Archives For Prophetic

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I want some college students to start writing on our team! Could it be you?

I work with College students and so do many of our writers, so obviously I am passionate about raising them up and seeing them lead in dynamic and world changing ways. A huge reason I started this blog was to empower college students.

I thought to myself, “What kind of online space would I have loved in college as a young apostolic evangelist?”

The answer was a daily post and community of inspiring leaders that were writing to fire me up. People that were living into the APE calling and understood there was something stirring deep inside to catalyze movements and ministry beyond the current context and for sure beyond the walls of the church.

I would have absolutely loved reading these posts in college and would have loved the opportunity to interact with the different writers here as well.

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By Jon Hietbrink

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” — CS Lewis

What we’re trying to do is hard.

Catalyzing new movements of missional communities is complicated, and our job description as leaders is often a mile long: disciple, pray, vision, witness, fundraise, meet, care, decide, communicate, recruit, repeat. To be a leader is to embrace the reality that more will be asked of us than we can give–we choose to make our home in the deep end not because it’s comfortable, but because that’s where Jesus calls us. In the midst of all that we’re asked to shoulder as leaders, one thing surfaces again and again–the indispensable role of simple courage. Leadership is most certainly about vision, strategy, and organizational behavior, but at it’s most fundamental level, leadership is about exercising the courage to look fear in the eyes and defy it by fixing our gaze on Jesus instead.

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Show & Tell

Beau Crosetto —  April 3, 2013 — 2 Comments

duck and ducklings

By Beau Crosetto

It is alarming to me how much leaders do not model for the people below them. I see it especially apparent the higher I look up the leadership ladder. It seems that the more and more someone gets removed from the ground level, less and less modeling takes place.  It is bothering me. These are the most skilled and advanced leaders. They/we need to be showing people what to do, not just telling them!

It’s time to get back into the pond and show people how to swim instead of shouting from the shore.

The other day I was having a conversation with a person I really look up to as a leader. They asked me about how I was modeling for the guy I am raising up and I realized I wasn’t doing a very good job in one area specifically. Sorry Nick :)

I had fallen into the trap that most leaders fall into:

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I want to share with you two great videos that help us celebrate the resurrection on this awesome Easter day.

This video is a spoken word that my wife Kristina shared today as she preached at our church, The Vineyard Underground

This next video is Kristina sharing a story of disappointment and then breakthrough in healing a few years back. Really powerful and a total witness to the power of the resurrection.

I hope you enjoy these and have a great day remembering and welcoming the resurrection into your life more fully!

Death is our Call

Beau Crosetto —  March 29, 2013 — 2 Comments

Jesus Christ

By Beau Crosetto

I don’t have alot to say today. I mean, its an awkward day.

It’s a good day and a bad day. Its good because our Lord, Jesus Christ, has gone to the cross to die for the sin of the world. We know now because of hindsight that this day had to happen and we are ever so thankful.

It’s a bad day because we have to think about the fact that our sin + the rest of the world’s sent our Lord, Jesus Christ, to the cross to die. If we weren’t such screw ups as human beings this never would have had to happen.

Its such a weird day internally.

But as far as this blog is concerned, and A.P.E. leadership, I have a few thoughts.

Today is a day to remember that the death of Jesus Christ leads us and this is the foundation of all we do and who we are as Christians first, and secondly as apostolic, prophetic, or evangelistic leaders.

A blog like this, and people like us can get confused. I mean, the APE are the catalytic vocations of the body of Christ, the primary activists and extenders of the Kingdom of God and the ones most often intersecting with the broader culture. The APE vocations as called by God are frequently outside the church walls on a daily basis.

Because of this we can forget.

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eddyThis is a guest post from Eddy Ekmekji. Eddy works in with me in Los Angeles as part of the InterVarsity Divisional Leadership team. He is the Director for Black Campus Ministries in LA. Eddy shared a devotional with us a few months back about ministering from the margins, not just to them and I thought it was fantastic. I asked him to write us a post and he kindly did! Enjoy!

[This is part of a series on John The Baptist as Prophet. You can read the other posts here!]

A few months ago, I came across Luke 3.1-3 in my morning devotionals where Luke sets up the scene that describes John the Baptist’s ministry. In the three verses, Luke drops eight names, seven of whom would have been some of the most powerful men in political and religious leadership. Along with those names, Luke carves out the various regions of power where these men exercised their might. In contrast to these centers of power and men of power, we read of the word of God coming to John son of Zechariah, and it coming in the wilderness.

The word of God did not come to the men of power or to the places of power, but it came to a person of obscurity living on the margins of society. And as we keep reading the story, we see the incredible ministry that John has in proclaiming his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People from all walks of life were going out to him to be blessed by his ministry. The person on the margin spoke truth to power.

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Greek Staff Conference

All the InterVarsity Greek Staff

I like going to conferences and being around people, especially when they are helpful. But lets be honest, we have all been to bad meetings, conferences and retreats.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Greek Staff Conference (where all the InterVarsity staff that work with fraternity & sorority students gather) and it reminded me how much I love these meetings.

So it made me think, as an apostolic evangelist, why do I love them so much?

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Border Wall

Is our gospel big enough to break down dividing walls between people groups?

[This is part of the series "Multi-Ethnicity in the Missional Church". Read the other posts here]

By Eric Rafferty

With this series we’ve tried to highlight how multiethnicity can be so much more than another value on the long list of things that we should care about as Christians.  Multiethnicity is APE! Multiethnicity is apostolic, rooted in a vision of reaching every people group in our cities or campuses.  Multiethnicity is prophetic; it reveals an alternate reality, a living picture of the Kingdom of God.  And today we want to highlight that building communities of reconciliation bears witness to the power of the gospel.

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A girl in a wheat field

Hey, I found our standard women’s retreat graphic!!

By Erna Kim Hackett

In college I never felt any insecurity about the “women in leadership” debate because the Jesus that I was encountering in the Bible was so amazing and countercultural in his interactions with women.

When He let a woman sit at his feet to learn, just like his male students, he wasn’t making a statement about busy people and meditative people. He was making an incredibly countercultural statement about women learning from Him and being trained by Him. When Jesus went to Samaria and revealed that He was the Christ, to a women, before anyone else, he was making a statement. When the Samaritan woman became one of the first evangelists in Scripture- leading both men and women, she stepped out of a traditional role. Jesus stayed and partnered with her in reaching her village.

Jesus’ interactions with women were all the more striking because all this was happening in the Middle East 2,000 years ago. As an outspoken young Christian women- I found Jesus invigorating and inspiring. I knew that following such a counter cultural leader would be an adventure worthy of my life.

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Get into Trouble!

Beau Crosetto —  March 11, 2013 — 1 Comment
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Will you willingly give God your best bull this year?

I want you to think about getting into some trouble this week and more importantly this year!

What if we actively put ourselves into trouble for God, fully aware of our need for Him to rescue us?

What if we did that instead of calculating how much we could really handle and would we really be able to get ourselves out if in fact we did wind up in trouble?

This last week at our Greek Staff Conference with Intervarsity, we had some excellent training by Rich Lamb. One of the things he encouraged us with is the idea of “Leader as Patient”. Not patient as in waiting, but patient as in a sick person needing healing.

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