Mike Breen (pastor)

Mike Breen (born 13 June 1958) is an English church leader, minister, author and entrepreneur. Breen has been an innovator in leading missional churches throughout Europe and the United States.

Biography

Early life

Breen recalls never having read a book at age 16, due to dyslexia. To enable him to parttake in classroom discussions, his school teacher and returned missionary, Mrs. Dearmest, handed him a Living Bible to read. He read it all and his life changed.^[1]

Education and ministry

Breen holds a degree from St John's College, Durham, a Church of England theological college and is an ordained minister in the Church of England. He started out as a curate in Cambridge in 1984.^[2] From 1987, he served as parish priest in Brixton in the inner city of London^[3] — a "tough parish in the east end of London. Brixton is like south-central Los-Angeles in many ways".^[4] During his time in Brixton, Breen pioneered missional communities as a ministry model.^[5]

The Breen family lived in Little Rock, Arkansas from 1991 to 1994.^[6]

In 1994, Breen moved to Sheffield, following Robert Warren as Senior Rector of St. Thomas' Church, Crookes,^[7] an Anglican-Baptist Local Ecumenical Partnership. As team leader, Breen led St Thomas' to become England's largest church by attendance by the turn of the decade.^[8] While at St. Thomas', Breen begun The Order of Mission, a Protestant, Charismatic and Evangelical religious order. As vicar, Breen became the order's Senior Guardian.^[9]

In 2004, Breen moved to Glendale, Arizona to serve as a pastor of Community Church of Joy, and teach at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.^[10]

In 2006, Leadership Network approached Breen to lead an initiative into church planting.^[11] European Church Planting Network was established in 2007, with Breen as a senior leader. The ECPN Leadership Community gathered church leaders from all over Europe, with a stated goal of seeing 500 new churches planted across Eastern and Western Europe by the end of 2011. The result of 1,137 significantly exceeded this goal.^[12]

Since 2008, Breen has lived at Pawleys Island, South Carolina, where he serves as the leader for 3D Movements, an "organic movement of biblical discipleship and missional church"^[13] helping established churches and church planters move into a discipling and missional way of being church.^[14]

Marriage and children

Breen is married to Sally Breen. The couple have three children, Beccy, Libby and Sam.^[15]

Notable contributions

• Missional Communities, also named clusters and MCs
• Life Shapes
• Huddles, see cell group

Published works

Breen's books have been translated into Spanish, German, and Norwegian.

• Breen, Mike (1992). Growing the smaller church. City: Harpercollins/STL. Marshall Pickering. ISBN 0-551-02372-4. 
• Breen, Mike (1993). Outside in : reaching un-churched young people today. London: Scripture Union Publishing. ISBN 0-86201-811-0. 
• Breen, Mike (1997). The body beautiful : Spiritual Health and Fitness for You and Your Church. Crowborough: Monarch. ISBN 1-85424-296-2. 
• Breen, Mike (2002). The apostle's notebook. Eastbourne, England: Kingsway Communications, Ltd. ISBN 1-84291-007-8. 
• Mallon, Norman; Breen, Mike (2003). Calling a city back to God. Eastbourne, England: Kingsway Communications, Ltd. ISBN 1-84291-116-3. 
• Breen, Mike; Kallestad, Walt (2005). The Passionate Church : The Art Of Life-Changing Discipleship. Colorado Springs, CO: Nexgen (Cook Communications Ministries). ISBN 0-7814-4227-3. 
• Breen, Mike; Kallestad, Walt (2005). A passionate life. Colorado Springs, CO: Nexgen (Cook Communications Ministries). ISBN 0-7814-4269-9. 
• Breen, Mike; Kallestad, Walt (2005). A passionate life devotional : God's Invitation to a Meaningful Life (Life Shapes). Colorado Springs, CO: Honor Books. ISBN 1-56292-722-1. 
• Breen, Mike; Kallestad, Walt (2005). A passionate life : devotional for women : God's answer to your deepest longings. Colorado Springs, CO: Honor Books. ISBN 1-56292-721-3. 
• Breen, Mike (2005). The circle : choosing to learn from life. Colorado Springs, CO: NexGen (Cook Communications Ministries). ISBN 0-7814-4296-6. 
• Breen, Mike (2006). The Triangle : Balancing the relationships of life. Colorado Springs, CO: NexGen (Cook Communications Ministries). ISBN 0-7814-4369-5. 
• Breen, Mike (2006). The Semi-Circle : Living in rhythm with life. Colorado Springs, CO: NexGen (Cook Communications Ministries). ISBN 0-7814-4344-X. 
• Hopkins, Bob; Breen, Mike (2007). Clusters : creative mid-sized missional communities. Pasdensa, CA: 3DM Publishing. ISBN 1-932503-67-6. 
• Breen, Mike; Cockram, Steve (2009). Building a discipling culture. USA: 3DM Publishing. ISBN 0-9824521-0-1. 
• Breen, Mike (2009). Continuous Breakthrough. USA: 3DM Publishing. ISBN 0-9824521-2-8. 
• Breen, Mike (2010). Covenant and Kingdom : the DNA of the Bible. USA: 3DM Publishing. ISBN 0-9824521-6-0. 
• Breen, Mike; Absalom, Alex (2010). Launching Missional Communities: a Field Guide. USA: 3DM Publishing. ISBN 0-9824521-9-5. 
• Breen, Mike (2010). DNA of the Bible. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-96434-0. 
• Breen, Mike (2011). Building a discipling culture : how to release a missional movement by discipling people like Jesus did. Pawleys Island, SC: 3DM Publishing. ISBN 0-9846643-0-0. 
• Hirsch, Alan; Catchim, Tim; Breen, Mike (2012). The permanent revolution : apostolic imagination and practice for the 21st century church. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 0-470-90774-6. 

Bibliography

• Brierley, Peter (2000). The tide is running out : what the English Church Attendance Survey reveals. London: Christian Research. ISBN 1-85321-137-0. 
• Bolger, Ryan K. (2005). Emerging churches : creating Christian community in postmodern cultures. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic. ISBN 0-8010-2715-2. 

• Percy, Martyn (2005). Engaging with contemporary culture Christianity, theology, and the concrete church. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-3259-8. 
• "Mike Breen and 3DM". Retrieved 12 February 2012. 
• ECPN. "European Church Planting Network". Leadership Network. Retrieved 12 February 2012. 

Further reading

• How I Chose Movement over Mega : The Story of Sheffield

See also

• Missional Community
• St. Thomas' Church, Crookes

References

External links

• Personal blog, a collaborative effort by Mike Breen and the 3DM content team
• 3DM, 3 Dimensions Ministries
• The Order of Mission