I have been asked to follow along with the Upstream Collective as they travel through Prague and discuss what mission, incarnational living and witness look like in a post-Christian and post-modern world. Having recently moved into a similiar situation I am looking forward to learning from those who are leading and writing this week. I will be entering into the conversation through Facebook, Twitter and this blog.

Just like I am doing, you can also follow along without living your home. Check in periodically with what I am commenting on here at the blog or with several of the others who are also giving their thoughts on what is being discussed. Here are a few other places to get involved with the discussion.

The Upstream Collective

Larry McCrary

Almost an M

Michael Carpenter

Tell us about your family and your present place of ministry.

I am from Knoxville, Tennessee. My heart is orange though this Fall we are not talking about that much. My wife Susan is the Foreign Language Department head for Black Forest Academy in Germany. She is also a teaches Spanish and works with children with learning difficulties. We have two children. Megan lives in the states where she attends college and our son Parker is a student at BFA. We have lived in Europe (Spain and Germany) since 2001.

How did you begin the Upstream Collective?

A couple of years ago Caleb Crider and I began dreaming about what would it look like to start a network that would focus on helping the church think and act as a missionary. For me it came out of my own church planting experience in the United States. I was a part of 8 church plants in different roles and positions from a team member to the lead pastor. My one “do – over” would be that while I led our churches to be engaged in our community I did not do a very good job of having them engage globally. Missions would be something we would get to someday, when we were larger, more stable, better budget and more bandwidth for ministries we would get involved. This was a mistake and I am so happy to see many new churches are engaging early in the life of their church.

What are the primary goals of Upstream Collective?

The Upstream Collective (UC) is a group dedicated to providing churches and mission networks with ideas, resources and services that help the church think and act as a missionary.

What do we do?

UC helps churches think and act as a missionary by:
1.    Influencing the mission conversation. Key ways UC influences include writing blogs, articles and books; speaking in churches as well as at conferences; providing media resources for churches and mission networks; and drinking a lot of coffee with an assorted host of U.S. and national church planters and leaders as well as missionaries.
2.    Stretching churches’ expectations and vision. Through story-telling, fostering innovative ideation with churches and dreaming together. We see churches moving toward taking ownership of and acting on a call to mission that is often larger than the original big dreams that the church leadership was envisioning.
3.    Facilitating the sending church. Whether its giving the idea, the permission to pursue it, consulting on vision or training in implementation and coaching, UC is holding up a model of churches that are biblically sending and holding the ropes for their sent ones.

What are JetSet tours?

The Jet Set Tour isn’t your typical mission trip. Then again, the people you’ll meet won’t be your typical missionaries. Jet Set Tours are hosted in various cities in Europe and provide a week-long opportunity for you to experience a European culture not only through tourism, but by learning about the people. We will prayerwalk the streets of Barcelona’s Gothic neighborhood. We meet with artists in Rome and talk to Christian businessman about what church is like in Zurich. We ask professors in Madrid about the worldview of the students they teach.

The point of Jet Set Tours isn’t that you come in and present the gospel to the masses. The point is that you first listen, then learn, then live out the gospel as you meet individuals – much as you would if you were to move to Europe yourself.

Jet Set Tours feature a variety of activities to help you catch the vision for the host cities: prayerwalking, orientation to local worldviews, interaction with local believers, introduction to formal and informal ministry already being done and plenty of time to enjoy the attractions, but with the same purpose in mind. Everything during your time overseas with Jet Set is to help you envision how God would have you, your church and individuals from your church participate in His work overseas in a first-person, hands-on way.

How can someone get involved in one of the tours?

We have a few trips coming up this next year. One that you may be interested in that we only have a few spots left is to Prague and Budapest with Michael Frost. You can sign up here.

You have been writing lately about the Sending Church, why is the Sending Church important to you?

We believe Jesus gave the Great Commission to the church. Because of this, the church must remain central to mission strategy throughout the process from deployment through exit. UC helps churches find a way to have an incarnational presence on the field. We love our partnership with Lifepoint and their team to Belgium. It has been fun watching them grow as a team and prepare to be cross cultural workers. We are excited about what God is doing with them as they follow Him. We seeing more churches have an interest in sending their workers as teams from their church to the mission field.

How can someone get involved with the Upstream Collective?

Getting involved is quite easy. You can follow us on our blog. We have a monthly newsletter that comes out that you can subscribe to. We are often speaking all over the country and in Europe so this newsletter keeps you up to date. You can also email me at larry@theupstreamcollective.org if you want to find out how to get involved more personally.

If you would like for us to talk to your church about Upstream and our ministries please write me and we can begin the conversation.

The five families that have committed to move were involved as were our children. In total we had ten adults and ten children walking through age appropriate missions training that was designed to meet our varied needs. There was training for the adults, teen specific training and a learning track offered for our elementary and pre-school aged children.

The Upstream Collective has been our training partner for the past year and half as we have walked this long process of building our team and preparing for life in Brussels. The Collective designed our retreat to meet the specific needs of our team. They have given us valuable training  and support as individuals and as a church. I cannot say enough about this organization and their willingness to walk side by side with us in our journey.

We also had the privilege of partnering with MK2MK for the teen-aged members of our team. This organization offered great facilitators and leaders that really helped our students tremendously. Thanks Joe and Lilly for spending time with our families.

Please continue to pray for each of the families that are getting ready to launch out. We are all at varying places in our fundraising and preparation. We know that God will be glorified in what we are doing.

Jet Set London // Aaron Coe from The Upstream Collective on Vimeo.

Amy’s Interview

Church’s Call to Belgium

Go ahead and reserve the date now.

Register for The Sending Church Conference e-news

from the website:

We are excited to invite you to a day of dialogue, learning and catalyzing a movement for the Kingdom across the globe. The Sending Church is a growing conversation of how the local church can be the center point for missions sending — sending the church to be the church where there is no church. Pastors, Church Planters, Missions Guys and Church Leaders will have the opportunity to hear and interact with leaders who are developing strategies and practical steps for how the church can reach the unreached in the coming decades.

They have recently highlighted LifePoint on their blog so go check it out.