The Demise of Illusions
A famous historian once said the most dangerous form of ignorance is the illusion of knowledge. This maxim has become very real to us as we prepare for our campus church project in Berkeley. On our journey, Janet and I have stumbled over three kinds of “knowledge” (so far) that have all proven to be illusion in their own way. 1. The Google Illusion: During the very anxious season when we were considering becoming planters, we comforted ourselves by doing research about the campus and community at Berkeley. Along with millions of others, we turned to Google to discern the answers to life’s questions. What we found was a huge quantity of information about our potential plant site. We learned, for…
ContinueFree Fall
Leaving the conference room at the end of our last church plant screening interview, I felt like a parachutist taking that first big stride out the airplane door. Up until that moment, my resignation from our Seminary and the sale of our house had still seemed sort of hypothetical. But this committee’s affirmative vote completed a long approval process that finally made our transition into church planting concrete. In our system, we raise personal and project budgets for as long as it takes before the plant actually begins. In other words, we are self employed with a capital “S,” a radical departure from the institutional cocoon of higher education… It feels like free fall. One step and you’re hurtling downward through…
ContinueTodays Pentecostal Evangel Podcast
In September of 2007 my friend Ken Horn, Managing Editor of Today’s Pentecostal Evangel (The AoG national magazine) interviewed me for a podcast about our church planting project in Berkeley.
We Receive US Missions Approval!
On July 10th Janet and I officially received our national appointment as church planters with US Missions, the Assemblies of God national homeland missions agency. We have also received approval for the Berkeley Church Planting Project from the Northern California-Nevada District, which will be our new home once we move west. (We are counting the days.) However, because our travel schedule is so crazy, we have been unable to attend any of the official commissioning events. So Steve Pike, the USM Church Planting Director, surprised us during a coaching session at Big Momma’s coffee house on Commercial Street in Springfield. He presented us there with a Certificate of Commissioning and with a small sculpture of Jesus washing Peter’s feet. The inscription reads,…
Continue“Berkeley: The Church Planting Journey” is the first in a series of Skype podcast interviews I will record with Tim Hohm, one of the earliest and most influential Christian podcasters and Senior Pastor of Central Assembly in El Sobrante, CA.
The Call and the Pull
Walking through the process of committing to the Berkeley, church planting project, and then through the approval systems at US Missions and the Northern California-Nevada District, Janet and I have seen two forces at work: the call and the pull. 1. The Call: We never compiled a list of “pro’s” and “con’s” about the Berkeley project. Instead of a cost-benefit ratio, we opened ourselves up to a season of discernment. First, I went to Byron Klaus, President of AGTS and my boss at the time, and told him what we were considering. He counseled, prayed, and pastored us through the entire journey. I also asked David Watson, a trusted friend, and professor at North Central University to pray with me one…
ContinueOff-Road Disciplines
In Off-Road Disciplines, Earl Creps reveals that the on-road practices of prayer and Bible reading should be bolstered by the other kinds of encounters with God that occur unexpectedly—complete with the bumps and bruises that happen when you go “off-road.”
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Earl Creps—a popular speaker and leader—is director of the Doctor of Ministry program and associate professor at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (AGTS) in Springfield, Missouri. He has been a pastor, ministries consultant, and university professor. Along the way, Creps earned a Ph.D. in communication at Northwestern University and a doctor of ministry degree in leadership at AGTS.
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