Today’s a good day.

Today, we launch 3 Streams Institute, a new initiative dedicated to recruiting, training, forming, and sending a new generation of leaders into the church in North America.

As with any founding story, what started as just an idea, even just a feeling, has now become something alive, new, and real. Here’s the story.

Billy Waters, the lead pastor at Wellspring Church in Englewood, Colorado, reached out to a handful of leaders in the winter of 2022 to discuss starting a new training organization that would build on—and expand—Wellspring’s internship program. We met for about five months with Chris Binkley, Tim Donohue, Katie Gayle, Jill Gilley, Tim Hascall, Linda Hearn, Steven Loomis, Amy Williams, and Mark Young to eat lunch after church, pray, and discuss. Passion and interest in the project were beginning to grow.

I had been attending Wellspring for only a couple years, but something had started to change in me, well before those early task force gatherings.

Remembering Why

I remember in the summer of 2020, when we were holding church on the lawn, I was struggling through a laundry list of anxieties and wounds in the midst of COVID. Reading our pre-communion liturgy, I came upon a single phrase asserting that “we,” the Church, “are the redeemed.” My first thought was, “That’s ridiculous. That’s not who I am at all. I’m a dang mess. And so is everybody around me.” And then, as I considered that phrase, “We are the redeemed,” tears began to well up. As I awaited the Lord’s Supper, I allowed that identity to be spoken over me, feeling undeserving but joyfully grateful.

I remember the time at worship when my extended family was going through a painful season, and my world felt dark, sad, and aimless. I remember the smile of Tara Malouf, a deacon at Wellspring, reading from the Book of Common Prayer, and I remember David Norris, the worship pastor, and Sara Kidd, the assistant worship director, singing a new song by Rita Springer called “Amen!” As we sang, “Amen, from an empty cup; Amen, when there’s not enough. God, hear me say it again! Amen!” I again felt a new freedom. That day, I came to believe that even when it’s dark, I can fully trust God, and he will provide everything I need. Everything.

I also remember during that summer of 2022, five months into our 3 Streams task force at Wellspring, thinking to myself, “This place, these people—there is something unique here. Something alive. Something the world needs. Something in me is now living that was once dead. If I can do anything to extend the vibrancy of this place and these people into the world, that’s what I want to do.” 

Starting to Build 

So I told Billy Waters that I had some experience building “institutes” and could potentially help turn a dream into reality. That summer, I put together a slide deck presenting an organizational plan of what 3 Streams could be. That fall, we discussed the plan with Wellspring’s board and senior staff. Early in winter 2023, Billy worked with a handful of generous donors to share the vision and realigned staff roles so 3 Streams could launch with a full leadership team. The plan resonated with donors who shared our concern about declining church membership, declining numbers of seminarians pursuing an MDiv (the degree traditionally designed for pastoral leadership), and the desperate need to recruit talented men and women into pastoral leadership.

The plan also resonated with prospective interns, who told me personally that they were curious about church leadership but unsure whether it was right for them. They wanted real-life experience, not just head knowledge; were looking for mentors and guides to help them discern their career; felt the emotional and spiritual weight of our culture and wanted a healthy context to work through emotional, relational, and spiritual issues; and were looking for not just a job but a career path. 

In late February 2023, we got the go-ahead from the Wellspring’s board and leadership—including a budget, team, and early goals—to start building 3 Streams Institute. Partnering with Billy Waters, Tara Malouf, Amy Carr, Katie Gayle, and David Norris, we did just that. We built a curriculum and work-based learning experience that provides interns with:

• A healthy context for career discernment;
• Practical work experience in a church;
• Mentored professional development;
• A community of peers and leaders that helps them grow emotionally, relationally, and spiritually; and
• A clear job pathway for future leadership in the Anglican Church. 

Today is just a beginning, but it’s a joyful one.

Now, we build on the good work of those who’ve gone before us by humbly coming alongside interns, apprentices, and pastoral residents as they work, learn, discern, and grow together in community.

Today we welcome eight new interns—Ethan Metz, Madison Bishop, Olivia Wilson, Joe Morarez, Paige Lier, Maya Goodyear, Ellie Hires, and Martha Haller—as they begin a journey of exploration.

And we commit to being 3 Streams people: rooted in the gospel, alive in the Spirit, and formed by the liturgy.

Today we begin simply—but with great hope.

Join us.