A Word From ACTS XXIX ...
Almost everyone involved in parish work is painfully aware that something is broken. Priests and lay leaders are often exhausted, discouraged, overworked, and spend much of the day putting out fires and playing “whack-a-mole.” These realities contribute to staff tension, dysfunction, and little time or energy to make the changes that can bring about great transformation because fires continue to rage around them. We know this. We’ve been there. And we were blessed to experience God do something that changed everything for us.
ACTS XXIX is small team of itinerant missionaries, who partner with pastors and their teams to help address this crisis that we know so well first-hand. We don’t claim to have the answer to the crisis. But we do have some answers from the work God has graciously allowed us to be a part of in renewing a parish. We are convinced this culture change can happen anywhere. Paul says freely we have received, so freely we are to give. It is our conviction that what God did in us was not simply for us, but for others who find themselves in a similar place. We eagerly desire others to experience the same transformation, hope and encouragement the Holy Spirit brought about in us.
We have been wonderfully overwhelmed by the response we have received in these first few months since we launched. We are grateful for the many people who have reached out to tell us that they are praying for us, supporting us, and wanting to partner with us.
We have been fervently seeking the Lord, discerning what He is asking of us, given the fact that the requests are far beyond our capacity. We believe He has shown us that the blueprint for the way forward is to go to those places where the bishop invites us to work with his entire presbyterate and other parish leaders. This allows us to share with them our vision for parish renewal. From there, we identify a small number of parishes in that diocese to accompany. We anticipate that this work will result in pastors and teams eager to support their peers in the work of parish renewal within their diocese.
Our mission is comprised not of offering programs but is instead guided by what we call three essential principles for parish renewal. Each of these principles requires extraordinary effort but reaps extraordinary transformation.
A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW
GOD IS THE ARCHITECT
STAFF → TEAM → FAMILY
For a listing of those locations where we will be ministering, please refer to the “Events” tab on our website. In the meantime, we are creating podcasts to share various insights that have helped us better grasp a biblical worldview, organizational health, and thoughts for discerning God’s blueprint for your parish so that as many people as possible can benefit from these essential principles.
We pray daily for the renewal of the Church in the United States and for you. Please pray for us.
ACTS XXIX Team