discipleship
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I loved going to the Ocean City, NJ boardwalk as a kid. The stores and amusement rides, the pizza places and popcorn shops, the balloons and cotton candy were all wonderful. Sundays on the boardwalk, however, were something less than wonderful. When I was growing up there were the Blue laws in Ocean City. These […]
This morning VantagePoint3 hosted a webinar called, “Crucibles: Times of Disorientation in a Leader’s Life.” Brian, Rob and I tried to unpack why such times can become heightened times of learning in our formation. If we have eyes to see and a heart to walk alongside another, such times snap us to attention. It is then […]
There seems to be a good bit of talk these days about “changing the culture.” What I bump into is the application of this concern toward a local church community. It is a good concern from what I hear, and what I notice in my own collection of concerns. In a recent conversation with a […]
This weekend my good brother in the Lord, Rob Loane, and I will be leading a spiritual formation retreat many of you have experienced at some point in the past called, “Making Space.” Robert will be leading his retreat at Black Lake Bible Camp in Olympia, WA for folks going through the Emerging Journey process […]
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus. Acts 4:13 This is a portrait of spiritual authority. They recognized them as companions of Jesus. When researching the many different life stories of Christian leaders, J. Robert […]
Sometimes we encounter experts who have fancy credentials, smacky degrees, and weighty job descriptions. They can give us advice because they have noticed how certain things, processes or situations can be different–hopefully better. This past weekend at our Banff Enriching retreat I encountered 18 experts…not because they had the credentials, degrees or job descriptions to […]
Many groups are starting out this month in some part of the VP3 process. One of the central challenges of Stage 1 is building trust. As we often discuss in the Facilitator Training Retreats, an atmosphere of trust needs to be fostered for the groups to flourish. Without trust, honest and prayerful discovery will become […]
“There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.” Archibald Macleish We can live so unreflectively nowadays, always hoping to survive or “get by” with what we already know. We hope what we know will work for the journey ahead. So we shy away from the questions […]
I got forwarded this video invitation to VP3’s The Emerging Journey last week. It comes from Trinity Baptist Church in Kelowna, B.C. They have done a great job with this! At Trinity they refer to this process as simply The Journey. [youtube]http://youtu.be/OoYxVoQHt-s[/youtube]
“People are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence, and competition.” Jean Vanier For so many of us today accomplishment, praise, and power are failing to address the deepest longings of our heart. Others admire and even envy our performance, nearly flawless, but inside there is deep and echoing hollowness […]
One of the joys of June is hosting the facilitator training retreats in various parts of the continent. A unique collection of pastors, church staff, and lay people gather in a peer learning environment in order to be prepared to facilitate an Emerging Journey or an Equipping Experience group in their local church context. In […]