Missional Living Archives

Jim Herrington – Faithwalking Reflections

Can you relate to these words from one of our participants? “There were a couple of key relationships in my life that it seemed like…I don’t know…God didn’t care about or God wouldn’t work in.” “I had just given up on ever seeing them change…” “We had been so stuck for so long….”

But her story doesn’t end there: “We had been so stuck for so long – and we’ve gotten unstuck. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’ve gotten hopeful about what is possible if I keep doing the work.” “I just wanted to say thank you for Faithwalking. God is using it to change my life.”

Our founder Jim Herrington says that he hears stories like these all the time:

“I’ve been in ministry for 46 years. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve seen more deep life change in people’s lives in the 10 years I’ve been involved with Faithwalking than in all the other years of ministry combined. And that is worth celebrating and supporting.”

In the video below, Jim shares these stories and other reflections on the impact of Faithwalking through the years. He also offers his thoughts on our new Faithwalking Foundations curriculum: “In all of our experience, I can say with confidence that there is no better product or process than the Foundations courses that the Faithwalking team has developed.”

We are so grateful to Jim for all he has poured into Faithwalking and his encouragement as we move forward into the next phase in the life of this ministry.

We hope these resources have been helpful to you. If so, please consider joining us in making wholeness possible. You can:

Give financially

Pray for the campaign and for the Faithwalking work

Share and promote Faithwalking and the different stories and resources we offer

Donate to the Faithwalking Campaign

A Message from Our Board

“God has used Faithwalking powerfully in my life.”

Gail Edmonson has a lot she can say about Faithwalking. As someone who has not only completed the curriculum herself but is also a Faithwalking coach, facilitator, and Circle leader – and chair of our board of directors – she has a remarkable breadth and depth of Faithwalking experience, and her words have weight. Faithwalking, she says, “is about being on mission in this world for God. It’s about learning more about how God created me so I can hear clearly from him how he wants me to be on mission with him in the places where I live, and work, and play.”

She shares one way God has opened her eyes: “I like to say now that I’m a recovering perfectionist, because through Faithwalking, God showed me how that was not who he’d actually created me to be but was a way that I’d learned to be in order to be safe and loved in the world.”

In the video above, Gail speaks of the impact Faithwalking has had in her life and that she has witnessed in others’ lives, and why she serves as a Faithwalking volunteer – as our board chair and in her other roles. She outlines Faithwalking’s mission, vision, and some of its strategy and states that the board exists to ensure Faithwalking is fulfilling these with integrity.

Gail explains that she supports Faithwalking because “I see the transformation it brings about in the lives of others, those around me” and “I want to see more and more people impacted by the work that God does through Faithwalking.”

**Seated:** Ken Shuman, Gail Edmonson, Angela Raley (staff), Linda Powell, Jeff McGee **By video:** Sherri Meyer-Veen, Kim King, Tim McGee

If you would like to be part of what Faithwalking is doing, too, please join us in making wholeness possible. You can:

Give financially

Pray for the campaign and for the Faithwalking work

Share and promote Faithwalking and the different stories and resources we offer

Donate to the Faithwalking Campaign

Faithwalking in Greeley, CO

“Tammi and I deeply desire to bring that hope and the depth of relationships and the transformation that we found to our city.”

Tammi and Phil Van Drunen were so excited by the changes they were seeing in their lives as a result of their Faithwalking experience that they wanted to connect with others who had been through the process, but there was no one else in their town who had. Faithwalking had not yet been planted in Greeley, CO – so Tammi and Phil planted it! Their second cohort is currently wrapping up the third Foundations module, and they are eagerly witnessing the impact on their community – in homes, jobs, families, and other relationships.

The transformation they have witnessed has served to strengthen Tammi and Phil’s resolve to keep their own transformation alive by continuing to engage the Faithwalking process in their own lives and by coaching others. Their mission is for more and more people in their community to experience Faithwalking. Click below to watch Tammi and Phil share more about their Faithwalking adventure in Greeley.

If you would like to be part of what Faithwalking is doing, too, please join us in making wholeness possible. You can:

Give financially

Pray for the campaign and for the Faithwalking work

Share and promote Faithwalking and the different stories and resources we offer

Donate to the Faithwalking Campaign

CrossWalk Center, A Missional Community

Kathy Vosburg shares that her missional community is people coming out of incarceration.

“Every day, five days a week, at the Midtown Greyhound bus terminal, 50-90 individuals, both men and women, are coming off the bus from the Huntsville “Walls Unit,” having been released. And all they have is $50-$100 in their pocket. Everything that they can carry is in a bag on their backs, and if there is not family or friends or an advocate or somebody from the body of Christ to walk alongside them, what are they going to do? Especially when many of them may have gone in as a 19, 20, 21-year old, and they get out at 46.”

Kathy is Executive Director of CrossWalk Center, an organization that welcomes and serves returning citizens and their families in a safe hub, offering social services and faith-based ministry, giving them hope and a future. Among other resources, CrossWalk Center offers re-etry coaching and a Transformational Discipleship Home program for formerly incarcerated individuals who are part of their 40-week reentry discipleship journey that begins while they are still in prison. “There is no re-entry without relationships. We need to walk alongside them.”

When Kathy and her husband were sponsored for a Faithwalking retreat back in 2010, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. There they were confronted with the question, “What’s stopping you from stepping into who God intended you to be?” Kathy found herself mulling over what was stopping her and what it looked like to be radically obedient. That was the beginning of a journey that led her to leave the security of her 10-year business behind to step into a wilderness of risks and unknowns, choosing to be bold and courageous in seeking to radically change the reentry system. Kathy shares that not one of the men who has graduated from CrossWalk Center’s Transformational Discipleship Homes has been re-arrested or gone back to prison.

Kathy reflects on the role Faithwalking has played in taking on this missional community: “For me, Faithwalking is transformative. Even if you have been a Christian and have been part of the body of Christ all your life or just for a few years, if you will allow yourself and open yourself up to what is shared and taught and imparted, you just won’t be the same person.”

“With everything I had learned in Faithwalking and this thing that the Lord had deposited, I ‘knew that I knew that I knew” that the Lord was in it. A lot of that boldness and being radically obedient and stepping into places I never ever ever even saw coming came through Faithwalking.” -Kathy Vosburg

We hope these resources have been helpful to you. If so, please consider joining us in making wholeness possible. You can:

Give financially

Pray for the campaign and for the Faithwalking work

Share and promote Faithwalking and the different stories and resources we offer

Donate to the Faithwalking Campaign

Our Mental Model

The mental model* below reflects our understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Said in different words, it reflects what we believe it means to live a fully human, fully alive life. There are three elements in the mental model:

A follower of Jesus is committed to living a life of radical obedience and alignment to the Jesus way. We believe that the way of Jesus results in our living a life on mission with God.
A follower of Jesus is committed to participating in an authentic community that develops around and sustains a shared vision. We learn best in community with others.
A follower of Jesus is committed to living a reflective life that develops intimacy with God, so that his or her word increasingly co-creates with God the world that God intends. Intentional reflection is a key to experiencing God.

Notice that each of these elements is interconnected. None of them is independent from the others. None of them is more important than the others. They all interact and create a wholeness that is greater than the parts. You will find this mental model reflected throughout the Faithwalking process.

*According to author and lecturer Peter M. Senge, mental models are conceptual frameworks consisting of generalizations and assumptions from which we understand the world and take action in it.

For more about who we are and the distinctives of our curriculum, submit your info below to receive an expanded resource.