The stories of impact on the people who have wandered up are so inspiring. The people who ask, “How much?” and when told, “its free, like grace,” walks away dazed. Or the story of a woman who, after being told The Center donates all the profits to another local non-profit, tells us that it's the best coffee she has ever had. Then there’s the older locales who gather around 9:30am to discuss the local state of the economy, religion, and politics.

Our tagline says it all, “We pour unity into the community…(continued)

The next time we hung out was at our local brewery. As I was driving to meet him, I was thinking about how to hang out without making it about his journey. I realized that it had been a long time since I had hung out with someone without an agenda. I realized I had maybe forgotten (or never learned?!) how just to be friends with someone. I had forgotten how to be with people just to enjoy them…(continued)

I moved from the Bible Belt to Manhattan, and I found a job as a hostess at a restaurant in Times Square to help supplement the cost of living. To say that I was rocked by culture shock would be an understatement. I didn't know how to engage with my co-workers, who were SO different from me and everyone I'd ever known. I felt out of place and sought employment elsewhere, but with no such luck. That fall, my church decided to take a group of us through the Forge Residency program. During those few months, God challenged my thought patterns and subconscious beliefs about people. Slowly, and then all at once, my paradigms were shifting…(continued)

We joined the cohort with the intent to bring back some quality content to our church that would help us move forward on mission with Jesus. While that did happen, we both were personally challenged to live a missional lifestyle in our own lives. It was a wakeup call for both of us.

It didn’t take long to realize that Forge really resonated with our hearts and the vision that the Lord was making clearer to us for Warren Road Church. We were then approached about the idea of WRC partnering with Forge. It almost seemed like a no-brainer…(continued)

Recently I was reading an article about the upkeep and maintenance of the great and beautiful Central Park in New York City. The article shared in detail that the park is divided into 49 zones and each zone has a supervisor and a full-time gardener who is responsible for all aspects of his or her zone…

Much like Central Park, Forge America consists of hubs scattered across the country and collectively, we long to see the world look more like Heaven than Earth. When you take a step back and look at the totality of work being done by our hubs, you are able to get a glimpse of the size and scope of how God is working through Forge…(continued)

It was July. People were in summer mode. The protestant exodus had taken its toll on our new church. So we decided to shake it up. We gave everyone two weeks notice. We told them to come to the building a half hour early (10:30am), make sure everyone had on walking shoes and bring wagons or strollers for the kids. We told them we were leaving the building for an adventure and a picnic after.

It was a hot one. I never would have thought more than half our normal attendees would come….(continued)

I live in a place where tomorrow has already arrived. And I can tell you from experience, what is working today (however one might define “working”) will not work tomorrow. As a strategy, attracting a large group of people to one room, one day a week (or multiple medium-sized rooms) to hear about Jesus, is over. I don’t mean that people no longer attend church on Sunday morning or Sunday evening. But a great gathering is not an effective long-term strategy for kingdom-growth. While everyone else seems to be doubling down and polishing up on what has worked, in the church I lead, I’m trying to sort out what will work…(continued)

In the attractional church world, “bling” matters. And most often our “religious bling” comes in the form of bigger and better church buildings fully equipped with the latest and greatest creature comforts: movie seating, HD video screens, cutting edge audio, coffee shops, indoor playgrounds, climbing walls…and yes even swimming pools!

No longer!

The swimming pool that I hang out at these days is the community swimming pool in my town home neighborhood. On any given summer day (and yes, even on Sundays) the pool is an active place, breaming with life and conversation. This is where we are doing church at these days…(continued)

Going back into the systematic church was odd at best. One of the churches has been resistant to working with “outsiders” and the idea that we were living in a post-Christian world was met with “Nonsense, all my friends are Christian.” Having to explain that that kind of thinking is actually the problem was an interesting task. But we found that there were people who were actually interested in learning about the Imago Dei and how the idea of a “sent and sending” God actually manifests itself in us as the Missio Dei. The other partner church was more receptive, with at least one person having recently become a Christian. They are showing signs of real transformation…(continued)

For the past two years, they have opened up their front porch as a pancake restaurant to their neighborhood, free to anyone who will take the risk and meet their neighbors. By setting up a griddle, some tables and chairs, and passing out flyers around the neighborhood, they have become the gathering place once a month during the warmer, summer Colorado months.

One Saturday morning per month, neighbors start meandering down the side-walked streets towards the Andrews downtown home, often carrying their own secret recipes of side dishes and toppings for pancakes. While everyone eats really well, what happens around that griddle is magical…(continued)

My wife and I got involved with Forge about three years ago.  We had recently moved from an isolated place on a highway to a cul-de-sac in town.  We were super stoked to have neighbors again, and we wanted to be intentional about sharing and showing Jesus to our new neighborhood.  At the same time we were becoming fast friends with a family who were already amazing examples of this in their own neighborhood.  They invited us to explore Forge with them.  We were excited to learn more about what is means to be missionaries to our neighborhood…(continued)

For the first time in my ministry career, I don't have an office. I don’t have programs to point to for perceived success. I have no congregation, which means I’m not spending my time writing sermons and delivering them. My days are now filled with walking and biking my neighborhood, frequenting the same places to build relationships, helping serve the poor, being a good neighbor, practicing hospitality, and starting our church one living room or coffee shop meeting at a time.

Needless to say, I’ve floundered and fumbled my way through this process. While I have a deep conviction about the “why” behind what we’re doing, it hasn’t stopped me from feeling like a foreigner in a totally strange land of ministry…(continued)

“A group of us went to the Autumn House believing there was a group of people there who needed a meal, but what they were desperate for, what God sent us there for, was to allow the Kingdom to break through in small ways.  We were there to be someone to talk to, we were sent there to be someone for these residents to share their hearts with, we were sent there to someone to be with them.

“To be vulnerable and honest, we walked into the Autumn House full of pride, believing we knew what we were doing. God sent us to the Autumn House for a specific reason, and because of Delmond, Dylan and Alisha’s unlikely leadership, we all immediately dropped what we were doing and followed Jesus into mission, where he was already at work….(continued)”

A neighbor who has lived in our area for over thirty years recently saw us out working in the garden and stopped to tell a story. She shared her excitement over Burwell Gardens as she reflected on her time in the neighborhood when she was just girl…she spoke of peach trees, flowers, tasty vegetables, and the presence of an underground spring just below the garden.

So as we continue to strive to be faithfully present to our neighbors through this garden, it is our desire that as they encounter tasty veggies fed by a spring bubbling up from below, they may also encounter a foretaste of a life fed by a spring of living water…(continued)

Forge allows me to equip my church for this calling to be missionaries living out the Jesus life in the places they life work, and play; the exact places that Jesus has already sent them to join Him in his mission.  I lead an annual Forge Residency as a way of planting a church within a church, comprised of missional-minded disciples who are modeling this new life and helping me illustrate for the broader faith family the value of this ancient lifestyle.  We are redefining disciple-making as the responsibility of every disciple and not as the job of pastors or church programs…(continued)

We thought we were sent to Houston for treatment and hopeful recovered health.  But we were sent here for so much more.  This place is filled with miracles and God appointments.  He is so present here.  We are so blessed to have had this experience.  The friends we have met are lifetime friends, ones we will know for eternity…(continued)

We felt like we were on our own in our desire to live incarnational lives in the neighborhood God had moved us into. We knew that connecting with our neighbors on an authentically personal level was what was needed. And we were already seeing positive results. But, we didn't feel like we had much of a support system.

Most of our Christian friends didn't understand why we weren't in a church building as much anymore. Or why we weren't trying to bring our neighbors to church. We were starting to question whether or not we were on the right path.

Then we found Forge Sacramento…(continued)

The garden for me has been an experience in developing community.  I have met more people in the few months of working the garden then the 10 years I sat in my office.  The garden is on church property but not connected to it.  Between the church and the garden are 2 homes.  I was embarrassed when I went out recruiting for persons to take plots and realized I had never met my neighbors…(continued)

When I became a believer it dawned on me that the more I believe, the more I must also follow. As I read more about this Jesus guy, I became intrigued by the life that He led simply by going to people and loving them well and unconditionally. That was over 22 years ago. To this day, I find myself following this "Jesus guy" into the mission He has called me to in my community of Middletown, Ohio.

There's no wrong way to love your community right where they are. But there are some things that I have noticed that always work and have yet to fail me…(continued)

The neighborhood was beginning to wear on me and my children. Our house had been broken into several times…Gun violence had come too close for comfort. The loud music, the fights, the drugs, and the large groups of guys hanging out in front of our house were too much. One evening, I was sitting in the living room as chaos erupted outside. I decided I was done. I don’t have to do this anymore, I told myself. In fact, I can’t do this another year. I started looking for a house in the suburbs.

Right around this time, I began the Forge residency…(continued)