Processing Pain as a Planter & Pastor

Being Pastor or Planter involves embracing a ministry vocation that includes a consistent encounter with the conflicts and challenges most spend their life trying to avoid. While leading people to the beauty of Christ, we concurrently face the tragedy of betrayal, grief from unending losses, and pain from emotional assaults.  What happens to our mind, soul, and body from this …

Heart For The One

If you’re following along with the ministry of Jesus, He spoke of seeking — searching for with all your might and with urgency — only two things.  He tells His followers to seek first the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33) which feels like a given since people are wanting to participate in the good and powerful rule and reign of …

On Stopping

Do you practice a regular rhythm of Sabbath?  Do you “Sabbath”? What does it even mean when we use “Sabbath” as a verb?  In fact, what is Sabbath? Something Important Generally speaking for many of us, when we hear the word “Sabbath” our thoughts go to attending a Sunday morning church service, hearing a sermon, participating in musical worship, talking …

Ten Favorite Books for Church Planting 2019

The V3 Movement has been raising up and releasing men and women church planters, from across the theological spectrum, all over the country, that are focused on locally-rooted presence, tight-knit community, life-forming discipleship, and boundary-crossing mission. We are a training movement. So, we wanted to share with you our favorite books in 2019 (and a couple gems from 2018) that …

Unlocking Neighborhood Presence

In a previous post I discussed why new plants (or any church for that matter) should have neighborhood presence as a central identity piece. Easier said than done. There are challenges to make this reality including: leaders who are figuring it out themselves, no active connection to the neighborhood, superficial relationships, or unrecognized activity. Sometimes we need help to turn …

Invitation to Transparency: Part 2

For part one of this series click here So, what is transparency? Perhaps it’s easier to start with what it is not. Transparency is not brutal honesty or the lack of a filter. It is not living like you’re in a real-time confessional. It doesn’t mean sharing every single thought that comes to mind or disclosing every emotion as you …

Mutual Movemental Leadership

Re-imagining New Scaffolding In planting a missional-incarnational church you will collide with the big question “How do we do leadership in this new but old way of being the church?” Re-imagining and reconstructing leadership scaffolding are essential for being a movemental church in Post-Christianity, but it can be hard to find templates. I confess that my own history in leadership …

Invitation to Transparency

When my church plant began it was perfect. We had a full roster of mature leaders who were experts at shared leadership and conflict transformation. There were people eager to be discipled in the way of Jesus and willing to substantially commit to that endeavor. Because of the relational depth we had cultivated, we agreed on everything, and our gatherings …