This episode gives you a glance behind the scenes to our one of our online gatherings of the Dwellings Cohort. Francis Chan is the bestselling author of Crazy Love, Forgotten God, and Letters to the Church, and leads a house church movement in San Francisco. He inspires us all with his recent growing appetite to devour the Scriptures, reminding us that a reading of the Word of God from an unskilled orator might just change us more than any carefully crafted sermon that didn't center on Scripture. He goes on to answer some questions from cohort participants such as: How should we invite the participation of people that are more reserved? When we talk about everyone participating, where does leadership come into play? And how do smaller communities multiply well?  You don't want to miss this inspiring conversation. Join the interest list for the 2024-2025 Dwellings Cohort: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScKelMl-Yt99SADacTbdF0LuUpLJ17yR-9fF0lEafLuhiJj4Q/viewform -- The Dwellings Podcast is only possible because of the generous partnership of people like you.  If you would like to become a Dwellings Partner through a one-time or monthly gift, you can sign up today here: https://dwellings.info/give. We are constantly releasing new resources. The Dwellings App is the best place to be kept up to date on all of our new resources. You can download our app today by following this link: https://dwellings.info/app Join our newsletter here: https://dwellings.info/connect If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]

Dwellings' Content Developer Sarah Wood has a background in both ministry and education and finds the crossroads between the two to be an interesting subject for our time in the Church.  On this week's episode, Sarah tells us about Jesus's conversational style of teaching his disciples and how it challenges our models of discipleship today. Do you know how many curiosity-provoking questions he asked them? Little of Jesus's time with them involved preaching sermons.  Also see how conversational learning relates to trends we are seeing in the field of education. We have much to learn and it's a great time to explore how we might grow as we move from monologue to dialogue in our discipleship Download the Dwellings Scripture guide here: https://dwellings.info/guides -- The Dwellings Podcast is only possible because of the generous partnership of people like you. If you would like to become a Dwellings Partner through a one-time or monthly gift, you can sign up today here: https://dwellings.info/give We are constantly releasing new resources. The Dwellings App is the best place to be kept up to date on all of our new resources. You can download our app today by following this link: https://dwellings.info/app Join our newsletter here: https://dwellings.info/connect If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]

Ryan Skoog of Minneapolis, head of Venture, tells us about his ministry abroad and in the US, and his increasing passion to create replicable forms of discipleship.  Hear Ryan talk about where he is seeing the most response to the house church movement in the US, how he is inspired to form international communities in his hometown after visiting Nepal, and the transition he has made overseas as he supports pastors in the most unreached parts of the world. -- The Dwellings Podcast is only possible because of the generous partnership of people like you. If you would like to become a Dwellings Partner through a one-time or monthly gift, you can sign up today here: https://dwellings.info/give We are constantly releasing new resources. The Dwellings App is the best place to be kept up to date on all of our new resources. You can download our app today by following this link: https://dwellings.info/app Join our newsletter here: https://dwellings.info/connect If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]

Kathryn opens up a conversation around the third shift we are making in our discipleship: from spectators to participants. In an era where our discipleship forms have often centered around a stage or a video, it's interesting to look back at Jesus's way with his disciples. He was the ultimate Rabbi, (teacher) but his teaching was different because it invited participation. He invited his disciples into conversation, asking over 300 questions, and he invited them into practicing their faith... involving them in active miracles, a life of prayer, and more. How could we begin to go back to not only his way, but the way of the early church, and invite participation in new ways?

When Mary and Joseph arrived at the inn some 2000 years ago, there wasn’t room for them at the inn. So many of us can find ourselves in the same place this week- so consumed with tasks that we miss Jesus himself. The places we inhabit can also become too full for him, even this week. What type of things can we cut to make room for him? What would it look like for our homes to be more like the manger bed- open and ready to receive him?

In a world that has more accessible information than ever before, we can move beyond information transfer to transformational discipleship. While having knowledge about the Bible and God is very important, it is not enough... we were called to relationship with him. God is meant to be experientially known, not just mentally known. Job had second hand knowledge of God but desired a first hand experience of him... reminding us that there is always more for us as well. The Dwellings Podcast is only possible because of the generous partnership of people like you.  If you would like to become a Dwellings Partner through a one-time or monthly gift, you can sign up today here: https://dwellings.info/give. We are constantly releasing new resources. The Dwellings App is the best place to be kept up to date on all of our new resources. You can download our app today by following this link: https://dwellings.info/app Join our newsletter here: https://dwellings.info/connect If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]

We're adding this bonus episode at the end of our shift from isolation to family, after hearing from so many of you that your relationship with family has been complicated or wounding. Kathleen Doyle, a pastor counselor with over 25 years of church leadership experience, helps us walk through what it means to disentangle our relationship with Jesus from the wounds of people, the difference in spiritual abuse and wounding, and some steps we could take to move forward and reimagine what it could mean to experience spiritual family again. @kathleenadoyle https://m.exponential.org/2022orl/speakers/speakers-1010.html The Dwellings Podcast is only possible because of the generous partnership of people like you. If you would like to become a Dwellings Partner through a one-time or monthly gift, you can sign up today here: https://dwellings.info/give We are constantly releasing new resources. The Dwellings App is the best place to be kept up to date on all of our new resources. You can download our app today by following this link: https://dwellings.info/app Join our newsletter here: https://dwellings.info/connect If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]

Hear David and Kathryn talk about how Jesus's life with his disciples was spent largely outside the walls of the temple-- not giving sermons but relating to them in real life: eating, drinking, fishing, walking with them.  How should his life inform the way we look at Christian community?Hear some practical steps on how we can make a shift in our own communities from institutional to relational. The Dwellings Podcast is only possible because of the generous partnership of people like you.  If you would like to become a Dwellings Partner through a one-time or monthly gift, you can sign up today here: https://dwellings.info/give. We are constantly releasing new resources. The Dwellings App is the best place to be kept up to date on all of our new resources. You can download our app today by following this link: https://dwellings.info/app Join our newsletter here: https://dwellings.info/connect If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]

One of the world's leading missiologists, Alan Hirsch, comes to us from Australia, explaining how we should question titles but embrace giftings in the church. Learn about the gifting that Christ has given his church, outlined in Eph 4, and a test we can take to help us understand the roles of: apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher.  Kathryn and Alan discuss how these giftings have a scope way beyond church and ministry staff positions. They also talk about how certain leadership gifts have been elevated in this season of the Western Church, and how we need to elevate, and refuse to quench, all of the gifts... in order to see the future Church flourish. If you’d like to check out Alan’s book, The Starfish and the Spirit, you can do that here: https://www.amazon.com/Starfish-Spirit-Unleashing-Leadership-Organizations/dp/0310098378 If you’re interested in taking the APEST test, you can do that here: https://5qcentral.com/product/apest-vocational-assessment/ If you’re interested in vocational calling in the marketplace, check out: https://www.mpactq.com/for-leaders The Dwellings Podcast is only possible because of the generous partnership of people like you.  If you would like to become a Dwellings Partner through a one-time or monthly gift, you can sign up today here: https://dwellings.info/give. We are constantly releasing new resources. The Dwellings App is the best place to be kept up to date on all of our new resources. You can download our app today by following this link: https://dwellings.info/app Join our newsletter here: https://dwellings.info/connect If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]

Our culture in the West is increasingly individualistic, and increasingly lonely. Listen as Kathryn talks with Jack Meckfessel around an antidote... the spiritual family.  What would it look like to recapture a sense of the church being a family over an institution?  Jack gives stories from his house church experience in Thailand, and shares what he learned after experiencing the beauty of several models of church.  The Dwellings Podcast is only possible because of the generous partnership of people like you. If you would like to become a Dwellings Partner through a one-time or monthly gift, you can sign up today here: https://dwellings.info/give We are constantly releasing new resources. The Dwellings App is the best place to be kept up to date on all of our new resources. You can download our app today by following this link: https://dwellings.info/app Join our newsletter here: https://dwellings.info/connect If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]