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 …
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 …
To What Will Your Lenten Season Give Birth?
Lent is here. It begins with Ash Wednesday on March 1st and ends with Maundy Thursday on April 13th. Last week I updated all our Lent, Holy Week and Easter resource lists, reread posts from previous Lenten seasons and started to think about what I want to do this year. Lent is often seen as a time of giving up; we focus …
Film as a Form of Mass (Theology at the Theater, Part 2)
Philosopher and theologian, James K.A. Smith, in his book Desiring the Kingdom, helps us understand that at a gut level, we are creatures who love and desire. Thus we need liturgies, rituals and routines that reshape our desires. While Smith focuses on how worship gatherings could be better designed to shape our desires toward the kingdom, Craig Detweiler, in Into …
What has Hollywood to do with Jerusalem? (Theology at the Theater, part 1)
I remember sitting down with a Christian friend of mine recently. He had just finished his MDiv at Fuller. He was working as a teacher, active in church and engaging in meaningful fellowship. Yet he found himself in a funk in which it was hard for him to escape. As we sat at the coffee shop he told me about …
Stillness in a Time of Transition
We are living in a challenging season. Since the inauguration of a new president, civil discord and angry protests have had many of us oscillating between despair and hope. In the midst of venting our strong feelings we lose the ability to listen to each other, and we increase the conflict and the divide between us. Hope so easily gives …