Is it possible that shepherds with apostolic eyes can help create bridges from predictable and safe sheep pens into missional and open fields? In missional movements growing out of evangelical subcultures it is really important for apostles and prophets to regain their voices in the body which have been lost, quieted or silenced(!) in the overemphasis on shepherds and teachers. …
Every Leadership Team experiences highs and lows, peaks and valleys. Peak: The day you host your first gathering! Valley: the first time someone leaves your community. Any time you gather a committed group of people you experience the pendulum of life, the best and hardest parts, together. This is the beauty of community and presents its own gifts and challenges …
We are thrilled to have Keisha Polonio join us at The Praxis Gathering as we Re-Imagine Leadership in a New World together. It has become daily news to see leaders abuse their power or observe their character crumble. In the last few decades we’ve baptized business practices and hierarchical structures—it has ravaged the soul of the Church. We need another way …
Gratitude and Evangelism: These words elicit very different responses for most people, yet both are scriptural and represent deep values within our Christian faith. For some, “evangelism” has become a bit of a guilt ridden term, for others it has become a term that represents oppression, superiority and elitism. I have even met some in the faith who refuse to …
The questions we ask ourselves will define our practices. Think about the questions you ask either consciously or subconsciously and they will shed light on your daily, weekly, and yearly practices. For example, we would probably all agree that the question “how do I live the most comfortably?” is a deep value of Western Culture. If this is the question …
Leadership is a buzz word but we all know leading is unavoidable. Many of our current models for leadership highlight their communication skills, their strategic brilliance, or their theological acumen. Is this healthy for the soul of our leadership? What freedom might we find in living into Paul’s promise that in our weakness, God is strong? And are we willing …
Single church planters are like four-leaf clovers: we’re hard to come by. If you think about it, neither living the single life nor church planting is easy. It takes a certain special combination of maturity, character, grit, and giftedness to plant healthy churches, and it takes a particular blend of patience, faith, wisdom, and self-control to live the single life …
Here at V3 we get the joy of encountering stories from around the globe that inspire and encourage us and we hope to do the same for our readers by highlighting a few. We are honored to come alongside our church planters as they labor to ground their leadership and missiology in community. We are grateful to be part of …
In the scriptures we see examples where Christ prayed through the night. A friend challenged me to try the same thing. I had never cultivated this as a practice (although once or twice in a trial I prayed through the night) but the thought got stuck in my brain and kept simmering. Eventually I had the opportunity to visit a …
When I moved to California to plant a church I knew that I needed to have some kind of goal. I didn’t want that goal to be one that measured how fast we would grow numerically because I felt like that would put unhealthy pressure to grow at any cost and, potentially, hijack the vision for the church. But I …