Church in the Era of Artificial Intelligence

February 24-26 at Old Town Community Church in Alexandria, VA Our second gathering of planters, pioneers, multipliers, and missional leaders is happening in partnership with the Ecclesia Network. This year’s focus will be exploring the formational aspects of the call to multiply, pioneer, and plant. A more developed schedule for Multiply has recently been released with workshops and conversations groups added soon. This year’s focus is on discovering the “Narrow Path” of the kingdom of God that is meant to be found. We’re pleased to welcome Rich Villodas , Lead Pastor of New Life Fellowship in New York City, together with dozens of experienced practitioners from across North America. Here are some of the topics that will be addressed during the Multiply event. · The Narrow Path that is Meant to Be Found · The Narrow Path: The Paradoxical Way to a Spacious Life · Inviting the World onto the Narrow Path · How to Invite the World: Real Stories From Everyday Invitations · The Narrow Path Toward Our Interior Lives · The Slow Journey Toward the Narrow Path Due to the generous support of the EverBless Foundation, the Multiply Summit is offered at the very low cost of $99 for first-time attendees who register during the Early Bird time period. You can find out more and register now here.

Over the next month, we will feature articles and stories from our global partners participating in the Advent Journey. These articles are intended to familiarize the Ascent community with each ministry and to provide helpful insight into your local context. We are delighted to feature CBM today. To sign up for the Ascent Advent Journey, please register your interest personally here . If your congregation is interested in participating, please sign up here. Growing up, one of my favourite events at church was when missionaries visited and shared stories from faraway places. I remember sitting in the Fellowship Hall at Grand Bay Baptist Church on Sunday evenings, watching slides projected at the front of the room. There was almost always a map showing where these missionaries lived and served. The map told a simple, unspoken story. We were here in Canada, and we had the gospel. Mission was something that came from us and happened over there. The arrows seemed to move in one direction, from us to the rest of the world. Without realizing it, I came to understand mission as something that travelled outward from Canada. Of course, there was truth in that story. Our history includes faithful women and men who crossed oceans and cultures to share the gospel and serve in Jesus’ name. Through their witness churches were planted, schools and hospitals were established, and lives were transformed. But it was never the whole story. Even then, God was at work through local churches and leaders around the world. Today, that old map no longer fits. The arrows have changed. In some places, they now move in multiple directions. In others, they begin in places Canadian churches once imagined only as destinations. And in many cases, we are discovering that the map was always more complex than we were taught to see. I see this new reality in the two regions I serve as CBM’s Director of Partnerships for the Americas and Asia. In these contexts, the church is not simply receiving mission. It is originating it, shaping it, and influencing the wider Church. Across these regions, partners are not waiting for direction from Canada, but discerning, leading, sending, teaching, and strengthening one another from within their own contexts. Mission is not one region teaching and another learning. It is partners sharing wisdom across borders and discovering that each voice can help form the others.

On October 4, 2026, Boulevard Church had its first Sunday Gathering at 11:00 a.m. in their new home, Montclaire Elementary in Charlotte, NC. This first public gathering gave witness to their desire to be a community on mission: "Learning to follow Jesus, living as his ambassadors, for his glory." Over 280 people from 23 countries gathered to worship, pray, read God’s Word, and enjoy his presence. Hospitality, service teams, and children’s ministry were also launched on October 4. The joy was palpable from beginning to end for all in attendance. Co-planters Roland Chandler and Jorge Hernandez preached in both English and Spanish (“ping-pong" style) about Matthew 4:12-17: the beginning of Jesus' ministry. The sermon was called “Leaving, Going, and Living,” reflecting Boulevard Church’s journey, the experience of the immigrant community they serve, and Jesus’ own journey from his hometown of Nazareth to Capernaum, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, in “Galilee of the Gentiles.” Jesus’ willingness to leave home was inspired by God-given purpose: to fulfill the promise of being a GREAT LIGHT to ALL people who lived in darkness. Roland also shared several stories of new people coming to faith at this first gathering, including a new volunteer and a worker at the host school facility. A few short days later, in reflecting on the official public beginning of Boulevard, Roland had this to share: “Many stories have followed from people of all ages in the church, and a tangible joy has lingered into this week. Our team is exhausted and still has much to do, but the most present sentiment we share is gratitude. God has sustained our bodies, minds, and spirits to prepare everything necessary for this beginning. He has done so much of it through Ascent, and we can't thank you enough for your spiritual, financial, and time investment in the heart of our church. But we try!”

The season of Advent is a season of giving, not simply because it intertwines with the global celebration of Christmas, but because its heart is found in the gift of the Son from the Father. It is fundamentally a moment when those who have “more” exercise an unflinching generosity to those who have “less.” For generations, Christians have embraced this season as an opportunity to give sacrificially, meeting practical needs around the world while sharing the deeper message behind every act of compassion: God loves the world, and He draws near to His people. The inaugural Ascent Advent Offering carries this spirit of generosity across the globe, bringing the message of God’s nearness to communities throughout North America and across continents, from South America to Asia. Through this offering, we will support a variety of initiatives, including providing clean water, food relief, recovery from disaster and war, support of local churches and leaders in these challenged contexts, and above all, the demonstration and declaration of the Good News itself. Each day of the Ascent Advent Journey, you will catch a glimpse of the difference that your participation in giving will make. The map below provides a visual picture of the places where your gifts will make a difference, connecting our Advent journey to communities around the world.

We are excited to have Rich Villodas, lead pastor of New Life Fellowship in NYC , as our guest for the 2027 Multiply Summit in Alexandria, VA. New Life Fellowship is one of the most diverse congregations in North America, located in one of the most complex cities, and is making an ongoing impact throughout the Queens community. Rich is perhaps most well known for his key role in the “Emotionally Healthy” stream of church leadership in North America, as more and more pastoral leaders are recognizing the necessity of developing maturing leaders in their midst who are formed mentally, spiritually, and emotionally according to the character of Christ. Rich is the author of several books, including the award-winning The Deeply Formed Life (2020), Good, Beautiful, and Kind (2022), and his newest release, The Narrow Path (2024). Rich is known for bringing the streams of the evangelical witness and the spiritual formation witness into a coherent vision that is grounded in the local church and fruitful for the Great Commission. During the Multiply Summit, Rich will be delving into the inherent paradox that the narrow path of Jesus leads to a spacious life. In addition, he will be helping us consider how we can walk along this narrow path in our own lives, how we invite our neighbors and friends who don’t know Jesus onto the narrow path, and how we can set our expectations and intentions for the slow process of transformation that we all experience. You can see more of the Multiply Summit schedule here , and you can register here. Plus, all first-time attendees to the Multiply Summit can register for only $99 until October 31st! The Multiply Summit is co-sponsored by the Ascent Movement and Ecclesia Network. All Ascent and Ecclesia members have preferred rates when registering.

If you have any involvement with the Christian faith, you’ve probably at least heard of Advent , the season leading up the celebration of the arrival of Christ’s birth. Before the celebration of the Christmas season, the Church Universal enters a season of intentional waiting, purposeful watching, and reflective remembering. We slow down long enough to rehearse the ancient story of Israel that longed for the coming of the Messiah long ago. We remember generations of people who waited in hope for God to act. Each year Advent reminds us of this reality. And we need this annual reminder because as humans we are so prone to forget what is true – really true. And as we know in our culture, it seems these weeks leading up to the arrival of Christ are the busiest, most intense, more packed our schedules are all year long. Advent invites us to practice attentiveness. It is the time where Christians stand on our tiptoes in a posture of attentiveness and anticipation in order to notice the quiet ways God moves in ordinary moments. Which is why Advent is so necessary . It is like training wheels placed on our lives to help guide us through the cultural busyness, to help us slow down so we don’t fall off the bike. Whether you have engaged meaningfully in the season of Advent for years or you have a cursory understanding of it, I want to invite you to join me on a daily journey through Advent. I want to personally invite you to subscribe to a free daily devotional that will land in your inbox each morning. It won’t be long, but it will be intentional and meaningful, a way to focus on a passage, a thought, and a few questions for reflection. My hope is not that you just read words on a page; it’s that you will take a few moments to slow down enough to notice the ways God is already drawing near in your life. Each week of Advent carries a theme that shapes our waiting for Christ’s arrival: Week 1 is about Hope, which reminds us that darkness does not get the final word. Week 2 focuses on Love, which reminds us that God moves toward us before we ever move toward Him. Week 3 centers on Joy, which reminds us that the nearness of God changes everything. Week 4 brings our attention to Peace, which reminds us that Christ is restoring what is broken in our world. These four themes are clear and hope-filled signs of God’s kingdom breaking into the world through Jesus. Wherever you find yourself this Advent—whether in a season of clarity or confusion, joy or weariness—remember that God is already moving toward you. That is the heart of the Advent story: God coming near. And because God has come near in Jesus, the distance we often feel between heaven and earth has been bridged. The God who created the universe is not far away. He is present. He is attentive. Right here. Now. With us. Our hope is that this devotional will help you to be more attentive, and to notice that nearness of God in your life and in the world. I hope you’ll join us. Simply click HERE to subscribe.

“When God works in us, nothing is useless, and nothing is spared.” - Jeannine Brown, Carla Dahl, and Wendy Corbin Reuschling, Becoming Whole and Holy “There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment.” - Alan Redpath Here's something I've noticed about people as they get older: they tend to go one of two ways. They either get sweeter with age or they get crankier. They grow wiser and more like Jesus, or they grow bitter and more like the worst version of themselves. That's because life is formation. Everything we do and everything we go through shapes us one way or the other, mostly depending on how we respond to what happens to us, whether it's extraordinary or completely ordinary. Ministry works the same way. I've watched leaders come out of nearly identical trials in completely different shape. Some come out stronger. Others come out deeply wounded, discouraged, and ready to quit. The difference usually comes down to where they see God in the middle of the struggle, absent or present, and what questions they ask about it. Some ask, "God, why is this happening to me?" Others ask, "God, what could you want to form in me through this?" Both views of God will shape us, and so will both questions. They just shape us in very different directions. In my experience, the most common sin in church leadership is an obsession with numbers and results, paired with neglect of our own souls. On top of that, we rarely stop to notice how those numbers and results, and how ministry itself, are shaping us. So here's my suggestion: stop working so hard to develop your ministry and start noticing that your ministry is developing you. How you handle the realities of church leadership will determine not only what your church becomes but what you become. Leadership and ministry will form you. The only question is: into what? One tool God uses: the fishbowl Some people hesitate to become a pastor because it opens them up to scrutiny, and now and then to outright criticism. When I was a young leader, I hated the "fishbowl effect" of ministry. Everyone was watching me, and my mistakes seemed to count for a lot more than anyone else's. It felt deeply unfair that flaws that wouldn't even register at most people's jobs could cost me my job, my reputation, and my community. Never mind that maybe it bothered me so much because I had such a generous supply of those flaws. After years of living under the steady gaze of critics and cranks, I see the fishbowl differently. These days I actually welcome it. Richard Baxter, a Puritan pastor in the 1600s, put it this way: “While you are as lights set upon a hill, think not to lie hid... do your work as those that remember that the world looks on them... ready to make the worst of all... and to make faults where they cannot find them.”[1] Baxter understood that anyone who calls others to live like Jesus is going to get called out when they don't. His advice? Live like the world is watching, because it is. Some people in your life are ready to yell "Hypocrite!" at the first opportunity, to point out failings they share themselves, and, as Baxter says, even to invent faults when they can't find real ones. And Baxter's fishbowl had a few neighbors peering over the fence. Ours has a livestream, a comment section, and someone screenshotting the announcements. But Baxter goes further. He says we should be glad about it: “As you take yourselves for the lights of the churches, you may expect that men's eyes will be upon you. If other men may sin without observation, so cannot you. And you should thankfully consider how great a mercy this is, that you have so many eyes to watch over you, and so many ready to tell you of your faults; and thus have greater helps than others, at least for restraining you from sin. Though they may do it with a malicious mind, yet you have the advantage of it.” As a Pastor, you have more eyes on you and more people paying attention to how you live. That means you have more help than most in living well and avoiding sin. What some people mean for evil, God means for your good (Genesis 50:20). What looks like a downside of ministry turns out to be a path to maturity, to formation. In practical terms, living your life in front of others pushes you to do what you already know you should do. And it often keeps you out of things you might slide into if nobody were watching. One important caveat: embracing accountability isn't the same as tolerating abuse. Healthy scrutiny sharpens you. A congregant who attacks your spouse or treats your kids like church property is a different problem, and it calls for boundaries, not gratitude. Let's be clear, though: the fishbowl isn't enough on its own. What we're really after is internal: character, a changed heart. But knowing we're living out loud in front of a watching church and a watching world gives us structure, and that structure can help us build the habits and rhythms of holiness we want. As we try to let the heart and character of Christ take deeper root in us, we have the advantage of lots of eyes around us "encouraging" us to stay on the straight and narrow. My sense is that people who embrace this find that, over time, what starts on the outside moves more and more to the inside. Slowly, the choices we make because others are watching become, through habit, real character. Because I know people are watching, I think twice about what I say in public, what I scroll past on my phone, and how I talk to my kids at church or out on the sidewalk in front of the neighbors. More and more, those choices, first made because of an audience, become part of who I am. That's especially true when I treat those moments as kairos [2] moments: times when God breaks in and uses my awareness of a watching world to show me the character He wants to form in me and the choices He'd like me to make. But what if we don't embrace it? What about those who get shipwrecked by moral failure, character flaws, and private sins gone public? People who resent the fishbowl of ministry and the Christian life often end up living one way in public and another in private. It's as if their anger at being scrutinized pushes them into a divided life: they'll play by the rules in public but insist on their own rules in private. Frustrated with the audience around them, so eager to find fault, they forget the true Audience they live before. And as we've all seen from too many spectacular crash-and-burns, the fallout is often devastating. Families, churches, and the reputation of the whole Church take serious damage. Pastors, recognize that your formation is happening, one way or another… and make peace with the fishbowl. It's going to be there whether you like it or not. If you embrace it, you may find it spurring you on toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24) and keeping you clear of the sins that have taken down so many in ministry before you. “You should thankfully consider how great a mercy this is, that you have so many eyes to watch over you.” Let the Holy Spirit use your public life, and every eye watching it, to shape and form you. The fishbowl and the formation of a life in ministry are coming either way. Let them help answer the question: into what? To further explore your own formation through ministry, join us at the Multiply Summit with special guest Rich Villodas this coming February in the Washington, D.C. area! Adapted from Eldership and the Mission of God by Bob Hyatt and J.R. Briggs. [1] Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, London, 1657, p. 21. [2] Kairos is one of the Greek words for time, but it's different from chronos. Chronos is linear, calendar time. Kairos refers to significant moments full of possibility. Here, it means those times when God steps into chronos.

Timberlake Church in Lynchburg, VA is now an official partner of the Ascent Movement. Led by Pastor Brad McMullen , this multigenerational congregation is committed to helping people grow as disciples of Jesus and live out that faith in tangible ways. For many decades, Timberlake has been a faithful witness to the gospel in Lynchburg. However, over the past few years, after a season of denominational disruption, and with an increased focus on community impact, Timberlake has experienced significant growth as it has opened a new chapter. “Timberlake has experienced an impressive season of Spirit-led vitality and is now moving into a season of multiplication. It is an authentic witness to the disciple-making heritage of John Wesley, and is a great partner for the Ascent Movement and our vision. It joins many other former United Methodist Churches that have found a new home among the Ascent Community”, shared Chris Backert, Ascent’s Senior Director.

Healthcare costs are projected to rise again in 2027, putting even more pressure on church budgets. But a recent study found that rising healthcare spending, not simply insurer markups, explained 91% of premium growth from 2011 to 2024. That raises an important question for churches: What if finding a better premium isn't enough? Cedar Health Alliance is taking a different approach, designed around how healthcare is purchased, accessed and managed, not simply how the cost is divided. Read More: Rising Healthcare Costs Are Squeezing Churches. Is There a Better Way?