Rev. Dr. Michael Adam Beck
Michael is currently the Director of the Fresh Expressions House of Studies at United Theological Seminary. Director of Fresh Expressions Florida, and Director of Fresh Expressions for The United Methodist Church. He serves as the co-pastor of Compassion UMC and St. Marks UMC in Ocala, Florida, with his wife Jill, where they direct addiction recovery programs, a jail ministry, a food pantry, an interracial unity movement, and house a faith-based inpatient treatment center. Wildwood and St Marks are traditional congregations and a network of thirteen fresh expressions that gather in tattoo parlors, dog parks, salons, running tracks, community centers, burrito joints, and digital spaces.
Michael guides leaders in an individual, regional, statewide, and national capacity. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at several educational institutions. He coaches entrepreneurs across the theological spectrum and has consulted with hundreds of churches, districts, denominations, networks, and dioceses. As an active ministry practitioner, he has started and developed businesses and planted missional communities most of his life. Michael has done this for over a decade while pastoring in the local church. His coaching and consulting work are not theoretical only, but experiential. He believes in maintaining a practitioner’s ethos: “I eat my own cooking and share experimental recipes.”
Beck earned a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary and a Doctorate in Semiotics and Future Studies at Portland Seminary. He’s the author of ten books, including Deep Roots, Wild Branches: Revitalizing the Church in the Blended Ecology; Deep & Wild: Remissioning Your Church from the Outside In, A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions; and co-author of Contextual Intelligence: Unlocking the Ancient Secret to Mission on the Front Lines with Leonard Sweet, Fresh Expressions in a Digital Age: How the Church Can Prepare for a Post-Pandemic World with Rosario Picardo, as well as The 21st Century Christian: Following Jesus Where Life Happens with Michael Moynagh. His most recent books include Painting With Ashes, Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church, and The Five Congregational Personality Types: An Ancient Pathway to Congregational Renewal in the 21st Century.
Thank you to The Foundation for Evangelism for sponsoring the Rev. Dr. Michael Adam Beck as a Theologian in Residence.
From the Foundation: The Foundation for Evangelism is a Wesleyan-tradition grantmaking organization chartered in 1949 to “diffuse the blessing of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Today, we carry out that vision by providing grants as the catalyst to equip disciples to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Our approach empowers teams of pastors and laity working together to spark a movement inviting all people to join the Christian journey. To do this, we focus our grantmaking on three specific areas: Raising Up Gospel Leaders, Engaging the Ministry of the Laity and Equipping the Local Church. To learn more visit www.FoundationforEvangelism.org.
