Why Are We Giving This Away For Free?

I’ve been asked why the Mission Houston Board and Staff decided to offer all of the Faithwalking services for free. The short answer is that it has been a deep work of God in our individual and collective hearts. There is a story behind how that occurred.

Faithwalking was launched in 2007. It is not uncommon in today’s environment for individuals with gifts (like talented musicians) or skills (like gifted preachers) to offer those gifts and skills to people beyond a local church. It is also not uncommon for those individuals to place a value on those gifts and skills and then sell them to the public. Whether it’s in a record album or in a collection of sermons that are placed in a book and sold in the market place, this is a common practice.

So when we launched Faithwalking we stepped into that common practice. We developed a retreat and then a small group follow up experience. We placed a value on it, and we sold it to anyone who would buy.

Along the way two things happened. First, virtually everyone who fully completed the Faithwalking course gave testimony to the deep impact that the experience had in their lives.

Second, a large number of people indicated that they could not participate because the cost was prohibitive. Though we were sympathetic to that, we also needed money to pay the salaries of the people (including me) who led Faithwalking, so we just kept charging a fee.

Then on Saturday morning of our December 2010 Board/Staff retreat we had one of the most courageous, authentic conversations about money . . . about our view of money . . . about our practices of stewardship . . . about our willingness to trust the Lord to provide if we would simply obey Him in every area of our life - especially, in the context of this conversation - regarding our money. Though we didn’t make any decisions that day about the fee for Faithwalking, we looked back at that conversation as one of the most powerful conversations about money in which any of us had participated.

Two weeks later - a week before Christmas - we met for another half day to finish up the planning that we needed to do for the 2011 ministry plan. In an unscripted moment of discussion about the budget, someone, I don’t even remember who, said, “How much income did we get from Faithwalking in 2010?”

Someone else said, “I think it was about $50,000 last year.”

Someone else said, “I think God is calling us to give this stuff away, and I believe we can trust the Lord to provide the income that is lost from charging a fee.”

A flurry of conversation occurred in the next seven to ten minutes and the decision was made. We looked at each other in a kind of stunned silence. What this really what God was calling us to do? It was our unanimous sense that He was.

Then someone realized that one of the Board members had left the meeting about an hour earlier. He was the Chair of the Faithwalking Task Force. We couldn’t make this decision without him. So we called and asked him to step out of a meeting he was in. We told him what had just transpired. He said, “Something in my spirit just thinks this is right.” And the decision was final.

So there is a real sense in which we are giving Faithwalking away as an act of obedience to God’s leading.

Faithwalking is a spiritual formation process that God uses to produces personal transformation in the lives of people who love Him and are eager to be on mission with Him. It is now our privilege to offer all the services of this ministry free of charge. If He is stirring your heart to join us, go to www.Faithwalkingonline.com

                                   Jim Herrington

Faithwalking Training is now FREE!

Mission Houston is excited to announce that our Faithwalking training is now offered free of charge!!

The purpose of Faithwalking is to create a growing community of Christ-followers who experience on-going personal transformation and who live in the kind of relationships while on mission with others that together they help produce transformation in neighborhoods and workplaces. This decision of the Board of Directors of Mission Houston became effective in January 2011, and reflects the ministry's desire to remove cost as an obstacle to participation in Faithwalking by residents of Houston.

Faithwalking exists both for individuals longing for increased impact in and through their lives, and for the leaders of congregations eager to help produce the kinds of saints who are more effective in their works of service as agents of God in every arena of life. Registration for Faithwalking offerings is required, and there is a $75 deposit that is fully refunded to participants at the conclusion of the training they participate in.  For more information, please go to our website: Faithwalking.

We solicit your prayers for us in making this step of faith, and we look forward to being with you on this journey!

On behalf of the Board of Mission Houston,

Randy Schroeder
Chairman of the Board
Mission Houston

It's Unanimous: Faithwalking is Free!

Randy Schroeder, Chairman of the Board of Mission Houston, announces that Faithwalking will be offered for free: "We don't want money to be an issue for anybody taking Faithwalking." 

Contrast and Companionship: The Way of the Church With the World

Houston Graduate School of Theology will host Dr. George Hunsberger on Thursday, March 3, 2011. Dr. Hunsberger’s lecture is titled Contrast and Companionship: The Way of the Church With the World. Book signing will begin at 6:00 pm and the lecture at 7:00 pm. Houston Graduate School of Theology, in partnership with Mission Houston and churches in the Houston metropolitan area, is dedicated to advancing the missional movement in our city. For this reason, HGST has invited Dr. Hunsberger, a leading scholar of the missional church, to present its annual spring lecture. The public is invited.

Born in Pennsylvania, Hunsberger lived most of his early years in Miami, Florida. He received the B.A. degree from Belhaven College in 1966 and the M.Div. degree from Reformed Theological Seminary in 1970. In 1987, he received the Ph.D. degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in the field of Ecumenics, Missiology, and the History of Religions. His doctoral work focused on Lesslie Newbigin’s theology of cultural plurality.

He is Professor of Missiology and Director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, where he has taught since 1989. He is a member of the American Society of Missiology, serving as its Secretary-Treasurer from 1988-1997 and its President from 2004-2005. Since its inception in 1987, he has coordinated The Gospel and Our Culture Network in North America (GOCN). George is the author of Bearing the Witness of the Spirit and co-author of Missional Church and Treasure in Clay Jars. He is co-editor of The Church Between Gospel and Culture, A Scandalous Prophet, and Christian Ethics in Ecumenical Context.

Houston Graduate School of Theology is located at 2501 Central Parkway, Suite A19, in Houston. For more information about HGST go to: www.hgst.edu

Transformation is possible: don’t despise the day of small beginnings!

God is doing something amazing at the University of Texas! The Body of Christ, comprised of more than 60 campus ministries and churches, is working together as one united Church to reach all 50,000 students with the Gospel of Jesus. Campus ministries are working together, treating UT like one common mission field. They have broken the university population into 500-700 people groups and are equipping and sending students for impacting the group they are part of as missionaries. Already their influence is being felt broadly. As a result, for the past few years, an average of 500 students per school year have chosen to follow Christ. That’s 1% of UT’s population each year! Over the last 10 years the percentage of students actively participating in campus ministries has doubled, from 5% of the total UT student population to 10%. Mission Houston celebrates this unfolding story and gladly shares it as a current example of what God can do and wants to do through the Body of Christ working together. Here is a short excerpt from one of the college pastors involved in the movement.

It’s been said that 2 percent of an organization, if completely sold out to a particular vision, can change the entire organization. While I am not sure of the veracity of that fact, I can say from experience that just a few college pastors working together on a project (e.g., a mission trip or a campus event), attending a retreat, or uniting in prayer can have a marked effect on the direction of your entire campus movement.