Farewell and blessings to my successor
Leaving is always bittersweet. Even if it is a decision for good reasons, I find no consolation in stepping away from a job that I have loved and felt privileged to be engaged in for almost three decades. During those years, I had the honor of visiting with you in your office, at home, or […]
A conversation with Karen Spicher and Jae Young Lee
Mike Sherrill, director of Asia and the Middle East for Mennonite Mission Network, interviews Karen Spicher and Jae Young Lee about their work in South Korea, their sabbatical here in the United States, and their experience during this time of COVID-19. Karen Spicher serves as the communications coordinator for Northeast Asia Regional Peace Building Institute […]
Hechos para más – Guía Visual
Exponential presentó 3 nuevos marcos de referencia de multiplicación para el tema del 2019. Estos marcos de referencia se enfocan en ayudar a los líderes de iglesias a movilizar al pueblo de Dios, a la manera de Dios. ¡Imagina a cada seguidor de Jesús liberado para ser misioneros cotidianos en sus campos misioneros cotidianos donde […]
Building a Discipling Culture, 3rd Edition
Much ink and many pages have been devoted to all of the missional issues facing the Western church today. As our culture becomes more post-Christian with each passing day, we are all realizing that what has worked in the past is no longer working, that we are far less effective for the Kingdom than we […]
Made for More Visual Guide
The Made for More Visual Guide provides a vision and roadmap for releasing the huge latent capacity that is pent up within the people of God. This "read in an hour," visually engaging, resource introduces and integrates three new frameworks to help shift your ministry from a volunteer based "we can do it you can help" approach […]
Omnibus Edition
The image on the cover of this issue of Anabaptist Witness is a painting by our designer, Matt Veith, of a medieval church in Italy from a travel advertisement. The architecture—with the colonial-era buildings that bear resemblance to styles elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Americas—reminds me of a form of Christianity, and of Christian mission, […]
MOVEMENTS Do we want them badly enough to change
Do you want a movement of disciple-making and church-planting to take place in your city, where disciples make disciples and churches plant churches faster than the growth in population? How badly do you want it? Do you want it badly enough to change the way you have always done church or lived your own personal […]
What’s in a name?
We sat in the church office, confused and in tears. It was a scenario I have experienced too many times before. My friend trying to figure out what it means to be a pastor. "I know I was called for a reason." Being called into church leadership is a serious discernment process. It has to […]
Why the missional movement will fail
It’s time we start being brutally honest about the missional movement that has emerged in the last 10-15 years: Chances are better than not it’s going to fail. That may seem cynical, but I’m being realistic. There is a reason so many movements in the Western church have failed in the past century: They are […]
Top five reasons we really don’t want to be missional
Missional. We’ve been hearing this word for 20 years. Our seminaries have been teaching it, our agencies have been producing books on it and our congregations have been using the word "missional" to justify programs, mission efforts and other worthwhile "regularly scheduled" activities the church has done for the last 20 years. But as I […]
Missional Church: The fad that just won’t go away
Recently I heard an observation following Ohio Conference’s Annual Conference Assembly in which we focused on becoming a mission-driven (a.k.a. "Missional") conference. The observation? It seems as though our younger leaders are the driving force behind the passion for this movement. And so the question becomes, "Why?" Why are younger leaders pushing for this change? […]
Go, Be a Disciple Maker
As I begin to visit and engage in conversations with Western District Conference congregations and their pastors, discipleship and missions are the two themes, among many others, that have been predominant our discussions. Both discipleship and mission are relevant to the life of the church today and they will continue to be in the future. […]