Recently I had a conversation with someone in which I asked the question, “What would you say to other followers of Jesus to encourage them to consider what it might mean for them to join God in their neighbourhood?” My question produced a grimace and a sigh. “I’ve tried, nothing works,” they said. I persisted. “It’s a hard shift,” I said, …
How Should We Really Prepare Church Planters?
By Christopher Brown and Scott Hagley The Church has a problem: most of its future leaders are being prepared in ways that don’t work and for ministries that don’t exist. Ways that Don’t Work My (Chris’s) first call out of seminary was to be a bivocational church planter. For more than five years, I worked part-time at an independent café …
How to Create Strategies for a Missional Vision
“How to Create Strategies for a Missional Vision” is the second of a three-part series created to help you set a vision for your church or organization and strategize for it. If you haven’t read part one, “A Practical Guide to Having Missional Vision,” you may want to do so, as there are practical exercises I suggest there for determining your organization’s vision. Back From the Future Now that …
Church Planting and the Refugee Crisis
In the current worldwide refugee crisis, an unparalleled 60 million people have been displaced from their homes. Approximately 20 million are refugees (the highest number since World War II), and the rest are mostly either asylum seekers, stateless persons, or internally displaced from their cities or towns but still living in their country of origin. Just 3 countries, Turkey, Pakistan and …
3 Ways To Celebrate Pentecost This Year
Pentecost is coming. This celebration (May 15th) marks the end of the Easter season, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the infilling of Jesus’ disciples with the power to go out and change the world. Traditionally, many churches pray for the peace of our world at this time. In a world divided by culture, race, and social strata, Pentecost …
A Practical Guide to Having Missional Vision
Bill couldn’t wait to share the good news. He had just received word that a donor had offered five acres of beautiful, wooded land along with seed money for building a new church campus just outside the city. He would share the news at the elders’ meeting that night. As pastor of the downtown, inner-city church, Bill had struggled with …
The Difference Between Being Missional and Doing Good Works
What is missional? And how do we know if we’re doing it? Is missional just about good works done in the name of Jesus? Is it sharing the gospel? Or does it entail something deeper and more substantial? Charles is in leadership at a larger church south of the Mason-Dixon line and has been thinking and talking about how to …
How to Build Community: What the Real Cost Is
Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. -Romans 15:7 Building community is hard work. It takes intentionality and risk; requires energy and planning. And there is always the possibility of rejection as we put ourselves out there. However, making room for others in our lives is an essential practice for those in the community of faith. A Difference Between …
5 Tips to Become a Place-Based Church
What if God is inviting us to let go of some of our defaults in order to join the Spirit in our neighborhoods? As those on the Neighbourhood Life (NL) journey in Edmonton attempting to do just that, we are discovering, among other things, a number of shifts in our thinking and doing that illustrates for us the new ways God …
Restorying the World: Connecting in a Disconnected Age
British journalist George Monbiot has declared that we live in “the age of loneliness,” and despite all our technology, we live increasingly disconnected and lonely lives. So, what are we to do? How do we begin the work of restorying the world, of giving shape to new stories that help us live more connected and more meaningful lives? A Thread …