“The church cannot storm the gates of hell by gathering around consumer needs. A shared life and the shared story that Jesus is King are its rallying points.” –The Church as Movement Missional and community are two buzz words being used quite a bit in the church world these days. But what do they really mean, and how do they work together? In …
Phillip Yancey: Church Planters as Artists and Culture Shapers
Philip Yancey will be speaking on “Church Planters as Artists and Culture Shapers,” followed by a panel discussion with Mako Fujimura and Sam Theophylus, pastor and planter of Beautiful Gate LA. You can participate at the Fuller Pasadena campus or by BlueJeans videoconferencing. The event is free for Fuller students, $5 for church planters, and $10 for others. A videoconferencing option …
You Won't Like Everyone in Your Church Plant, and That's Okay
I was talking with a first-time church planter about how things were going. As we were talking about some of the difficulties he was facing, he blurted out, “I just don’t like the people who are coming to my church! I wouldn’t choose to hang out with these people, and it’s hard to create a community with people you don’t enjoy hanging …
What Would Help You Most?
What do you need to start a movement? The V3 Movement is a dedicated to creating resources and training opportunities for Church Planters and Missional Movement starters. If you are reading this, it is because you want to start a movement. You want to see the kingdom of God to take root in your neighborhood. You want to see new movements …
We Must Prepare for Change—and Opportunity
We begin 2017 by racing into a new decade that is likely to change at warp speed. As a consequence, leaders in our churches need to learn from the business world how to prepare for change and anticipate a host of new challenges before they arrive so that we all have lead time to create new and innovative responses. One …
A Place-Based Missional Learning Experience
Our friends at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary have created a place-based missional learning experience any serious church planter can benefit from: The Graduate Certificate in Church Planting and Revitalization. The Graduate Certificate in Church Planting and Revitalization forms pioneer leaders attentive to God and God’s world. Participants will learn to listen to the Holy Spirit and their communities, they will practice leading teams in …
Subverting Church Planting Stereotypes
If I am being honest, I’m not generally a big fan of books on church planting. My lack of enthusiasm stems from two primary observations. First, many books on church planting are authored by people who actually have surprisingly limited experience in church planting or whose credibility rests on a single (relatively meaningless) criterion—their ability to draw a large crowd. …
Top 12 Posts of 2016
It’s that time of year when we revisit the resources from the V3 blog that garnered lots of responses from readers/missional practitioners. You all shared the movement in powerful ways this year, and we thank you so much! Church planters and place-based missiologists used these posts to experience the movemental power of the Kingdom in their neighborhoods, church plants, businesses, and …
What is the Informal Economy, and What Does it Have to do With Starting Churches?
For at least three decades now, the church starting world has embraced high-level business start-up principles. We value particular successful franchising models, good branding and marketing principles, excellent customer service, strong management teams, scalable ways of acquiring customers, measurable results, and a work ethic that reminds us that good enough is never really good enough. These and other principles have …
UK’s Innovative Church Planting Edge
Ash Barker welcomed me at the door of the Newbigin House in Birmingham, England. As I entered this enormous house, Anji, his wife, handed me a large mug of coffee. I walked into a huge living room and was greeted by two alpacas, three lizards, seven adults sipping coffee and a half a dozen kids playing hide-and-seek behind the furniture. …