Julie Dirkse is Gina’s guest on this episode of the Everyday Mission Podcast. Julie and her husband, Pat, followed God’s call on their life 10 years ago to move as missionaries and church planters into one of the most dangerous cities in America – Compton, CA. She shares their story about a city and a people they have fallen in love with as they live among them as neighbors and friends. It’s a story of everyday people following the Lord where He leads them and experiencing more of God’s goodness and grace than they could ever have imagined!
Find out more about 3DM at: https://www.3dmovements.com/
Mentioned in this Episode:
Exploring Life on Mission
Jesus’ strategy for mission was simple: know God, build a family, and pursue people who are open to Jesus together. As followers of Jesus, we want to imitate the life and leadership of Jesus and do mission the way He did. But often we feel stuck. Sometimes we feel insecure about our leadership or don’t really know how to gather people or what to say. Perhaps we simply feel busy with life or aren’t sure what our next step is. Or maybe our missional context feels particularly difficult.
If you want to learn how to practically live on mission in your ordinary life, this is for you!
Missio Alliance Comment Policy
The Missio Alliance Writing Collectives exist as a ministry of writing to resource theological practitioners for mission. From our Leading Voices to our regular Writing Team and those invited to publish with us as Community Voices, we are creating a space for thoughtful engagement of critical issues and questions facing the North American Church in God’s mission. This sort of thoughtful engagement is something that we seek to engender not only in our publishing, but in conversations that unfold as a result in the comment section of our articles.
Unfortunately, because of the relational distance introduced by online communication, “thoughtful engagement” and “comment sections” seldom go hand in hand. At the same time, censorship of comments by those who disagree with points made by authors, whose anger or limited perspective taints their words, or who simply feel the need to express their own opinion on a topic without any meaningful engagement with the article or comment in question can mask an important window into the true state of Christian discourse. As such, Missio Alliance sets forth the following suggestions for those who wish to engage in conversation around our writing:
1. Seek to understand the author’s intent.
If you disagree with something the an author said, consider framing your response as, “I hear you as saying _________. Am I understanding you correctly? If so, here’s why I disagree. _____________.
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We deeply desire and value the voice and perspective of our readers. However you may react to an article we publish or a fellow commenter, we encourage you to set forth that reaction is the most constructive way possible. Use your voice and perspective to move conversation forward rather than shut it down.
3. Share your story.
One of our favorite tenants is that “an enemy is someone whose story we haven’t heard.” Very often disagreements and rants are the result of people talking past rather than to one another. Everyone’s perspective is intimately bound up with their own stories – their contexts and experiences. We encourage you to couch your comments in whatever aspect of your own story might help others understand where you are coming from.
In view of those suggestions for shaping conversation on our site and in an effort to curate a hospitable space of open conversation, Missio Alliance may delete comments and/or ban users who show no regard for constructive engagement, especially those whose comments are easily construed as trolling, threatening, or abusive.