Episodes
Thursday Jan 25, 2024
Spiritual Direction: Authentically Experiencing Jesus; With Larissa Marks
Thursday Jan 25, 2024
Thursday Jan 25, 2024
Larissa talks with Geoff and Joy about how she engages with others on their spiritual journeys throughout life. She shares the value of caring, belonging and thriving in a safe community. Everyone needs to be seen and secure. Spiritual Direction co-creates a space for those needs to be met.
About Larissa
Larissa Marks is a Spiritual Director and Formation Coach who creates space for people to experience God's presence. She has over 20 years of experience in soul care that includes spiritual direction, spiritual formation coaching, and facilitating group learning experiences. She is part of a vibrant collective of people who are co-creating transformative expressions of faith and community. This includes work with non-profit organizations, businesses, land stewardship, learning communities working toward restorative justice, and faith gatherings in homes and neighborhoods. She was raised on Maui, and now lives on Oahu with her husband and four children.
Connect with Larissa
https://www.larissamarks.com
https://www.greenlinehawaii.com/
Connect with Communitas:
Website: https://gocommunitas.org/
Instagram: @gocommunitas
Podcast episodes and more: https://linktr.ee/communitasinternational
Thursday Jan 11, 2024
Living out loud in London: With Oli and Constance Smith
Thursday Jan 11, 2024
Thursday Jan 11, 2024
On this weeks episode, Geoff and Joy sit down with Church Planters Constance and Oli Smith. They share their passion for building genuine relationships through the ups and downs of living as loving presence in their neighborhood. They talk about how showing up, listening and peacemaking can make a way for long term connections.
About Constance and Oli
Constance and Oli are Church planters with twenty years of experience each and have been involved in 8 church planting situations combined in both the U.S and U.K. They have been married since 2011 and have one amazing son.
They have been involved in pioneer church planting in post-Christian contexts in London for a long time and currently lead a creative church planting work in East London, called 3 Cups Church. As a community they seek to help people know the love of Jesus, work for reconciliation in a neighborhood damaged by gentrification, and connect art and the gospel together. Oli does a lot of teaching and street theology as well as cooking and hospitality. Constance is an artist and philosopher. When their son falls asleep they drink dark beer, play video games together and treat their small black and white cat like the princess she is.
Connect with Constance and Oli
constance.smith@gocommunitas.org
oli.smith@christianassociates.org.
Resource mentioned
On Kindness by Adam Phillips & Barbara Taylor- https://www.amazon.com/Kindness-Adam-Phillips/dp/0312429746
Connect with Communitas:
Website: https://gocommunitas.org/
Instagram: @gocommunitas
Podcast episodes and more: https://linktr.ee/communitasinternational
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
Coaching can Change your Life! With Alan Briggs
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
On this episode, Geoff and Joy sit down with Leadership Coach, Author, and Speaker Alan Briggs, about how being a coach has changed his life! Plus he shares a number of benefits coaching can bring to those on the receiving end. He values doing the right things well, noting that energy is our most precious asset.
Listen in as Alan encourages us to live from a place of awareness and authenticity in order to bring clarity, calm, curiosity and courage.
About Alan
Alan is a mountain guide for the leadership journey. He loves outdoor adventures, but the greatest adventure of his being a father and husband. Alan is crazy about helping hungry leaders conquer overwhelm and navigate with courage. He serves leaders and organizations around the country through coaching, speaking, consulting, designing experiences, hosting mastermind groups, writing his own books and ghostwriting for others. He co-hosts Stay Forth Leadership Podcast and regularly writes for Outreach and Field Notes .
Connect with Alan
Listen in to practical thoughts on living and leading effectively at Stay Forth Leadership Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stay-forth-leadership-podcast/id1449683368
Find out more about coaching at: http://stayforth.com/coaching
Email: alan@stayforth.com if you are interested in participating in an Effective Leaders Cohort
Social media: @stayforth
Connect with Communitas:
Website: https://gocommunitas.org/
Instagram: @gocommunitas
Podcast episodes and more: https://linktr.ee/communitasinternational
Thursday Dec 21, 2023
How to Embed and Initiate with your deconstructing friends: With David Truatwein
Thursday Dec 21, 2023
Thursday Dec 21, 2023
Geoff and David discuss the transition of moving back to the United States after living and serving oversees in Cambodia. David found ways to "be the church" with friends and neighbors back at home by applying what he had learned while away and challenging his preconceived ideas of how to "do church".
About David
David and Ashley with two kids, Jace and Navi, live in Southern CA. They are currently in an emerging microchurch and seeking to live missionally in their community. David also does coaching with different churches around spiritual formation and emotional health.
Connect with David
If people want to connect, they can find David and Ashley through FB or Instagram at david_trautwein or via email at david.trautwein@gocommunitas.org
Connect with Communitas:
Website: https://gocommunitas.org/
Instagram: @gocommunitas
Podcast episodes and more: https://linktr.ee/communitasinternational
Thursday Dec 07, 2023
Community Culture at The Well: With Mandy Memmel
Thursday Dec 07, 2023
Thursday Dec 07, 2023
Mandy Memmel's passion is inspirational and contagious! She shares her story of personal transformation as she followed God's leading to create a safe haven for women living in an urban Baltimore setting. Her non-profit has become a thriving community center that focuses on love, forgiveness, reciprocal learning and hope. Multiple types of mentorship, support and employment are provided through a sustainable vision. She encourages others to do more than "pop and drop" ministry and missional work. She says, "my life was changed forever" when she started living this way.
About Mandy
Mandy Memmel is the founder and executive director of The Well and Hon’s Honey, located in the south east corner of Baltimore, MD. She founded the organization in 2013 after being involved in the community as a mentor and small group leader for over 10 years. Her vision was to provide a safe haven in the community for women to be loved and restored. Now, The Well is a thriving organization and life center offering women community, opportunity and responsibility. Mandy has a nursing background. She was also the co-owner of an interior design business for 12 years. She is the proud mom of 3 adult children, each of whom are actively using their gifts to influence the world around them, and two grandbabies. While raising her children, she led women’s ministry at her church, which paved the way for urban ministry in Baltimore.
She has mentored over 20 women. In 2018, she received an award in Anne Arundel County for “Women Making a Difference” and recently received the GameChanger award through Baltimore Magazine. While she much prefers to give awards to others, she is thankful for the opportunity to make a difference and say “yes” to change, for the broken and wounded of her community.
Resources:
https://www.drinkatthewell.org/our-team
https://www.honshoneymarketplace.com/
Connect with Communitas:
Website: https://gocommunitas.org/
Instagram: @gocommunitas
Podcast episodes and more: https://linktr.ee/communitasinternational
Thursday Nov 30, 2023
Transitions and Training; With Brad Smith
Thursday Nov 30, 2023
Thursday Nov 30, 2023
On this episode, Joy and Geoff talk with Brad Smith about his life story and the transitions he faced when moving overseas and coming back to the United States. As Communitas' Training Director, he shares how training has played a pivotal role in his emotional health and spiritual development.
About Brad
Bradley Smith grew up in California, on the central coast, San Luis Obispo area. He met his wife Hannah while at University and they have two children, Hudson (12) and Sawyer (10). Brad and Hannah have both been following Jesus since a very young age. Brad comes from a fairly long line of Jesus followers. His Grandfather was a pastor and missionary. His father was a pastor and now runs a missions agency called Global Sharing.
Brad is a middle child with a younger sister and older brother. He originally went to school for engineering but transferred to music, a passion, halfway through. He has led worship teams at church since high school. In 2014, He and Hannah purposed to leave the secular work force and pursue a full time position for him in Worship leading. The only door that opened however was a position in France at a small International church called ICCP. This is how they became “missionaries” and connected to Communitas. In the process, Brad felt God tug his heart with Matthew 28, namely, that he didn’t know how to make a disciple, which lead him to discover the DMM methods (Disciple Making Movement) and learn the Discovery Bible Study process before leaving for France. With a group of guys from work, he started a bible study at a coffee shop / bar. Those nine months were a watershed for Brad, as the Spirit trained him in disciple-making and he had the privilege of leading a coworker to Jesus. He recognized that helping others discover God was the most fulfilling thing He had ever done in his life. In France, they started a few groups and trained people in the process. Later they moved to the Netherlands to train people in this “DBS” process, as well as another training they ran in France that helped find spiritually receptive people. Brad and Hannah loved the Netherlands, but God brought them back to the USA for family reasons. Now he gets the awesome privilege of making sure people get the training they need as the Training Director for Communitas.
He loves seeing people develop. He loves to help them prepare and also get excited about helping others discover God. He has a huge heart for people serving the Lord cross-culturally, believing and experiencing it as one of the most difficult things a person can do. It is his heart to make sure they have access to whatever tools they need. In his spare time, he enjoys cycling with Hannah and the boys and loves playing guitar. He enjoys most artistically driven music. Right now he listens to and plays a lot of Dream Theater. If he got stuck on a desert island and could only listen to one band for the rest of his life, it would be Led Zeppelin. He likes thinking deeply about things and loves principles and process. He loves to laugh and not take things too seriously.
He loves the adventure of following God, and is learning to be content not adventuring ;-) He’s always available for a good talk about God, life, politics, sports, music, or just about anything, especially if a descent beverage is involved.
Resources mentioned
https://www.contagiousdisciplemaking.com/ https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/ https://learninghub.gocommunitas.org/courses/co2-the-church-of-two/
Connect with Communitas:
Website: https://gocommunitas.org/
Instagram: @gocommunitas
Podcast episodes and more: https://linktr.ee/communitasinternational
Thursday Nov 16, 2023
Features, Bugs, Bubbles and Metrics Part 2; With Paul and Karen Haenze
Thursday Nov 16, 2023
Thursday Nov 16, 2023
Geoff and Joy have an in depth conversation with Paul and Karen about their years of experience living oversees and working in various contexts to love and serve people. Their wisdom helps us understand how to balance internal and external focus, what metrics we should and shouldn't be measuring, and the ways we have gotten to such a pivotal point in time.
About Paul and Karen
Paul and Karen came to faith in very different ways. Paul was raised in a home that prioritized faith and church, and Karen was raised in a loving but agnostic environment. Paul engaged in church ministry as a child, a young teenager while Karen didn’t come to faith until she was 15. At different times and in different ways, their hearts were drawn to the possibility of cross-cultural ministry. When they met in our adult years in Germany, that common vision was foundational in their friendship. As often happens, their road was circuitous.
After their wedding in California, they headed out to Illinois for Paul to attend seminary, in part to fulfill the requirements of his longtime denomination. Eventually, a difference in ministry philosophy led to a parting from the denomination and a reboot in California where they served in Missions but from the other side of the desk.
Eventually, their path took them to Poland (with 3 kids in tow) and to a new adventure in language and culture learning and then vision casting and training in the area of starting new fellowships. Fifteen years into their time there, they began to be drawn to ministry with those on the margins of society-at risk children and youth and people experiencing homelessness.
In addition to leading Discovery Bible Study groups and training within a Polish non-profit, they were able to start a project helping Polish citizens experiencing homelessness in Birmingham, England, and eventually they were able to start a church community in one of the non-profit’s shelters in Southern Poland. That little community was for them the simplest, purest and most beautiful form of church they had experienced. They miss it!
Now, family needs have brought them back to California and to a new position within Communitas, Directors of Pre-Deployment. They work with staff from the moment that they start their journey with Communitas until they are released to their new ministry location on the field. It is a joy for them to companion new staff, investing in people as they prepare to transition to their new place of ministry.
Life is full of changes and adventure but the presence of God holds them tight through it all.
Connect with Paul and karen
paul.haenze@gocommunitas.org
karen.haenze@gocommunitas.org
Connect with Communitas:
Website: https://gocommunitas.org/
Instagram: @gocommunitas
Podcast episodes and more: https://linktr.ee/communitasinternational
Thursday Nov 09, 2023
Feautres, Bugs, Bubbles and Metrics Part 1; With Paul and Karen Haenze
Thursday Nov 09, 2023
Thursday Nov 09, 2023
Geoff and Joy have an in depth conversation with Paul and Karen about their years of experinece living oversees and working in various contexts to love and serve people. Their wisdom helps us understand how to balance internal and external focus, what metrics we should and shouldn't be measuring, and the ways we have gotten to such a pivitol point in time.
About Paul and karen
Paul and Karen came to faith in very different ways. Paul was raised in a home that prioritized faith and church, and Karen was raised in a loving but agnostic environment. Paul engaged in church ministry as a child, a young teenager while Karen didn’t come to faith until she was 15. At different times and in different ways, their hearts were drawn to the possibility of cross-cultural ministry. When they met in our adult years in Germany, that common vision was foundational in their friendship. As often happens, their road was circuitous.
After their wedding in California, they headed out to Illinois for Paul to attend seminary, in part to fulfill the requirements of his longtime denomination. Eventually, a difference in ministry philosophy led to a parting from the denomination and a reboot in California where they served in Missions but from the other side of the desk.
Eventually, their path took them to Poland (with 3 kids in tow) and to a new adventure in language and culture learning and then vision casting and training in the area of starting new fellowships. Fifteen years into their time there, they began to be drawn to ministry with those on the margins of society-at risk children and youth and people experiencing homelessness.
In addition to leading Discovery Bible Study groups and training within a Polish non-profit, they were able to start a project helping Polish citizens experiencing homelessness in Birmingham, England, and eventually they were able to start a church community in one of the non-profit’s shelters in Southern Poland. That little community was for them the simplest, purest and most beautiful form of church they had experienced. They miss it!
Now, family needs have brought them back to California and to a new position within Communitas, Directors of Pre-Deployment. They work with staff from the moment that they start their journey with Communitas until they are released to their new ministry location on the field. It is a joy for them to companion new staff, investing in people as they prepare to transition to their new place of ministry.
Life is full of changes and adventure but the presence of God holds them tight through it all.
Connect with Paul and karen
paul.haenze@gocommunitas.org
karen.haenze@gocommunitas.org
Connect with Communitas:
Website: https://gocommunitas.org/
Instagram: @gocommunitas
Podcast episodes and more: https://linktr.ee/communitasinternational