Blog
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We have all experienced many small and large changes over the past couple months. And it has all been so disorienting. One of the first things that happens when we are thrust into a time of disorientation is loss of language. We simply don’t have the words. Whether we feel like we have “walked off the […]
One of the persistent challenges of my life, one which I have been keenly reminded of over the past few weeks of Covid-19 shelter-at-home realities, is the hard work of simply “being with” people. No one who knows me well would accuse me of being a hyper-productive individual, but still I have always found it […]
This week I had the opportunity to join Lori Walsh on her South Dakota Public Broadcasting Radio show “In the Moment.” The topic broadly was the Future of Faith; the conversation turned out to be about a childhood memory, VantagePoint3 and the deepening of God’s people, a mentoring way in “a culture of do and […]
Thankful for the opportunity to spend our morning with some wonderful leaders within the Sioux Falls area at the God as CEO breakfast. GOD AS CEO is a movement to inspire and equip people to make Christ the cornerstone of their business. By way of summary, I thought I would include some of my notes […]
God desires to make disciples, not just converts; what do mature disciples look like? Do you and those around you have any personal expectation of maturing in Christ beyond the first steps in their faith? Christian maturity is not a pipe dream. There is a tangible reality when we encounter it. Some people do learn […]
I have been thinking a good bit this afternoon about “the why” of mentoring and spiritual friendship in the Christian life. And as I let my mind go with this question once again, I found myself circling back to an essay I read years ago by Annie Dillard entitled “An Expedition to the Pole” (not […]
Tomorrow we will spend a couple hours with some men and women who will be facilitating groups through our second-year process, A Way of Life. As I thought about tomorrow’s conversation, I was re-engaged by a portion of the first session of the year entitled An Invitation to Discover. It began to ask some questions of […]
A central feature of our culture is that we are relentlessly talked at––rarely listened to. Consequently, we have an aching hunger to be heard and noticed. Among the men and women with whom we meet, do we recognize their thirst to be heard and known and loved personally? Almost two decades after first planting the church […]
At its simplest, VP3’s The Journey is a meaningful walk with a group of people guided by three primary questions: Who is God? Who am I? What does God want to do through me? I have been reminded recently of how powerful this process can be, helping men and women wake up to the depth […]
“Give us this day the freedom to be amazed and to trust your way among us, even when the world seems closed to all futures.” Last week a friend sent me a brief video that captured the experience of a woman named Sheryl in his congregation who had recently walked through The Journey process with […]
A few weeks back a friend texted me a link to a song that had been sustaining him amidst some major difficulties within his family. So I began to listen to it… then again and again and again. I am still listening to it. Meditating on it actually. It has even entered the regular rotation […]
God has ordained things that we grow in faith only through the frail instrumentality of one another. St. John of the Cross Our growth in Christ does not occur in isolation; it takes place within the company of others who provide presence and perspective along the journey. One specific form of being “in the […]