Articles for tag: Alex Absalom

January 15, 2017

By Ethan Magness My first formal ecclesiological training came from a song: The Church is not a building, the Church is not a steeple, the Church is not a resting place, the Church is the people. It was not an especially good song, but it had hand motions (perhaps you know them). I am grateful for this song, because it provided a sufficient ecclesiology for my early years of life. I did not merely go to church; I was part of the church. We were the church, the people of God. My second round of training came from the back

October 4, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Discipleship & Spiritual Formation

How Do Groups Lead to Impact?

By Mark A. Taylor Frankly, I can”t imagine why everyone isn”t talking about the strategy outlined by Bobby Harrington and Alex Absalom in their book Discipleship That Fits,Â and I don”t understand why more churches aren”t trying to implement it. Maybe I”m just out of the loop. I”m not a megachurch pastor. I have no role on a church staff of any size. Maybe more congregations than I know have tapped into the genius of implementing something more nuanced than the large group/small group approach promoted by so many. It seems certain to me the book”s analysis deserves a close look.

September 27, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Church & Ministry Small Groups

Back to the Middle

By Mark A. Taylor “We need to rediscover the midsize groups of 20-50 people,” Alex Absalom told our interviewer Kent Fillinger not long ago. When I read that quote, I knew I wanted to know more. For years I”ve grieved the virtual abandonment of adult Bible fellowships””Sunday school classes””by most local churches. Among the many reasons for their demise is the fact that few Christian church/church of Christ leaders were taught how to use adult Sunday school as something more than a place for often-mediocre Bible teaching. Early in my ministry I was trained to use such adult groups as

September 11, 2016

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry Church Growth

Releasing Others to Serve: An Interview with Alex Absalom

By Kent Fillinger Alex Absalom leads Dandelion (www.dandelionresourcing.com), which empowers leaders, churches, and networks to build missional and naturally supernatural disciple-making cultures.Â He is a pastor at Grace Church in Long Beach, California, and previously spent five years on the leadership team at RiverTree Christian Church in Massillon, Ohio, where he led the church in transitioning from a purely attractional to an attractive missional model, which included the starting of about 70 midsize missional communities. We spoke with him about how churches today are unleashing their members to use their spiritual gifts””and how they can do this better. What is

June 1, 2013

Christian Standard

Mission & Evangelism

Missional Revolution

By Darrel Rowland RiverTree Christian Church in Massillon, Ohio, has not tried to become just a little more missional. Led by visionary minister Greg Nettle, more than three years ago the church made a revolutionary commitment to a missional strategy for all its ministry. The result is breeding influence and disciple-building in a way Nettle believes is vital for the very survival of the church in America. Just a few minutes after Greg Nettle”s message and the closing song, a man with an idea pulls him aside in the hallway. “You know what? I know all these remodelers,” the contractor

October 5, 2011

Christian Standard

Mission & Evangelism

RiverTree Providing Tools for Missional Movement

By Jennifer Taylor A number of factors began to converge, and Greg Nettle, senior pastor at RiverTree Christian Church (Massillon, OH), thought God might be up to something. There were partnerships with Stadia (Irvine, CA) and Compassion International; the launch of 18 churches and counting with Kingdom Synergy Partnership, a church planting network; the addition of Alex Absalom, coauthor of Launching Missional Communities, to the RiverTree staff; the launch of Love Canton, an urban church plant; and the transition of RiverTree from megachurch to missional movement. “It started to become clear that God was moving,” Nettle says. The RiverTree team