We have some incredible people who serve the mission of God in Europe. We are honored to stand arm-in-arm with them to reach the nations. The only way we can do this is because hundreds of people partner with us in prayer and financial partnership. The work that the Lord has invited these individuals to join Him in is so important, and your support for them and their work is mission-critical. Allow me to share with you how your partnership in the Gospel serves them and their work …
A RHYTHM OF SOWING INTO OUR BEST
Over the last few years, our annual fall gatherings have become critical for both ongoing training and refreshing fellowship. In 2019 Gary Dunahoo took our team through the Birkman Assessment Tool. It was life-changing. Seriously. The global pandemic prevented us from meeting in person in 2020, but we were still able to build off of the tools we received through the Birkman assessment by doing an online “Stress Lab.” This helped our FMI Europe team deal with the stress of their work.
Our 2021 gathering in Cologne, Germany, focused on Coaching as a Ministry Skill. We were honored to have Keith and Laurie Webb with us. Who knew learning to ask powerful questions would open up new levels of ministry and discovery?
These fall gatherings have also become an FMI Europe family reunion – full of laughs and hugs, and a place where we as workers are both challenged and welcomed to develop and grow alongside our peers. The 2022 fall gathering will be no exception.
Our October 26-30, 2022 gathering will focus on ‘Care: Finding New Rhythms’ with Angie Richie, president of Life Pacific University. Angie is not only a university president, but she is also a licensed therapist. She specializes in emotional and mental health and will help us discover ways to implement new and healthy rhythms into our lives to keep us well, and empower us to be everything Jesus has called us to be. We will learn new ways to establish healthy boundaries, how to separate ourselves from the emotions of others, and how to find life-giving spiritual rhythms. It will be both challenging and encouraging. We can’t wait to learn from her!
In addition to the rich content presented by Angie, this gathering will also include an emotional health assessment, children’s ministry for our kids provided by a USA church, and times of practical implementation and processing with one another that will anchor these truths in our hearts and minds. We believe the result will be deep personal transformation. Afterward, your workers will also have an opportunity to join a cohort for continued growth and transformation in specific areas of life.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
There are three things I am asking for help with to serve and care for these incredible individuals:
First, can you cover this time of ministry and training with prayer? Please join us by starting now and keeping it covered through October. We are asking God to do deep and real work in our lives. We know that this work begins and continues in prayer.
Second, can you sponsor your global workers to participate in this gathering? Over the last several years, many of you have rallied to fund their participation in this annual event. And because of your financial partnership, we have continued to provide these annual gatherings at minimal cost to our entire Europe-based team. They need only pay to get to the host city, and then for a couple of meals each day. Our costs to host them, which include lodging, breakfast, and field-focused training for four days, will be $400 for singles, $600 for couples, and $800 for families. Would you consider sponsoring those you have sent to participate in this event? It is a very worthwhile investment, and any amount of support will help us.
Third, would you consider encouraging your global worker to participate in this event? Let them know how thrilled you are that they are taking the time to invest in themselves. Those you have sent to the field are self-sacrificing people. Sometimes they need a nudge (or a push) to take time away from ministry to be refreshed, strengthened, and renewed. To invest in themselves. Help us help and care for them.
Thank you for every way in which you support and encourage our Foursquare Missions work on this continent. Thank you for sending your best people, and for continuing to stand with them. It is through your continued partnership that we will see spiritual renewal in Europe!
Jeff, Debbie, and the FMI Europe Ministry Team
FMI Deployed Workers are Making a Difference in these Nations
Hey everybody! Welcome to the final episode of this season of All In! I have a question for you: what do these people have in common?
Tim Cook (Apple CEO)
Fannie Flagg
Harper Lee
Booker T. Washington
George Washington Carver
Hugo Black (Supreme Court Justice)
Rick Bragg (Pulitzer Prize)
Helen Keller
Truman Capote
Hank Aaron
Martin Luther King Jr.
Joe Namath
Jesse Ownes
Rosa Parks
Condoleeze Rice
Lionel Richie
Hank Williams Sr. and Jr.
They are all from Alabama.
I grew up in a very small town of about 200 people in Alabama. I fled the state when I was 19 years old. I moved to the Pacific Northwest, about as far as I could go while remaining in the lower 48 states. I had a very thick southern accent I worked diligently to overcome. When someone finds out you are from Alabama, they generally ask about backwardness, bigotry, and incest. To be honest with you. It was challenging.
While on a rare visit to see family, I was in a large bookstore, when I found a book that caught my eye, “Alabama in the Twentieth Century.” I bought the book and started reading it.
When I finished the book, I had two main thoughts:
This is how history is supposed to be written. This was a great book.
This guy helped me find the beautiful I knew existed in Alabama that is too often hidden by the stereotypes, the rednecks, fundamentalist religion, narrow-minded intolerance, and gratuitous meanness.
Dr. Wayne Flynt is the author the book I read. He was born in Mississippi but grew up primarily in Alabama and graduated from Anniston High School. He attended Samford University as a ministerial student; double majored in History and Speech. He also attended graduate school at Florida State University, receiving his Ph.D. in American History.
He is a prolific author. Of his fourteen books (three of which are co-authored):
Two of his books have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and one won the Lillian Smith Award for non-fiction (the oldest and most highly regarded book prize in the South, given by the Southern Regional Council).
Two of his books have won the Alabama Library Association prize for best works of non-fiction,
three times he has won the James Sulzby book award for best work on Alabama history (awarded by the Alabama Historical Association), and
three times the University of Alabama Press has bestowed the McMillan prize on his manuscripts as the best received in history.
Dr. Wayne Flynt is a community activist, serving American Cancer Society’s Committee for the Socio-economically Disadvantaged, was a co-founder of both the Alabama Poverty Project (now called ALABAMA POSSIBLE) and Sowing Seeds of Hope. Dr. Flynt has been awarded more than can be covered. He has taught and spoke across America and the world.
He is active in a number of professional organizations, six of which have honored him with their highest awards for service. In 2003-04 he served as president of the Southern Historical Association, the largest professional organization devoted to the study of southern history and culture, with some 5,000 members worldwide. He was founding general editor of the online Encyclopedia of Alabama from which he retired in September 2008. I hope you enjoy our conversation today!
If you’re enjoying this podcast, spread the word by sharing it with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to send me your feedback or suggestions for an interview. Help me help you. You can email me at jroper@foursquare.org, or direct message me on Facebook. You can also submit any feedback or questions here. Don’t forget to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts.
As always, you can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter. It’s your life, now go live it!
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Famous words mistakenly attributed to Peter Drucker.It doesn’t matter who said it, it is TRUE. We can glibly talk about changing culture, but culture is a hard thing to change. Yet, if you want real and lasting change, you must do more than change policies, you must change cultures. I could think of no one better to talk about this topic than my friend, Tammy Dunahoo. Tammy hold the title of Vice President – Senior Director of Leader Culture+Care for The Foursquare Church.
Tammy Dunahoo has served The Foursquare Church in multiple roles since 2003, including general supervisor, Arkansas District supervisor, vice president of Women in Leadership Ministry, on the National Church Health Initiative team, and multiple boards and committees. She serves on the Foursquare board of directors, the cabinet, and on the board of trustees of Life Pacific University (LPU). Besides these roles, Tammy pastored with her husband, Gary, for 38 years.
Tammy’s greatest passion is to educate, train, mentor and sponsor emerging generations.She loves to see young leaders, women and men of every people group, living out their God- given design, and creatively and effectively engaging culture. Her role includes serving the president and partnering with him in architecting culture with a specific focus on discipleship and leadership development, diversity and NextGen.
I think you’ll really enjoy this conversation and I hope you find it helpful to your specific context. Enjoy!
If you’re enjoying this podcast, spread the word by sharing it with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to send me your feedback or suggestions for an interview. Help me help you. You can email me at jroper@foursquare.org, or direct message me on Facebook. You can also submit any feedback or questions here. Don’t forget to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts.
As always, you can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter. It’s your life, now go live it!
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a celebrated spiritual writer and sought-after speaker. A native of North Carolina, he is a graduate of Eastern University and Duke Divinity School.
In 2003, Jonathan and his wife Leah founded the Rutba House, a house of hospitality where the formerly homeless share community with the formerly housed. Jonathan directs the School for Conversion, a popular education center that works to make “surprising friendships possible.” He is also an Associate Minister at the historically black St. Johns Missionary Baptist Church.
An evangelical Christian who connects with the broad spiritual tradition and its monastic witnesses, Jonathan is a leader in the Red Letter Christian movement and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. He speaks often about emerging Christianity and faith in public life to churches and conferences across the denominational spectrum and has given lectures at dozens of universities and seminaries, including Calvin College, MIT, Bethel, Duke, Yale, Princeton, Jewish Theological, Perkins, Wake Forrest, St. John’s, DePaul, and Baylor.
Now, he is making his big break as a guest on this podcast! I hope you enjoy this interview. You can connect with Jonathan through the School for Conversion or on his website.
If you’re enjoying this podcast, spread the word by sharing it with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to send me your feedback or suggestions for an interview. Help me help you. You can email me at jroper@foursquare.org, or direct message me on Facebook. You can also submit any feedback or questions here. Don’t forget to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts.
As always, you can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter. It’s your life, now go live it!
Hey everybody! Today I am giddy! I am thrilled to be able to have Dr. Miroslav Volf as a guest today. He is probably one of my favorite living theologians. I think you will enjoy this week’s episode as we explore his book Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.
Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and is the Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He was educated in his native Croatia, the United States, and Germany, earning doctoral and post-doctoral degrees (with highest honors) from the University of Tübingen, Germany.
He has written or edited more than 20 books, over 100 scholarly articles, and his work has been featured in the Washington Post, Christianity Today, Christian Century, Sojourners, and several other outlets, including NPR’s Speaking of Faith(now On Being with Krista Tippett) and Public Television’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.
Prior to his appointment at Yale Divinity School in 1998, he taught at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia (1979–80 and 1983–90) and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California (1990–1998).
A member of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. and the Evangelical Church in Croatia, Professor Volf has been involved in international ecumenical dialogues (for instance, with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity) and interfaith dialogues (on the executive board of C-1 World Dialogue), and is active participant in the Global Agenda Council on Values of the World Economic Forum.
Miroslav regularly teaches and lectures in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and across North America. He has given over 30 prestigious lectureships at universities around the world, including Harvard University; Oxford University; Stockholm School of Theology; Duke University; Calvin University, University of Birmingham.
If you’re enjoying this podcast, spread the word by sharing it with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to send me your feedback or suggestions for an interview. Help me help you. You can email me at jroper@foursquare.org, or direct message me on Facebook. You can also submit any feedback or questions here. Don’t forget to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts.
As always, you can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter. It’s your life, now go live it!
Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
