In my previous post I suggested that after years of teaching students to preach the way I was taught to preach (assign a text, which fit me well as a “teacher” on five-fold), I started to wonder, “Am I trying to force apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds, to preach like teachers?” To put it more positively, I began to imagine, …
Well, the news is out again. Gallup’s latest faith poll showed church membership is “down sharply”[1] over the past two decades. Relevant Magazine recently reported that young people are leaving the church due to perceived judgment and hypocrisy [2]. These types of reports are all the more common today, and it is getting harder for church leaders to navigate the …
I was trained by one of the 20th Century’s “Princes of Preaching.” And, “no” that isn’t an exaggeration. In 1996, Haddon Robinson was named in a Baylor University poll as one of the “12 Most Effective Preachers in the English Speaking World.” In 2006, he was recognized by Christianity Today in the top 10 of its “25 Most Influential Preachers of …
Can I make a confession? I love zombie stories.The “zombie apocalypse” genre has always fascinated me, for some reason. I find myself attracted to movies, TV shows, and books that feature some version of a zombie apocalypse and what happens afterward.Part of the reason I think I’m interested is because of the questions these stories evoke: What remains when all the …
Leading in the way of Jesus is beautiful and incredibly vulnerable. We experience both joy and despair, fulfillment and loss, growth and disillusionment. Emotional cuts and bruises are inevitable, yet few of us know how to practice a spirituality that identifies, receives, and heals our pain. We need practices that anchor us in the love of God so hearts do not …
“We are shaped by our stories. And these stories, or narratives are running and (often ruining) our lives.” [James Bryan Smith][1] Discerning God’s direction in life is often messy and confusing. The stories that we have picked up in life often times do not serve us well. We need regular periods of silence to help us identify these stories, examine …
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 …
As of Saturday morning, June 2, 2018, the population of India was 1,352,795,014, making up 17.74% of the world’s population. In other words, approximately one out of every six people in the world live in India. This is important to consider in this third post of our series exploring the best places to plant churches. (see our first post here …
God’s spirit is awakening us to the beautiful mess of being a diverse church together. Everybody seems to be talking about being a Multi-ethic church. But what does that mean? Are we using consumeristic tactics to build multi-ethnic churches? Is this leading to a new colonialism rather than shared-life in community? We need to move beyond cool church practices and dive deep into neighborhood-rooted …
It’s been a few years for me since my first year of church planting. Back then, I was coming off 15 years of full-time paid pastoral ministry and was uncertain how to make the transition. To be honest, I was in some detox from swimming in a plethora of resources, programs, buildings, and titles. I had never learned what ministry …