The Sending Shepherd Part 1 w/ Matthew & Denny

About this episode

Paul Akin interviews Denny Spits and Matthew Ellison about their book on shepherding and sending in pastoral ministry.

Host Paul Akin interviews Denny Spits and Matthew Ellison about their book The Sending Shepherd: Leading Churches to Disciple All Nations , arguing that shepherding and sending belong together in pastoral ministry. They highlight barriers to becoming a sending church—misdefined missions, risk-averse North American culture, and “missional living” that replaces cross-cultural sending—along with research from Barna Group showing strong support for missions but little emphasis on the unreached. They also outline marks of potential missionaries and urge pastors, following Acts 13, to send their best for the sake of the kingdom, offering a framework for assessing character, competency, compatibility, and calling within the local church. Mentioned in this episode: The NEW MDiv at Southern Seminary

People in this episode

Host: Paul Akin

Guests: Denny Spits, Matthew Ellison

Topics covered

• shepherding
• sending churches
• missions
• pastoral ministry
• cross-cultural sending
• character assessment
• discipleship

Keywords

• shepherding
• sending churches
• missions
• discipleship
• Barna Group
• character assessment
• Acts 13

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Barna Group, Southern Seminary

Books & works: The Sending Shepherd: Leading Churches to Disciple All Nations

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