Missional
Vitality

We equip local churches for strong congregational life and healthy leadership through assessments, workshops, and resources.

We Help Churches Thrive

We are reimagining churches and empowering mission by discerning what God is doing in their midst and providing resources and tools to join in God’s work. Our purpose is to equip local churches to be strong, so that transformed people and communities live out God’s mission.

Periodic Health Checkup

Periodic Health Checkup is an assessment tool to help congregations evaluate how they are doing in three key areas—Missional Identity, Vision, and Leadership. Optimize your ministry’s health with a pHCheckup! 

Download the Brochure >>
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Workshops

Trellis

Connecting churches more firmly to the “Vine” through inspiring personal spiritual practices, providing emotionally healthy relationship tools and developing a missionally healthy church culture. This interactive workshop includes small group discussion, video examples, humor, compelling teaching and practical exercises to reach a wide variety of learning styles. This workshop is available as a virtual or in-person experience.

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Leadership Math

This workshop focuses on identifying leadership styles and processes that promote healthy missional leadership of congregations. This interactive virtual workshop includes small group discussion, video examples, simple games with dice, compelling teaching and practical exercises to reach a wide variety of learning styles. Leadership Math helps your church to develop healthy missional leaders by:

  • Identifying dysfunctional leadership styles that “clog” the leadership pipeline and block effective leadership.
  • Identifying three core healthy missional leadership styles.
  • Outlining the characteristics of those with true leadership potential.
  • Discussing a process for adding and multiplying effective leaders in the congregation.

Finding Your Why?

Based on Simon Sinek’s book, Find Your Why, this workshop focuses on discovering the ultimate reason that a church exists. Some churches exist to provide care, others to feed the poor. Some focus on international mission, others on neighborhood outreach. Whatever God’s reason for the existence of a particular church in a particular location in a particular time, it is imperative to discover that purpose and then to organize everything else around it. Frederick Buechner wrote: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The same is true with the “why” of a congregation. This experience is deeply satisfying as congregations realize how active the Spirit of God is among them, and as they work to discern their calling.

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Living Your Why!

Living Your Why equips leadership teams to take the “why” of your church and put it into practice. Using discernment, analysis, and goal-setting, this resource helps you plan for the next 30, 60, or 90 days. 

The video lesson is designed to be used during a leadership retreat or over multiple planning sessions. A pre-workshop worksheet will help prepare you for your planning by assessing your VIM (Vision, Intention, Means). Don’t settle for discovering your “why.” Live your “why,” and make a difference for the kingdom of God. 

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Heart. Mind. Strength.

Discovering the passions, knowledge, skills, and gifts that each person brings to the congregation and beginning to uncover how those assets can empower mission. HMS is an asset assessment workshop for congregations. This workshop can be done virtually or in person, however doing it in person is the most impactful because of the visuals created by the participants. Based on the Great Commandment, the purposes of the workshop are:

  • To help participants discover their areas of expertise, their passions, their spiritual gifts and their skills which are the assets that they bring to the whole body.
  • To help participants gain an overall picture of how they are “wired” to serve God.
  • To help a congregation see the giftings that each person brings to the church.
  • To help church leadership to know the assets of the congregation that can be included in strategic ministry plans.
  • To help each person know what specific next step he/she can take to accomplish the church’s mission.

This workshop uses a combination of visual and auditory instruction, discussion in both large and small groups, brainstorming, videos, graphics, and music to meet the learning needs of the community.

Download Flyer >>

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Leadership Transitions

Transitions and changes of all kinds can be difficult. Whether positive or negative, there is a sense, or even a reality, of loss when they occur. How can we, as leaders in the church, manage transitions well? Which paths must we walk to allow change to strengthen our churches rather than destroy them?

Missional Vitality has created five resources to help answer these questions and guide leadership teams through all sorts of changes and transitions your church may face in the years ahead.

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Pathway to Peace

With political divides, disagreements over scriptural interpretation, and the high level of stress in our society, dealing with conflict is inevitable. Often we would simply like to avoid it. However, unless we address difficult people and situations head-on, not only is conflict likely to escalate, but we also miss out on the opportunity to learn to be more like Christ. Jesus certainly encountered opposition, and we can learn from his choices in those situations.

The Pathway to Peace is a new resource that teaches a process for conflict redemption. It is a deep, Scripture-based, five-step journey that helps us see those with whom we are in conflict as people deeply loved by Jesus, not as adversaries. This resource is designed for church leadership teams, enabling them to then share it with their congregations. It includes a teaching video, PowerPoint and sermon series.

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Resources

The Pathway to Peace is a new resource that teaches a process for conflict redemption. It is a deep, Scripture-based, five-step journey that helps us see those with whom we are in conflict as people deeply loved by Jesus, not as adversaries. This resource is designed for church leadership teams, enabling them to then share it with their congregations. 

Learn More >>

How can we, as leaders in the church, manage transitions well? Missional Vitality has created five resources to help answer these questions and guide leadership teams through all sorts of changes and transitions your church may face in the years ahead.

Learn More >>

A self-guided resource that provides church leaders/churches with assessments for key areas of congregational life and ministry that affect missional readiness during critical moments in the life of a church. Such moments would include times of pastoral transitions, marked community (neighborhood) changes, seasons of plateau or decline, etc.

This workshop is about remembering and resolving the past. It is a video series that includes three lessons: Understanding Transition, Acknowledging Loss, and Congregational Grief: Learning To Let Go. Each 10 minute video is designed to be used during church leadership meetings and will include worksheets to be completed between sessions. For congregations in a transition journey, this workshop should occur at the beginning of the process.
Every church experiences conflict, but few understand how to navigate it in a healthy way. This resource— designed for church leaders, as well as including a congregational experience near its completion—helps churches to address conflict in a Godly way, to use conflict as a growth tool, to develop healthy conversations, and to examine Scripture for guidance in difficult situations. For congregations on a transition journey, this workshop should occur during the “Neutral Zone” phase.
This resource is designed for church leaders, and provides five “mini-lessons” on promoting healthy systems in the church. Each lesson includes a short video lesson, group exercises and optional activities. For congregations on a transition journey, this workshop should occur during the “Neutral Zone” phase.

Workshops

Connecting churches more firmly to the “Vine” through inspiring personal spiritual practices, providing emotionally healthy relationship tools and developing a missionally healthy church culture. This interactive workshop includes small group discussion, video examples, humor, compelling teaching and practical exercises to reach a wide variety of learning styles. This workshop is available as a virtual or in-person experience.


Download Flyer >>

Based on Simon Sinek’s book, Find Your Why, this workshop focuses on discovering the ultimate reason that a church exists. Some churches exist to provide care, others to feed the poor. Some focus on international mission, others on neighborhood outreach. Whatever God’s reason for the existence of a particular church in a particular location in a particular time, it is imperative to discover that purpose and then to organize everything else around it. Frederick Buechner wrote: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The same is true with the “why” of a congregation. This experience is deeply satisfying as congregations realize how active the Spirit of God among them, and as they work to discern their calling.


Download Flyer >>

Discovering the passions, knowledge, skills, and gifts that each person brings to the congregation and beginning to uncover how those assets can empower mission. HMS is an asset assessment workshop for congregations. This workshop can be done virtually or in person, however doing it in person is the most impactful because of the visuals created by the participants. Based on the Great Commandment, the purposes of the workshop are:

  • To help participants discover their areas of expertise, their passions, their spiritual gifts and their skills which are the assets that they bring to the whole body.
  • To help participants gain an overall picture of how they are “wired” to serve God.
  • To help a congregation see the giftings that each person brings to the church.
  • To help church leadership to know the assets of the congregation that can be included in strategic ministry plans.
  • To help each person know what specific next step he/she can take to accomplish the church’s mission.
  • This workshop uses a combination of visual and auditory instruction, discussion in both large and small groups, brainstorming, videos, graphics, and music to meet the learning needs of the community.


Download Flyer >>

This workshop focuses on identifying leadership styles and processes that promote healthy missional leadership of congregations. This interactive virtual workshop includes small group discussion, video examples, simple games with dice, compelling teaching and practical exercises to reach a wide variety of learning styles. Leadership Math helps your church to develop healthy missional leaders by:

  • Identifying dysfunctional leadership styles that “clog” the leadership pipeline and block effective leadership.
  • Identifying three core healthy missional leadership styles.
  • Outlining the characteristics of those with true leadership potential.
  • Discussing a process for adding and multiplying effective leaders in the congregation.


Download Flyer >>

Designed as a follow-up workshop to Finding Your Why, this resource provides strategic discernment tools for church leadership as they seek to live into their God-given purpose. Questions of VIM (vision, intention and means) as well as goal-setting will be addressed through a spiritual discernment process. For congregations in a transition journey, this workshop should occur during the “New Beginnings” phase.

Contact Missional Vitality

We’d love to hear from you.

Lina Sánchez-Herrera

Chicago West Suburbs, Illinois

ECC Conference: Central
Gender: Female

AVAILABILITY

Receiving New Directees: Yes
Directing Clergy: Yes
Client Genders: Both men and women
Skype or Facetime: Yes
Languages: English, Spanish
Retreat/Workshop Leader: Yes

CERTIFICATION FROM

C. John Weborg Center for Spiritual Direction, North Park Theological Seminary

AREAS OF INTEREST

Pastors/Church Leadership, Missionaries, University Students, Discernment Process, Transitions, Multi-Ethnic Issues, Second Half of Life, Prayer, Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

Prior to moving to the USA, I was a professor at the National University of Colombia and served with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in Colombia for 16 years. Starting in 2001, I served as InterVarsity National Staff in the USA. I have a master’s degree in Christian Ministries, and I serve in Spiritual Direction to those who want to be fully present and available to God and receive His grace over them. My joy is to see professors and college students coming to know Jesus and being transformed into people that bring the good news of righteousness and justice to others.

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