The Venture 12 Podcast

In this episode we talk to Rickard Cruz, missional leader and co-founder of Katalysator Sweden which has vision to plant the good news of Jesus in every place, in every ethnic group and in every subculture. In this conversation Rickard shares his experience and helps us reflect upon how we can meet our muslim neighbors and friends with a heart to learn and posture of curiosity to see what the spirit is already doing in their lives and attuning to loving ways we can speak about Jesus.

https://www.rickardcruz.se

www.katalysator.net

In this episode we share some prayers, poems and reflections for this unique Advent Season. We'd like to extend a big thank you to friends of the podcast; poets Sarah Bourns Crosby and Will Small for their inspiring and powerful words and contributions. Finally we'd also like to thank you all for listening to and supporting the podcast during 2023. We hope this reflective episode will give you something to ponder, perhaps give you something to discuss with others but ultimately draw you closer into the presence of Christ. May God bless you richly this Advent season and Merry Christmas!

Contributions

In Violence and Travail. Words by Walter Brueggemann, Voice Ashely Bowles, Music by Mark Cotterill

Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. Notes on Advent: Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Blessed Is She: Words by Sarah Bourns Crosby (Advent Guide, Poems, Passages and Prompts)

The Other Story by Will Small

The Venture 12 Podcast Team

Alex Gibson -  Host -Editor

Mark Cotterill - Host, Music and Art

Hanna Mingay -Host

Chris Mingay - Host

Kris Halliday - Host

Emma Cotterill - Host

Bethany Gibson - Host

Pete Enns is an author, scholar and professor. This podcast takes some of those Christian ideas that usually scare, intimidate or worry us, and then make those very places a meeting place with a God who is bigger and more wonderful, mysterious and trustworthy than we ever could have guessed.

The Gathering Network - Micro churches in an European context

In this episode we have a conversation with Charlotte and Adam Penketh, the leaders of the Gathering Network in Glasgow. They invite us into a conversation about small missional communities, activating the whole body of Christ and what’s it’s like leading a network in Europe with its unique opportunities and challenges.

In this episode we meet Alan Hirsch award winning author of numerous books on missional spirituality, leadership and organisation and Rob Kelly who serves as a catalyst for city networks that unite the church for the flourishing of cities. Together they have just co-authored and released a book titled 'Metanoia". In this conversation we talk about the profound gift embedded in these first words of Jesus and explore with new eyes and new language this ancient call to realign our hearts and minds to Christ sparking the deep rooted transformation in people, churches and organisations that we so desperately desire.

In this episode we talk to Brian Sanders founder of the Underground Network about his book The 6 seasons of Calling in which he invites us to see 'calling' as something dynamic and ongoing rather than something that is static or a one-time only experience.

In this episode we're back talking to Brad Brisco again. This time we delve deeper into co-vocational ministry, what it is, why it's important for the future of the church and we find out about some of the details of how it really works. 

1)What from today's episode is particularly relevant for your culture right now?

2)How can I learn more/ is there anything that needs clarifying or I don't understand?

If you want to join us for our online conversation event on 1st Dec 7:15pm (UK) 8:15pm (CET) here is the zoom link: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84915906699

Kicking off season 3 is an interview with Jessie Cruickshank. God wired our brains for transformation! This adventurous neuroscientist shares her experience and research around discipleship and how our unique personalities and individual stories are the basis for our faith journeys rather than the knowledge we possess or the theology we gravitate towards. 

yourbrainbyjess.com
whoology.co

V12. EP 2.13 - 

Author, theologian and teaching pastor at Woodland Hills Community Church, Greg Boyd lays down some of the foundational ideas behind 'Openness Theology' and the implication and inspiration this has on personal calling and the mission of the body of Christ.

Check out  Reknew.

https://reknew.org/

- Resourcing the Revolution

Seeking to inspire, educate and expand the Kingdom Revolution centered around the beautiful God we find in Jesus

Tracy Mathews, pioneer, entrepreneur and shepherd of the spiritual journey joins us in this episode to take us on a journey towards greater spiritual attunement.  She founded the organisation Attune which offers tools and training to help people and teams slow down, listen deeply, and tap into more of God's wisdom and guidance for the decision making, problem-solving, wayfinding, risk-taking and team-building of organizational leadership. We try it out in this episode!

Please find Attune's guided exercises here

https://attunetogrow.org/practice

Shane Claiborne is a prominent speaker, activist, and best-selling author. Shane worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, and founded The Simple Way in Philadelphia. He heads up Red Letter Christians, a movement of folks who are committed to living "as if Jesus meant the things he said." Shane is a champion for grace which has led him to jail advocating for the homeless, and to places like Iraq and Afghanistan to stand against war. Now grace fuels his passion to end the death penalty and help stop gun violence.

In this episode, Shane speaks prophetically in to the current global climate surrounding war, and how we can strive to become forgers of peace and unity.

Over the last couple of years there has been lots of talk across the world about micro-churches and returning to more movemental forms of ecclesia. In todays podcast we explore this a little further as Tim Burr shares with us the lessons learnt along the road in Ivy Church's (Manchester) journey in promoting and establishing micro-churches. Tim Burr is Regional Director for New Thing Europe and is on team at Ivy Church Manchester

Phil Wall shares his experiences of pioneering and innovating both in the market place and through the emergence of new expressions of church. He is a leadership coach helping leaders across the world to become the best version of themselves they can possibly be. His heart however lies with 'We see Hope'; the organisation he founded together with his wife, Wendy, which seeks to empower children and communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, Phil and Wendy have recently been awarded MBEs from The Queen in recognition of the incredible impact of this work. This podcast is about being a catalyst of Good News in the world.

In the final episode of 2021, Dr. Miguel De La Torre shares stories and experiences of how intentionally shifting our perspectives to the margins when reading the Bible can help bring us closer to Jesus, truth and justice. 

What if the word “homosexual” was never meant to be in the Bible?

In this conversation with Author and LGBTQ Activist Kathy Baldock we explore how the word "homosexual" came to be in the Bible as a result of translation error in work towards releasing 1946 Revised Standard Version of the Bible. This was the first time the "word" ever appeared in scripture in any language! In this fascinating episode Kathy also helps us understand the far ranging impact this mistranslation had in shaping the widespread anti-Gay culture in many Christian communities across the world.

Interview by Kris Halliday and Brad Watson

In this episode, doulas Vanessa Power and Jessica Becton Stephens share how they serve through their gifts and callings by leading a missional micro church aimed at supporting women through pregnancy and child birth.

In this podcast Dr Fran Porter compellingly shares how the story and paradigm of Christendom shapes the story of the church and crucial human relationships. Those between men and women.

Join us for a whirlwind tour of the world you thought you knew, but that you're only just discovering!

There are so many feelings, ideas and traditions surrounding the bible. How to read it, how to use it and how to understand it. In this episode we talk to Bradley Jersak about the scriptures, authority and WHO the Word is. (Spoiler: The Word grew a beard, when he was 18). 

How do we avoid on the one hand modern literalism and on the other hand throwing out the Bible all together as irrelevant or outdated?

The conversation revolves around his book “A More Christlike Word”, where he explores the ancient ways of reading and interpreting the bible.

In the second episode of our miniseries on the fivefold, we welcome Nathan Brewer who is a church planter in Austria,  a 5Q coach and  the Author of The Pulse of Christ: A fivefold Training Manual. Nathan talks to us about why the fivefold is important for the health and maturity of the church and also helps us move forward from just concepts and awareness to how the fivefold gifts can actually be practiced to help equip disciples and leaders.

To contact Nathan Nathan@fivefoldtraining.com

You can order The Pulse of Christ: A Fivefold Training Manual directly from his website at https://www.fivefoldtraining.com/eng/

In this episode part of the core leadership team in Helsingborg Salvation Army share stories of what it looks like when the diverse APEST callings and functions (Eph. 4) collaborate to release the potential in one another, in discipleship and mission.

The Starfish and The Spirit is about creating a culture where leaders view themselves as curators of a community in mission, not as a source of certainty for every question and problem.

Imagine a church led by a team whose gifts and talents are completely unleashed, enabling everyone to show up and step up with all they are. What would it look like to see this kind of healthy leadership for generations?

In this episode we welcome Emma Scott, church leader in Mitcham, to share her thoughts on the New Monastic practice of “sharing a common rule of life”. A practical conversation on how sharing common practices can help shape our walk with Jesus as well as the communities we live in.

Jonny Baker inspires imagination and creativity in this conversation about how the church and acts of worship could look post pandemic.

"The challenge facing Christianity today is not a lack of motivation or resources, but a failure of imagination." - Skye Jethani.

This time we interview Paula Gooder who is a Pauline Scholar, writer, speaker and more. Join us on a journey back in time to the early church to encounter one of the key catalysts and leaders in the  expansion of Christianity.

"Very few people are as expert as Paula Gooder in communicating biblical scholarship clearly and creatively". - Rowan Williams

What is the Bible? Who is it for? How have we been using it? How should we use it? How should we teach it? Where does it fit in the future of the church?

Dr. Peter Enns shares his wisdom on how to handle the Bible by letting it be exactly what it is.

"The Bible deconstructs from within what the church has made of it." P. Enns

A conversation with Alan Hirsch.

We have become so over reliant on particular ways of being and doing church. The challenge of leadership now is to lead – and not just get through it but come through into what the Lord has been telling us and many of us have been dreaming of for so long? An adaptive ecclesiology for the 21st Century.

“The restoration of the church will surely come from a new kind of monasticism, which will have nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ.” Dietrich Bohnhoffer

Mark Scott from The UK Salvation Army joins us to talk about the growing interest in New Monasticism and its role in the future Church, and how this has shaped the community he lives in. 

Dave Ferguson is an award-winning author, founding and lead pastor of Chicago’s Community Christian Church, a missional multi-site community considered one of the most influential churches in America. Dave is also the visionary for the international church-planting movement NewThing and president of the Exponential Conference. He joins us to share practices and tools for apprenticing, multiplying and discipling in our world today.

The church that we have inherited has been bound by a patriarchal model which has deprived the mission of Jesus of its explosive impact.

Enabling the re-emergence of female apostolic voices in the design and shaping of the future church is critical for such a culturally defining moment as this.

Emma Cotterill shares examples and insight in to the central role of women in the early church as we explore why it is vital that the female apostolic voice is re found and re released in the shaping of the future.

(Artwork taken from  the book Mary and Early Christian  Women: Hidden Leadership by Ally Kateusz, 2019)

In preparation for the next V12 Network gathering, Mark Cotterill shares the incredible story of St Patrick and how his story impacted the culture and church of the time, but how it also can teach us about the importance of apostolic listening and acting today.