Logan Leadership

I just ran across an important thought from Hugh Halter’s new book, Sacrilege: Finding Life in the Unorthodox Ways of Jesus:

Here’s how you can know if you are actually an apprentice: people respond to you like they did to Jesus people are drawn to you people seek you out for help. People like you respect you and want to live like you live. I’m suggesting that if we take on the purpose of becoming like Jesus, the people of the world of Jesus died for want to be our friends. That’s what an apprentice will experience.

I was recently at a Missio Intensive in Ashland, Ohio and had an “ah-ha” moment. “Ah-ha” moments are what I call those times when the pieces come together and click into place and you realize something new.

You may be familiar with “the three circles” from the Tangible Kingdom. The idea is that we need to be at the intersection of all three of these areas:  community with others, communion with God, and mission of the Kingdom. That’s the sweet spot. Whenever we are only in one or only in two, we need to move to incorporate the other circles.

Looking for a safe place to engage in honest dialogue about moving your church in missional directions?  Check out one of the Missio Intensives. Far from a talking head conference, Missio Intensives build in time for dialogue, questions, processing what you’re hearing, and creating plans that will be sustainable.

I’ll be there and would love to talk with you about helping your church move in healthy missional directions. The next two live Intensives are coming up Sept 28-29 in Ashland, Ohio and Oct 4-5 in Atlanta, Georgia. Check out this link for more info and registration information: missio intensives

When we’re doing ministry in a more decentralized fashion, we need to help our leaders think through what they need by way of support and connections to sustain them. Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, in their book The Tangible Kingdom, outline the concept of the three circles:  mission, community, and communion. Mission is the service and outreach component. Community is the network of relational connections that sustains us, and communion is our connection to God. Their thesis, in a nutshell, is that you need all three or things get out of balance.

I’m at the Missio Intensive today in Portland with Hugh Halter and Matt Smay—pictured here. In case you’re not clear on what an Intensive actually is, it’s an event designed to help you rethink your assumptions about church and move your current church in a more missional direction.

Matt and Hugh are presenting; they’ve been doing some excellent work in this area. My role is to help facilitate the workshops that put people on track toward practical, realistic, meaningful change. If you’re interested in becoming more missional as a church and meeting the culture where they’re at, you might want to check out the next Intensive. It’s scheduled for March 28-29, 2011, Austin, TX.  More info here.