In 1990, Peter Senge first published The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, a book that would quickly become one of the bestselling business titles of all time. In it, Senge argues that the contemporary world is changing too fast, and that it is not enough for an organization to be merely reactive. As I have …
The Praxis Gathering facilitates interaction among missional practitioners through the exchange of real-world, hands-in-the-soil experiences. Every Praxis Gathering presenter is currently engaging in missional practices and comes to the conversation with a passion to share what’s working in church planting and to inform against what’s not. One such presenter is Tim Soerens, with whom you’ll get to spend time at Praxis Gathering 2015. Tim is …
In Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film Hugo, young Hugo Cabret is orphaned after his father, a master clockmaker, passes away. Hugo is left on his own to navigate life, but it isn’t as though his father left him with nothing. Hugo carries on his father’s technical mind and passion for working on machines. It is through the lens of clock making …
Our culture has once again begun to realize the significance of the local, of place, of being rooted. In contrast, Enlightenment thinkers subsumed particular “place” to universal “space.” At least this is the argument made by phenomenologists like Martin Heidegger, who believed that Truth could be revealed only by carefully attending to the things and people nearest to us. The …
The V3 Movement is proud to introduce… Praxis Gathering 2015 presenter Debra Hirsch. In addition to extensive experience within the church planting movement, Debra Hirsch is a speaker, counselor, and author whose combination of rigorous study and relational communication makes her an excellent person to engage with regarding missional church matters. Among her many credentials are the cofounding of the Forge Mission Training …
John Chandler takes to his microphone on the SermonSmith podcast to interview missional veteran Dan White, Jr. and inquires into Dan’s “unique prospect on a more dialogical approach to preaching” (Chandler). Join John and Dan as they discuss dialogical preaching, from the social environs that formed the Early Church’s approach in light of Pentecost, to Dan’s reshaped understanding of preaching after looking at its theological roots. This conversation is a church planting resource not …
In our last post we began looking at the formation of church planting teams from a perspective of the beloved Fellowship of the Ring. We explored the common mistakes church planting teams make, and we looked at the Early Church to see how she became established in the surroundings of her time. If you missed it, feel free to check it out, as it will help establish a …
In the movie the Fellowship of the Ring, at the Council of Elrond, a plan is hatched to cast the One Ring into the fires in Mordor which will destroy the Ring and end Sauron’s evil reign. As the question of what to do with the ring is brought before a team assembled by Gandalf the Great, fighting breaks out, and warrior wills …
Radical Hospitality Received—Our Story When our family moved to San Francisco almost 19 years ago, the rental vacancy rate was 1%. Every available unit had potential renters lined up with candy, flowers, or several months advance payments in hand, and in the craziness, we just didn’t score high enough. We had only met Andrew Jones (tall skinny Kiwi) once, but …
A few months ago I read an interesting article from YES magazine entitled Relearning the Skills of Community. As I read about their check-in time and provision of mutual support I thought – that sounds very much like Christian community to me. Maybe this is church? I have the same response when I read books like Imagination First and Business Secrets …