{"id":5063,"date":"2017-06-21T14:48:27","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T21:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?post_type=stories&p=5063"},"modified":"2017-06-21T14:48:28","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T21:48:28","slug":"jon-spellman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/jon-spellman\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Spellman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Spellman\u2019s love for Jesus and his church was forged very early in life.\u00a0 His earliest memories are of ministering in music in the local church setting as well as \u201con the road\u201d traveling the length and breadth of the United States as drummer and singer with the \u201cSpellman Family Singers.\u201d\u00a0 During the late 1970\u2019s through the early 1980\u2019s they were all the rage on the smallish Pentecostal church circuit.\u00a0 His travels exposed him to some of the most bizarre of church culture and still, he finds himself in love with the church.\u00a0 Strange really\u2026\u00a0 When reflecting on his life in the church, Jon is pretty amazed that even in the middle of all the weirdness, he holds a genuine place of love and affection for this thing and just wants to see it healthy and thriving.\u00a0 He thinks the best days are ahead.<\/p>\n

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\"ScreenMany people would have been turned off by some of the nonsense Jon was subjected to but for him, it has inspired curiosity, curiosity about these people and this God who created them.\u00a0 He wants to understand more about this organism called \u201cchurch.\u201d\u00a0 What makes it tick?\u00a0 In light of all the problems the church has experienced and caused, how has it been able to still accomplish so much good?\u00a0 And if it were to become even just a little bit more healthy, how much more good could it do<\/i>?\u00a0 A whole lot!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0231\"<\/a>Through all of Jon\u2019s adult life, he has served alongside his wife of 24 years, Tina.\u00a0 They have three girls \u2014 Emily, Rachel and Allie.\u00a0 Tina also is an ordained\u00a0Foursquare<\/a> pastor\/superintendent and together, they have served for over 22 years in some form of pastoral and executive leadership within the Foursquare church. \u00a0The Living Way Network<\/a> is the\u00a0network of missional communities\u00a0and community center they co-pastor.. \u00a0For all of these years he has attempted to hold in tension two sometimes competing values: Love for this movement, which leads to pride and celebration when victories are won; and frustration, which leads to anger and sadness when institutional bone-headedness carries the day.\u00a0 This is likely true of all families.\u00a0 The ones that can bring the most joy can also cause the most pain.<\/p>\n

\"FullSizeRender-2\"After ten years of pastoral ministry, Jon engaged in graduate work at King\u2019s Seminary<\/a> (now, \u201cKing\u2019s University\u201d), culminating in\u00a0a Master of Arts in Practical Theology, which is probably a little better that \u201cImpractical Theology.\u201d\u00a0 (Although some would argue that all theology is immensely impractical and those who pursue it are given to circular conversations, using very large words that ultimately lead nowhere helpful\u2026)\u00a0 He tries, at every opportunity, to make things of a theological nature accessible to regular folk, he really is good at that!\u00a0 Jon possesses the ability to see the big picture and break difficult concepts down into small, manageable pieces.\u00a0 It has been said that Jon is one of the best \u201cdot-connectors\u201d around!\u00a0 One more thing you will find to be true about Jon, he writes way better than he talks!\u00a0 He has published two books (Organic Worship<\/a> <\/i>and The 50-Day Shift: A Practical, Pentecostal Theology For The Rest Of Us<\/a><\/i> and regularly bloviates on his blog: jonspellman.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

In addition to theology, he applies this knack for dot-connecting to leadership development.\u00a0 Jon is a coach<\/a> to pastors, church planters and organizational leaders, and a consultant<\/a> to leadership teams.\u00a0 For over 12 years, he served as a district leader and national team member for church planting in the Foursquare church.\u00a0 He is a certified Gospel Coach with Church Multiplication Ministries and currently is the executive director of the Atlanta Church Planting Alliance<\/a>.\u00a0 The Alliance is a collection of network leaders ranging from sacramental\/ancient denominations (Anglican, Lutheran) to more modern church planting networks such as Acts 29 and Stadia with just about every stripe in between (Foursquare, Assembly of God, Southern Baptist, Wesleyan, etc.) represented.\u00a0 The primary focus of the ACPA is to provide affirmation, support and relationship among significant network leaders in the Atlanta region.\"IMG_0163\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In recent days, Jon has taken the plunge back into academia, pursuing doctoral work at George Fox Evangelical Seminary.\u00a0 His area of study is Leadership with Global Perspectives.\u00a0 Jon is particularly interested in understanding how organizational \u201ccenters\u201d and \u201cedges\u201d dance together in their seemingly perpetual love\/hate relationship.\u00a0 Why do they hold such animosity towards each other when their need for one another is so great?\u00a0 He is hoping to gain some clarity on this, clarity that will be helpful in expanding the missional footprints of ecclesial organizations all over the world!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0370\"<\/a>That\u2019s a lofty goal, right?\u00a0 So, just in case that crashes and burns, he and Tina recently repurposed their church buildings into a community center<\/a> and opened a coffee shop<\/a> there.\u00a0 (Coffee is very important to them\u2026)<\/i> Daily, people are stepping into authentic community, coming to know Jesus and following him.\u00a0 At the end of it all, that \u2019s really what Jon wants, more healthy followers of Jesus who are enjoying the journey through life together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon Spellman\u2019s love for Jesus and his church was forged very early in life.\u00a0 His earliest memories are of ministering in music in the local church setting as well as \u201con the road\u201d traveling the length and breadth of the United States as drummer and singer with the \u201cSpellman Family Singers.\u201d\u00a0 During the late 1970\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5063"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13471,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions\/13471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}