Release The APE

An Unlikely Planter

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August 7, 2014

This is a guest post by Chizu Shimizu. She is on staff with Intervarsity in San Diego and works with Urban Projects and Student Missions.

This is an incredible story of being committed to planting new works of God. Chizu, in many ways, was the least likely person in my mind that God would send to get this job done – her role on staff has nothing to do with planting new chapters. But I have known Chizu for almost 15 years and she has a heart that beats for the path of God. I love her obedience to a strange call of God (totally outside her job role) and her willingness to follow God’s planting scent all the way down the trail. Watch this video testimony of her telling the incredible story of a planting mission this last year.

Five-Fold Partnership: What Prophets Need

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August 3, 2014

By Eric Rafferty

Of all the gifts in the body of Christ, prophets above all appear to function just fine on their own. The Bible is full of examples of independent prophets who were sent alone with a message or a task from God. They challenged leaders. They rebuked nations and societies. They stood alone in the gap between God and his people. Maybe this is why so many of the prophets of scripture responded to their initial prophetic calling by basically screaming, “NOOOOOOOO!”

Please Take Our 2014 Reader Survey

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August 2, 2014

We want to make our blog better and more relevant to your needs and interests. To do that, I need to know more about YOU. As a result, we have created a 2014 Reader Survey.

By filling out this survey you will ultimately be helping you as a reader of this blog! Why? Because your answers are going to help shape the content that we post going forward.

Why Are We Building So Many Walls?

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July 30, 2014

By Beau Crosetto

Something interesting is happening in my neighborhood – a new wall is going up.

A high school teacher that was arrested three months ago owns the house on the right. He was pulled from his house in hand cuffs – I watched it all happen. Bad stuff went down that day. Furthermore, he throws loud parties into the night and to say the least some really fishy stuff is happening over there. It’s also not the first run in with the law he has had.

3 STEPS TO DEVELOP APOSTOLIC IMPULSE ON YOUR TEAM!

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July 27, 2014

By Linson Daniel

This was an interesting year for me. My leadership was really stretched.

I went from planting new chapters to planting new areas for InterVarsity/USA in North Texas and Oklahoma. Four years ago, my team started as one area with 390 students in 7 chapters. It has since grown to become 707 students in 16 chapters. Now, my area has multiplied into three new areas each with its own area director.

I’ve reflected back on the past four years to figure out which steps nurtured the apostolic impulse needed to generate this growth. As a leader, you can help foster apostolic impulse in every team member! I’ve distilled it down to these three steps:

Five Fold Partnership: What Evangelists Need

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July 24, 2014

By Beau Crosetto

What Evangelists Bring

Evangelists bring an un-quenching intensity to see people not following Jesus start following him. They want the community of faith the reach far and wide and if people that don’t know Jesus are not being reached, then the community is not in a healthy spot. Evangelists not only do evangelism themselves and lead others to faith, but at their best this person is creating vision for the community as a whole that is evangelistic where everyone is active in working to see people come to faith. Called evangelists are responsible to train the believers in witness, proclaim the gospel boldly and shape the community of faith to be a place where “sinners” draw near as it was said about Jesus in Luke 15:1

“Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him.”

But every gift casts a shadow and the evangelist has two clear dimensions.

Website Redesign: 2 New Features

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July 23, 2014

As you can see our site has been redesigned! Eric Holmer did it for us and I’m really happy about it!

Two New Features

Do Prophets Exist Today?

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July 21, 2014

By Alexia Salvatierra

When I was speaking at an Intervarsity event this week, one of the student leaders expressed some doubt that prophets after the coming of Christ are called to include a social justice element in their message. That is not an uncommon stance in many of our churches.

Quick Announcement and a Favor

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July 16, 2014

Book Launch in 65 Days!

I am really close to wrapping up my long-awaited book “Beyond Awkward”. I will be releasing it September 19th! But before I do, I have to ask you a couple of questions. Can you help me out?

I would love to know what you as APE’s are thinking about evangelism and would love to have some of your collaboration in this!

You can answer the questions here (and get a little more detail on the book) at this link:

http://beaucrosetto.com/?p=392

Thanks so much!

Beau

How Does Environment Effect Mission?

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July 14, 2014

This is a guest post by Nick Johnson. He is the Director of InterVarsity for the State of GA and he is working hard with his team to make a culture shift to own the whole field of college campuses and commit to reaching all 90+.

Shortly after my wife and I got married we were wrestling with how we could better love the poor in our city. After reflecting on why it was hard for us to make it a priority, we realized it was where we lived. The Starbucks, nice shopping mall, and trendy restaurants nearby were a distraction. To fully press into this value we had, we needed an environment change. So we moved into a low-income neighborhood.

I wonder for how many of us our environment is hindering our abilities to fully press into our mission?