So, in my last blog I shared my difficulty in accepting this current season in my life, and how it’s pushed me to re-embrace a theology of suffering. Our culture, like most cultures, rejects suffering, because of our propensity to be in control, reject trust and dependence on God and interdependence with each other. Like Peter, we take our suffering …
Watch: Understanding the Missional Community
Maybe you’ve already seen the previous posts where Dan White was able to speak about a few elements of his co-authored book with JR Woodward. (If not, it’s available to watch for free here.) This week, JR Woodward is bringing a good word, centering our missional values with a reminder that at His heart, God is a missional God. Don’t …
Wake Up: Learning to Care About the Earth
Waking Up to the Discovery of a World at Risk: Earth Day 1970 “Get this garbage out the lobby now,” shouted the manager of the Kahalui Motel. It was April 22, 1970. Ed Yamamoto, student body president of Maui Community College and 12 other students had just stacked the last of 60 huge black bags of trash in the lobby …
Watch: How to Strengthen Community in Our Churches
Dan White Jr is back this week to provide a wonderful perspective on church community, how we can strengthen those bonds and what scripture says about our relationships in the body. He offers some practical steps and goals for fostering healthier, deeper relationships in the church. Don’t miss his new book with JR Woodward, available here. “The braided rope of our …
Listening as a Leader
Learning who to listen to is just as important as learning how to listen. In a world of unlimited resources, self-proclaimed experts, and incredible access through technology to information, discerning which voices to listen to can be a difficult task for a any leader. In the current postmodern situation, many emerging adults have developed a hyper-awareness of the limited scope …
Watch: Church as Industrial Complex
JR Woodward (author of Creating a Missional Culture) and Dan White Jr. (author of Subterranean) have trained church planters all over North America to create move-mental churches that are rooted in the neighborhood. Their book features an interactive format with tools, exercises, and reflection questions and activities. It’s ideal for church planting teams or discipleship groups to use together. It’s …
Death Tsunami: Church Decline in the Millennial World
In this 12 month series we are inviting both church leaders and church planters to learn to lead with foresight and imagination in the radical way of the servant Jesus. We will share with you examples of those who are already imagining and creating new forms of change-making, life-making and church-making. Examples of Past Action In my first two posts …
People Are the End, Not the Means
Church planters need to have vision. They need to be able to see a future that doesn’t exist yet and call people into it. But too often the vision becomes a “thing” that we use people to accomplish (rather than calling people to inhabit the vision). One of the greatest temptations you’ll face as a church planter is to use people …
Rejected, Dejected, Confused: Dealing with Frustration
Returning from Mission It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. “The Real Work” …
Single White Female Pastor
I am a heterosexual, 33 year-old, single woman. I happen to also be in the process of becoming a fully ordained pastor. I am starting the process of ordination with the PCUSA. I went to seminary in Seattle. I’ve been in ministry in one way, shape or another for as long as I can remember. I have a strong sense …