The
Intersect
Story
Intersect was birthed in response to 3 realizations:
As church leaders, we realized that we were exhausted and isolated so we started forming a community network of like-minded innovators in faith communities to encourage each other and collaborate on projects.
After looking at many of the resources available, specifically for church planters, we realized that most of them originated from a perspective that was not especially diverse or inclusive. For those of us leading centrist-progressive faith communities, we did not hear our stories or voices represented in national trainings and resources so we set out to create a platform where we could find resources more specific to our context and calling.
The demographics of the United States are shifting, and the future of the church must as well.
Expect us to evolve and add new resources in response to your input and engagement. Expect to be both challenged and inspired by the resources available, but more importantly, by the community that embraces you.
Are you ready to meet us at the intersections?
Ever get that feeling that God is asking you to start a new thing? And you want to do it in a diverse, just way?
You’re not alone.
Why Intersect?
Church planting is not immune from the church's unholy relationship with colonialism and capitalism. For far too long denominations and church planting organizations have been complicit in social and spiritual gentrification in how they identify leaders, train leaders, and participate in church planting. The result is as it always is with gentrification. People that need the good news embodied in contextual ways wind up getting marginalized, pushed out, and erased. Intersect started with a simple question: Is there a way to plant churches and network with church planters that values diversity, is post-colonial and equitable in practice, and seeks to honor the context in innovative ways as we seek the flourishing of our communities?
We believe that the realities and divisions that exist in our world require us to take a new approach to church planting. This is why Intersect exists. We are catalyzing innovative, intersectional, faith-based startups that drive toward a Gospel liberation.
Intersect is a network where everyone is welcome and where we can be challenged to embrace a post-colonial approach to starting new ministries and funding them in new ways. You will not find another place that was intentionally curated, from the ground up, to embrace and empower diverse and inclusive faith communities and start-ups from leading practitioners with a track record of effectiveness and fruitfulness in kin-dom work.
Our Values
Post-Colonial
We repent of America’s history of colonization. We resist Christendom (which is the appropriation of Christian images for the purposes of the Empire), and instead proclaim a Gospel that brings good news to the poor and liberation to the captives. Many church planter trainings, in particular, replicate colonizer mindsets by flaunting titles like “we must save the city.” We know that this type of talk only creates more of the same. Instead, we dedicate ourselves to composting colonizer mindsets into an insistence on liberation. We know we will never get it “perfect”, so we commit to adapting and changing as we learn.
Contextual
There is no generic church planting method. Everything has arisen out of context and, therefore, all of our methods must be adaptive to context. In Intersect courses, we share what we have experienced as best practices, but we strongly encourage our community to remix these practices however the Holy Spirit says. In fact, a healthy church ecology would include many different expressions of ministry that would be able to respond to an ever-dynamic, ever-changing world.
Innovative
We’re not afraid of new things! In fact, Intersect was founded by practitioners, by people who saw gaps in our contexts and created something new to fill it. And while the other values on this list are, rightfully, quite weighty, we try to stay playful with our work because we know that playfulness creates safe space for innovation.
Diverse
We believe it honors the Gospel when we create space for many experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives, and we welcome lively debate. As Jesus shows us, it is impossible to practice faith without healthy conflict in community. With that said, we know that significant harm can happen in Christian spaces unless there is a thorough and honest power analysis of privilege and marginalization. In other words, we value diversity and we will “call in” people of dominant identities who have perpetuated harm against marginalized folks.
Equitable
God loves us all equally, but society ain’t fair. We seek a reparations approach to our training by intentionally lowering barriers for BIPOC planters, queer planters, and more. When church planting training or literature lacks a commitment to equity, they elevate leaders with the most privilege planting in communities with the most privilege, but that is not how we see Jesus using his time.