Two questions that people often ask me about how to engage in the neighborhood where they live are; “What are some things I can do to engage in my neighborhood?” and “How do you ever find the time to get involved in the place where you live?” Those questions, as simple and honest as they are, concern me. What is …
Faithfully Pragmatic in Church Planting
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – good advice from Winston Churchill Looking at the results and making decisions based on how it affects those results is called being pragmatic. It is a process of dealing with things sensibly, realistically, based on practical considerations as opposed to theoretical ones. So should we be pragmatic about church planting? This tends …
Peaks and Valleys – A Core Leadership Team Exercise
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 …
Re-Imagining Leadership with Dennis Edwards
We are overjoyed to announce Dennis Edwards, a Pastor & Author of I Peter Commentary, will be joining us at The Praxis Gathering 2018 Dennis Edwards is a learner and a teacher, a husband and a father, a pastor and servant. He has a MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and both his MA and PhD (in Biblical Studies) are …
Grativangelism
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 …
Sustainable Life Rhythm – Learning from Our Children
Can you imagine a God who dances with shouts of joy, laughs, plays, goes to parties, enjoys life and invites us to join the fun? I couldn’t until recently. Like most of us, I grew up with a very serious, workaholic God who chastised me for not keeping busy 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Even though I …
Our Desire to Plant a Neighbourhood Church
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 …
24 Hour Prayer: Fuel the Movement
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 …
The Ecology of the Gathering
The design of a space is never neutral; it always communicates some specific value. For example, what does it say about someone’s values if they set their living room T.V. off in a corner, while all the furniture is turned towards a window looking out into the backyard? The way a room is set up communicates certain values. Physical spaces …
Curiosity and Adventure in Soul Care
As a kid growing up in Southern California, I spent a lot of time in the water. I loved the adventure of swimming in the ocean and the challenge of making it out to the recreational buoys and back again. They were just far away enough to feel a little dangerous. Maybe it was the hard work of swimming or …