In this season of Advent we learn about waiting. Waiting is painful. It brings anxiety and sometimes causes us to wonder where God is or if he cares. The prophet Malachi spoke of the Messiah’s coming in an eponymous Old Testament book: I have loved you, saith the LORD…Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before …
Advent is here! This beautiful season which marks the beginning of the liturgical year began on November 29 and will conclude on Christmas Eve. Celebrating this important season is a great way to introduce your congregation to the Christian calendar. Advent means arrival, and the season beckons us to ponder three monumental arrivals: The arrival of Christ in flesh as a baby through Mary, the arrival of Christ in …
Although the following books are all excellent, my Ten Books from 2015 list is not a broad, “best books of the year” list. These books are ones that I believe will draw us deeper into the challenges of our day and deeper into faithfulness to the way of Jesus. This list reflects a diversity of authors, genres, and perspectives, but I …
In Paul Murray’s novel Skippy Dies, there’s a point where the main character, Howard, has an existential crisis. “It’s just not how I expected my life would be,” he says. “What did you expect?” a friend responds. After pondering, Howard replies, “I suppose—this sounds stupid, but I suppose I thought there’d be more of a story to my life.” If you strung …
Advent is here, the wonderful season marking the beginning of the liturgical church year. Many of us look forward to this season with mixed feelings. We want to simplify and take time for spiritual practices that help us refocus and prepare for our celebration of the birth of Christ, but for many churches it is the busiest time of the year. …
Here at the V3 Movement, we cannot encourage enough the importance of planting churches from a place of community. In fact, we’re not sure it’s even possible in church planting to create something that doesn’t already exist. That is, there’s this funny thing about creating true community: you can’t reproduce what you aren’t. In light of our conviction, we bring you …
The V3 Movement being a communal movement, we’re excited to bring you another personal interview from a series of interviews with church planters who are embracing place-based church planting in a fruitful manner. These planters are using V3 Learning Cohorts to ground their leadership and their missiology in community. [Tweet “Leadership is a community affair. http://thev3movement.org/learning-cohorts/”] Today we’re speaking with Jared …
When it comes to disciple-making, church-planting movements often use a tool known as the Four Fields. Field One (Go) is the entry strategy. Typically, it involves discovering a person of peace, as in Luke 10:1-12 (for a great description of the role of a person of peace read JR Woodward’s article, “The Person of Peace and Their ‘Oikos’”). Field Two …
Discipleship is one of those words that is…well…let’s be honest…worn out! It triggers so many things for so many people. For example, I was recently in a conversation with someone who, after I used the word discipleship, asked why I still used that term. He said “Why don’t you just use the term ‘spiritual formation.’” To be honest, sometimes I …
In my most recent book, I ask, “What would the church look like if everyone in the church used their God-given gifts and talents to equip the rest of the church in such a way that the entire church became more like Jesus?” For if the whole church looked and lived more like Jesus, how much more would our neighborhoods …