Scripture is quite clear about the Church’s responsibility to the foreigner: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt” (Lev 19:33-34); “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the …
In my last blog, I encouraged churches to form non-representative leadership teams for three reasons. Often in constituency representative teams “the priority of the ‘good’ of the constituency displaces the overall good of the organization [church].”[1] “the leadership team may or may not be composed of people who actually have gifts related to leadership.”[2] “inevitably one constituency is deemed more …
“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 …
Luke 10:1-24 has an incredibly diverse range of wisdom and brilliant insights. Perhaps if it was the only portion of scripture that we had, it’s diverse range of wisdom would still be more than sufficient to help us understand so many realities of the Kingdom of Heaven and service to the King of Heaven; but let me paraphrase one insight …
We at The V3 Movement are pleased to announce Specialized Coaching beginning this fall. We hear from many of our friends, church planters, and practitioners that they would like to have a coaching resource from the V3 Movement outside of our learning cohorts and we are happy to be able to offer this now. This coaching is available to everyone …
We jump back into the question of holding space and self-care without sacrificing the ethos of the pastoral office. As pastors we help shoulder the burden of trauma carried by members of our community. The cost of this work can be overwhelming. Yet, to do this work well we must take care of ourselves without feeling the guilt of our …
Is it possible that shepherds with apostolic eyes can help create bridges from predictable and safe sheep pens into missional and open fields? In missional movements growing out of evangelical subcultures it is really important for apostles and prophets to regain their voices in the body which have been lost, quieted or silenced(!) in the overemphasis on shepherds and teachers. …
Do you feel like a failure if you haven’t converted anyone? This was the question that my friend asked me about my work in the neighborhood where I live. My friend who is not a Christian, had read my book Urban Spirituality: Embodying God’s Mission in the Neighborhood. In this book, I write about the work I do in my …
The new year has begun – not the calendar year or even the liturgical year but the year around which many of our lives revolve – the start of school for kids, collegians and graduates and the end of summer for all of us. It is time for most of us to get up to full speed after relaxing vacations, …
Cut the number of worship services in half. Sound far fetched? It’s possible to do, and it would cut workload considerably. Of course, then you may have to justify your salary. Ultimately, it may be the best move to re-connect with a post-Christians culture. If we look at budgets and responsibilities, the majority of money and time in a church …