Posts Tagged ‘Shift Missional Ownership’

Quick + Crowd = Greatest Impact?

By: Jock Ficken

What’s the quickest way to the greatest impact? For the sake of the Mission of God? Maybe “quickest” and “greatest” are not compatible when it comes to impact. Leaders often equate “quickest” plus “crowd” with “greatest impact.” Particularly if “crowd” was modified with larger or bigger! There’s a growing uneasiness among leaders with this equation: … Continue reading →

Get In The Game

By: Jock Ficken

Get yourself in the mission game if you’re not there already! Don’t wait for all those folks to one day wake up and decide they should ask you about Jesus. (You’ll wait a long time.) PLI Entry Paths It was incredibly difficult when I started down this path. I didn’t know how to have a … Continue reading →

Pockets and Places

By: Sarah Greiner

“I’m in church work so I’m around christians all day. It’s not possible for me to meet people who don’t know Jesus.” Sound familiar? We often perceive roadblocks to living missionally and feel stuck in the circles of the church world. PLI believes that God opens up possibilities for relationship with lost and broken people … Continue reading →

How to Successfully Invite People to Your Church

By: Jock Ficken

Over the last several decades, churches that experienced steady or rapid growth and people coming to faith in Jesus had congregational members who joyfully invited their friends, family, and neighbors to come to church. Several things were essential: People had relationships with people who didn’t attend a church. They were motivated by the love of … Continue reading →

What if YOU were the Mission Program?

By: Jock Ficken

If you had to choose being outfitted with a “program” (there are lots of them) to do mission… OR… If YOU were the “Mission Program”… Which would you choose? My guess is that lots of us would reach for the program! Ironically… Our trust in fitting into a program tends to run higher than our … Continue reading →

Mapping Cultural Distance

By: Jock Ficken

The PLI community cares about leaders and the future of the church and the sharing of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Its pioneering spirit looks to journey toward new, better horizons. Let me tell you a quick story from lunch at a restaurant the other day and then it’s translation! “I overheard what your … Continue reading →

So You Think Your Church is Failing…What Can You Do?

By: Jock Ficken

80% of U.S. churches… Worship less than 100. Face steady to rapid decline. Possess collective memories of being 2 times or 10 times larger. Leaders and members are taunted with the whisper that they’re failing. Usually today’s realities were set in motion years earlier by… A stubborn refusal or inability to make necessary changes for … Continue reading →

4 Questions Missional Leaders Should Ask

By: Sarah Greiner

Discipleship: Three lessons I learned from playing Simon Says

By: Sarah Greiner

5 Ways to Increase Impact and Sustainability Serving “Outside the Walls”

By: Jock Ficken

Getting outside the church walls to serve and represent the love of Jesus to people around you is a difficult step for many churches and many of us as individuals. I used to see it as an unnecessary drain of volunteer hours desperately needed to man the programs inside our church. And today’s emerging adults … Continue reading →