Articles for tag: Church Planting

Small Church, Big Vision

By Matthew McGue After planting a multiethnic, community-impacting church in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2004, God clearly called my wife and me to plant another intentional multiethnic church in Jackson, Mississippi. We launched One Church on March 23, 2014. Planting an intentional, multiethnic, gospel-centered, community-impacting church in a very traditional, Deep South city with historic segregation might seem crazy. It can be even more challenging as a Northerner, affectionately referred to as a “Damn Yankee,” with no local relationship connections. As a church planter, you had better be sure the Lord is calling you to a specific place, especially when

June 23, 2016

Intentional Church Planting

By Mike Goldsworthy In 2007, I was sitting in a room filled with other pastors from Long Beach, California. We were a predominately Anglo audience listening to an expert describe the city”s rapidly changing demographics. According to the last two census reports, Long Beach is one of the most diverse large cities in the United States. This in a city that for many years had been fondly referred to as “Iowa by the Sea” because of the large number of residents who are migrants from Iowa. As I sat in that room, I was in the midst of a two-year

June 17, 2016

A New Church for a New America

By Steve Blake Catalyst of Austin is a new church plant in the fastest-growing city in the country, Austin, Texas. My prayer in starting Catalyst of Austin was that God would allow us to be a multiethnic church that advances his kingdom in our city and beyond. To God”s glory, within a few short months of the church”s launch, there are approximately 15 ethnic backgrounds and nationalities represented, including Filipino, Chinese, Indian, Puerto Rican, African-American, Jamaican, Honduran, Nicaraguan, Mexican, Norwegian, German, Hawaiian, Russian, and Spanish. Several of these people are first-generation immigrants, like myself, while an equal number are second-generation.

May 11, 2016

Church & Ministry Leadership Development

Creating Culture

By Jim Tune Pixar founder Ed Catmull had always dreamed of using computers to create a great animated movie. He achieved this with the release of Toy Story. “We”d been the first to make a movie with computers,” he wrote in his book Creativity, Inc., “and””even better””audiences were touched, and touched deeply by the story we told.” The problem? “Now that this goal had been reached, I had what I can only describe as a hollow, lost feeling.” Running a company didn”t seem to be enough. Catmull began to scratch beneath the surface, and realized things weren”t as healthy at

May 2, 2016

Church & Ministry Church Growth

Hopes, Fears, & Priorities (2015 Megachurch & Statistics Report)

By Kent Fillinger Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd released a song a few years ago called “Something to Live For.” Churches and individuals could echo the lyrics of the song; we, too, need something we can live for, hold on to, and believe in. Hebrews 6:18, 19 says, “We who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Bill Hybels said, “The church is the hope of the world.” Hopes This year”s survey asked churches to share “one hope or

April 18, 2016

Restoration Movement History

Opening Doors

“You don”t have to leave the movementÂ to lead beyond it.”Â Six perspectives on a provocative statement ________ By Jennifer Johnson These leaders love the Restoration Movement and its principles, but they also work and minister “outside” of it with the churches they serve, the partnerships they pursue, and the parachurch ministries they lead.Â Here are their thoughts on what it means to go beyond the movement, why it matters, and how it can honor God. Brent Storms The biggest question for me is how does one “get in” and “get out” of our movement?Â We”re coming across planters and church

April 4, 2016

We”ve Become Leaders in Church Planting

By Justin Horey Innovation is at the heart of new church planting. Spend any amount of time talking to the leaders of the church planting ministries in the Restoration Movement, and it quickly becomes clear this is a group that prizes newness: new places, new churches, new believers, new ideas, and new strategies. It”s not easy to say when this attitude began to take hold””perhaps in the 1980s or 1990s. Today new Christian churches are often established by organizations that profess to “do things no one else does.” Lance Hurley, executive director of Ignite Church Planting in Chicago, recalls how

March 30, 2016

Axioms for Leaders, Part 1

By Jim Tune I”ve thought through ten axioms that are helpful for me as I try to lead others and myself responsibly. Here are five for this week, with five more to follow in next week”s blog: 1. It”s okay to ask for help. There are good people ready and willing to help you. You can”t do this job alone so get all the help you can. Ask for support and then be easy to support. 2. Make mistakes. Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them. Gretchin Rubin

March 21, 2016

The World Comes to India

By Gary Holloway “The experience changed my life.” “I saw more of what God is doing in the world.” “Our churches will never be the same.” These are statements from people who have attended a Global Gathering of the World Convention. The World Convention of Churches of Christ serves the Stone-Campbell churches (Christian, Churches of Christ, and Disciples of Christ) found in 199 countries and territories, with about 10 million total adherents worldwide. World Convention seeks to connect those churches everywhere, every day. One way it connects is through a Global Gathering every few years, with the next one scheduled

March 18, 2016

Jesus in the Rubble

By Rich Gorman We were failing miserably. We moved into our Chicago neighborhood in 2010 to join others in starting a new church that would help people discover Jesus and lead to lasting life change and community transformation for God”s glory. Our neighborhood provided some unique challenges. It is one of the most dense and diverse in the city, a home to refugees and immigrants from all over the world. It is a community of stark divisions: ethnic, racial, gender, socioeconomic, language, religion, culture . . . and the list goes on. But we were certain God would bless what

March 10, 2016

Our Challenges, My Peace

By Dan Lang Since my youth, the burning conviction to be a preacher moved me in the direction God wanted me to go. There was no escaping it. I was compelled. During training at Lincoln Christian University, Jesus” commission to make disciples of all people jelled for me as the simple but profound strategic mission that would shape the way I carried out my personal call to leadership ministry. A picture materialized of what my ministry in a local church might look like. I never dreamed I would be in my 28th year leading an increasingly diverse urban church with

March 9, 2016

Discipleship & Spiritual Formation

Soul Work Is Slow Work

By Jim Tune Paul Sparks, a cofounder of the Parish Collective, likes to refer to the reverse Prayer of Jabez. I find his twist on things refreshing: God, Shrink our territory, And narrow our boundaries That we might truly be a blessing to all. Yeah. Like that would be a best seller or catalyze a 40-day program for the typical Evangelical church. Most preachers and church planters struggle with impatience. We have goals to achieve, targets to hit. Wherever we are, it seems, we are itching to leave. Here and now is never enough. We want to get to some

March 5, 2016

Bigger Than “˜Bigger and Better”

By Chris Travis On the one hand, I get it. If you want a picture of what a church is like, then the number of people who come on Sundays fills in a lot of information quickly. But does it tell the whole story? I think we all know it doesn”t, and yet, we”re really not sure how else to define success. “What are you running on Sundays now?” Three different people asked me that question within five minutes. This was not at a church planting conference. This was at my home church! People didn”t ask how my wife was

March 4, 2016

Church & Ministry Church Growth

“˜A Dream in My Heart”

By Jennifer Johnson It all began with a sermon. Several years ago, Josh Howard, director of leadership training at Central India Christian Mission, was listening to a message called “Born to Reproduce” by Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators. “He made a comment that it was possible for us to reach the entire world in 10 years,” Howard says. “I thought, There”s no way that”s true. So I got out my calculator and did the math. I realized that if every person reached one person every six months, in 15 years we could reach all of India”s 1.1 billion people.

March 3, 2016

Michael C. Mack

Are You a Level 5 Multiplying Church?

By Michael C. Mack A number of behaviors (and corresponding behavioral types) affect a church”s capability for multiplying. In Becoming a Level Five Multiplying Church, Exponential director Todd Wilson and Community Christian Church lead pastor Dave Ferguson define five specific levels of multiplying churches, with Level 5 being the most aggressive. “Regardless of church size, growth rate (positive or negative) or behavioral type,” the authors say, “all churches will exhibit behaviors from all five levels; however, we can begin to define a primary level and create profiles for each of the five behavioral types.” Surprisingly, most large churches are Level

November 10, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Changes for the Better?

By Mark A. Taylor Every missions leader and missionary watcher will tell you missions is different these days. A generation or two ago, missionaries departed for a foreign field with the intent to spend their lives there. Now “long-term missionaries” stay for maybe two or three years. Those days, and in the generations before, missionaries went from the West to the rest of the world, and most American church members assumed “we” had the solution to the problems suffered by “them.” Now missionaries from Asia, Africa, and South America are going all over the world with the gospel. And some

November 2, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Missions Ministry Toolbox

Interview by Mark A. Taylor We spoke with four local church missions ministers about best practices for missions ministry. Their answers were as inspiring as they were practical. Here areÂ approaches to the local church”s global outreach that build up the church and nourish the workers on foreign fields.Â We think every congregation will appreciate the insights and ideas these four shared: PAT CREECH, global outreach pastor for Crossroads Christian Church, Newburgh, Indiana; DREW DEPLER, global outreach pastor at LifeBridge Christian Church, Longmont, Colorado; TYLER HARI, pastor of outreach, Eastview Christian Church, Normal,Â Illinois; and DAVID THORESEN, director of local andÂ international outreach,

October 20, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Entrepreneurship â‰ Leadership

By Mark A. Taylor Big ideas. Bold initiatives. Novel thoughts and new approaches. Replacement strategies and structures and processes to eliminate the out-of-date. Change. Growth. These are the fruits produced by all good leaders, right? Maybe. It”s certainly true we hear all of these described in leadership seminars and discussed among many ministers and their advisers. But lately it has dawned on me that what some see as leadership is really entrepreneurship. And they are not the same. The entrepreneur is, at least at first, a lone ranger. He (or she) pushes forward compelled by a new idea or a

September 20, 2015