observations like Dan White, Jr’s “Five Points of Bitterness Common in the Missional Church.” Below are our …

15 Quotes on the Incarnation to Get You Ready for Christmas

Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. ― Hebrews 1:2, NLT The incarnation is a kind of vast joke whereby the Creator of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers… Until we too have …

How to Evaluate Preaching in the Missional Church

After seven articles, and almost as many months, we finally come to the end of this series on Sermon Preparation for the Missional Pastor. While the last article was on the actual development of a sermon outline, I suggested there is one more step that’s all too easy to overlook: Evaluate. So may I offer you four questions to ask …

How the Multiethnic Church Can Help Solve the Social Divide

Last week, in light of the recent events in Ferguson, New York, and Cleveland, our youth pastor decided to have some open conversations with our youth to help them process all that was happening. Though our church is multiethnic, the majority of our youth are African American. Many of the youth shared common themes that black youth are voicing all …

Top Five Books on Team Building

At The V3 Movement, we believe in teams. God has given each of us different gifts and personalities. When we plant churches, we want to bring all of those gifts to the table. Great teams don’t just come together on their own. It helps to understand a little bit about how people work, and what happens when they try to work …

How White is Your Church?

mulThe deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown impacted all of our lives. Hopefully, it has made many of us consider the great divides that separate us from people of other colours and ethnicities. I wonder if in the roar of the protests what real changes we are willing to make to our lives. Are we really prepared for the …

Joining God in the Space Between

When modern Western Christianity asks important questions, the voice and concerns of the church often dominate the conversation. For instance, questions about leadership might be phrased this way: “What does leadership in the church look like?”1 There is another starting place other than the church. We can frame our inquiries with two questions: The Theological Question: “Who is God?” The …

The Irritation of Incarnation

Incarnational Theology emphasizes that the Father has sent Jesus as one of us. God does not scorn the human condition rather God dwelt in the fragility of the human body (Philippians 2). This human form brought the Glory of God down from Mt. Sinai to the streets of Nazareth. The fullness of God somehow, someway was displayed in the limitations of the God-man Jesus. He …

Three Types of Organizing Principles for New Churches

Sociologists say that people group themselves together in three ways: Affinity— Similar ethnic, socioeconomic, education, language, etc. background Kinship— Extended family, tribe, band, tight-knit relationships. Geography— Same neighborhood, block, apartment complex, etc. These same categories also function as organizing principles for people who start various kinds of churches. Affinity For several decades, the predominant approach has been affinity. We have …