Leaders often bear the weight of the church on their shoulders. But have we made leadership into something it was never meant to be?Most of us are familiar with Atlas, the mythological Greek figure condemned to hold up the heavens. If you have ever been a pastor, no doubt you have felt something similar. Being "the leader" often feels like an overwhelming burden.In an era plagued by the fall of influential pastors, it's time to reconsider our fundamental un...

When you hear the word evangelical, do you think "good news"? That's what the word means, and it's what we are meant to be. Yet the surrounding culture often views us as exactly the opposite. Calling yourself an evangelical too often means you are seen through a negative stereotype; people are apprehensive when they hear that an evangelical family has moved into the neighborhood. But is this the way it has to be? What would it look like if evangelical Christians were joyfully livi...

When Christ calls people, he invites them on a journey—a journey taken together in community. We have reached a point in history, however, when we think of the church as a fixed place where isolated individuals show up, consume a Christian message, drink some coffee, and get on with their lives. The times demand, and the gospel proclaims, that we recover our identity as a church that is a people on a quest for the kingdom of heaven, formed intimately by a loving God and called onto a long ...

Imagine an organizational model for church leadership that enables the entire team to unleash their full potential.The joy and vigor coming from a collective strength, intelligence, and skill in the community of leaders not only brings greater potency but better yields for your ministry. What would it be like to see this kind of healthy leadership reproduced into the second, third, and fourth generation, on multiple strands?Leveraging the metaphor Ori Brafm...

There was a time when neighbors knew each other's names, when small children and the old and infirm alike had more than their families looking out for them. There was a time when our neighborhoods were our closest communities.No more. Neighborhoods have become the place where nobody knows your name. Into this neighborhood crisis the words of Jesus still ring true: Second only to the command to love God is the command to "love your neighbor as yourself."In Next Door as I...

Imagine an organizational model for church leadership that enables the entire team to unleash their full potential.The joy and vigor coming from a collective strength, intelligence, and skill in the community of leaders not only brings greater potency but better yields for your ministry. What would it be like to see this kind of healthy leadership reproduced into the second, third, and fourth generation, on multiple strands?Leveraging the metaphor Ori Brafm...

People in all walks of life are discovering what it means to be involved, concerned, missional Christians. But simply having block parties or spending more time downtown is not enough to describe what it means to be a missional people. What is needed is a reformation of the way we actually live our lives as Jesus followers. We need to see a way of living faithfully to God's mission in the world, right here, right now.In this inspiring yet practical book, Alan Hirsch and ...

Servantship is essentially about following our Lord Jesus Christ, the servant Lord, and his mission--it is a life of discipleship to him, patterned after his self-emptying, humility, sacrifice, love, values, and mission. Servantship is humbly valuing others more than yourself, and looking out for the interests and wellbeing of others. Servantship is the cultivation of the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: making yourself nothing, being a servant, humbling yourself, and submitting you...