Welcome to 3 is Enough!

This website is a space where we can all learn together how to follow God in the way of Jesus for the sake of others.

Here’s a presentation made at Conversational Evangelism Conference, which introduces 3 is Enough.

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In one way 3iE (3 is Enough) is the culmination of a lifetime of thinking about the intersection of The Gospel, culture, church, kingdom, spiritual formation and evangelism. In another, more humble way, it comes from the closing chapter of my upcoming book from IVP—Christianity Beyond Belief: Following Jesus for the Sake of Others. In CBB, I try to lay out some of the practical outcomes which surround one’s understanding—or misunderstanding—of the Gospel. Much of the conceptual work for the first section of the book comes from my D.Min. dissertation which was titled: Re-hearing the Gospel: Toward Improved Practices for Evangelism and Spiritual Formation. (You don’t want to read this: wait a few months and get the book—the editors at IVP will insure that it is actually readable!) The dissertation title sounds deep, but really it is just an academic way of saying “Todd has been curious about these matters for a long time, so he decided to jump in to really try to learn about them.”

In the second section of the book, I set forth what I hope is a simple way to describe what it means to be a Christian. I do so around four phrases:

• Being the cooperative friends of Jesus
• Living consistent lives of creative goodness
• Through the power of the Holy Spirit
• For the sake of others

As I got to the end of this vision casting section of the book I realized—well actually I realized with help of my agent and my editor at IVP—that people were going to read this and say: “Sounds interesting Todd—probably even true—but so what? What do we do about it?” Later, sitting in my upstairs home office, pondering the comments from my two friends, a word from a way-old conversation popped into my mind: triads. From that simple bit of inspiration I began to work on TiE Groups. There are many who have profitably gone before me on this. In an appendix in my book I lay out the work of Greg Ogden, Bob Logan, Neil Cole and Crusillo, etc.

From Wesley, and before, to Cole and beyond, the church has made good use of “smaller small groups.” In fact, I didn’t know how really true this was until a few weeks ago I had lunch with an old friend—Randy Knutson—who introduced me to a whole body of literature that has grown up while I had my eye on evangelism and The Alpha Course.

So 3iE is becoming a reality. I am forming a group at the coffee shop above which I rent an office. I have a few pilots going in California—including Disney. They are spreading around the country as people hear about them and want to give it a try.

I am hoping you will join us in this. It is easy to start, good for your soul and great to the purposes of God in others. If you click through the links on the right you can find your way through an introduction to 3iE Groups.

I hope this web site will become a space where we can all learn together how to follow God in the way of Jesus for the sake of others. 3iE is simply a way to get started doing that.

Peace!