March 6, 2024
ICOM offers an entire church/college family registration option. Plus, housing information is now available for the Nov. 14-16 conference in Lexington, Ky. . . . Plus briefs from Waypoint Church Planters, CMF, The Pressing On Conference (April 9-11), KCU, and more . . .
April 19, 2022
The rapid turnover in a new church plant’s core launch team is not unusual, church-planting experts say. Of the 40 or so people who helped plant Canvas Church in North Carolina last September, almost half are gone . . . some simply disappeared without saying a word. “It’s weird, but it’s like, ‘Can you say goodbye?’” the lead planter said.
January 1, 2022
What do a lawyer, a football player, and a youth pastor have in common? It might sound like the setup to a bad joke, but it isn’t. All three are examples of professionals who recently left their jobs to plant independent Christian churches in the United States. Many of today’s church leaders are asking where tomorrow’s church leaders will come from. That’s a critical concern among church planters as well. In fact, Stadia president Greg Nettle says, “The number one challenge we face right now is our leadership pipeline of church planters.” Nettle and other church-planting leaders estimate it will
Chandler (Ariz.) Police Officer Christopher Farrar, 50, a member of Compass Christian Church, was struck and killed by a stolen vehicle driven by a person attempting to flee from police April 29. Another officer was seriously injured.
February 10, 2021
A U.S. Marine Corps veteran who attended Sullivan (Mo.) Christian Church was shot and killed Jan. 31 while serving as a security guard for a firm that contracts with MetroLink, the mass transit system in St. Louis. James Cook, 30, leaves his wife, Kim, and two children, ages 9 and 5. Kim thanked the community for their support and her church for helping strengthen her family, Fox 2 Now reported. On Tuesday, SCC livestreamed a memorial service it hosted for Cook. Nathaniel M. Smith III, 36, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death, according to stltoday.com. A
January 6, 2021
Spire Huddles will be resuming at 1 p.m. (EST) Wednesday, Jan. 13. Huddles offer an online, interactive, conversational, and free way to connect with other church leaders and discuss important topics presented by expert speakers. There is a different huddle focus and host/presenter each week. Huddles (and hosts) over the next few weeks include: • Jan. 13, Church Planting (Jeff Reed of Stadia) • Jan. 20, Preaching Teams (Arron Chambers) • Jan. 27, Children, Students, & Families (Keith Parker) The huddles last roughly 90 minutes. An additional 30 minutes are allotted for final questions at the end of the main
February 22, 2020
By Tim Cole The Internet is the most disruptive force in church communication since the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1439. Your church’s front door may be located on your property, but in many ways the church’s website serves as the new digital screen door through which your potential guests will decide beforehand if they will venture to and through the physical front door. Recently I consulted with an older church overseas about why they weren’t attracting and keeping enough visitors to spur consistent growth. My onsite visit revealed several potential problems, but one stood out. The urban church
August 22, 2019
Church Planters Find Big Opportunities in Small Places By Tim Cole During the past generation, Christian churches and churches of Christ have become respected within the body of Christ at large for our leadership in church planting. This position of national influence mostly results from our outsized success planting new churches in rapidly growing suburban areas surrounding larger metropolitan centers. More recently, within the past decade, many of our church-planting organizations have begun to focus on planting churches in downtown, urban settings. Waypoint Church Partners enjoys a rich, 80-year history of starting and serving Christian churches and churches of Christ
August 7, 2016
By Justin Horey As more and more local congregations recruit ministry staff from among their own members, they”re seeking new ways to equip them for ministry. Several traditional colleges and universities are offering nontraditional ways to give professional ministry skills to everyday Christians. Dave Moses never planned to serve in full-time ministry. He grew up in a non-Christian home in Huntington Beach, California”””Surf City”””playing football and enjoying the Southern California lifestyle. He entered the restaurant business shortly after graduating from high school and worked in the food-service industry for more than two decades, even owning and operating his own successful
April 4, 2016
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
November 21, 2015
By Rick Jett I used to feel sorry for the away team. When I ministered in Marion, Indiana, in the mid-1980s, the Marion Giants were the dominant high school basketball team in the state. They were state champions three years in a row. On game day, everyone in town wore purple and gold to support the home team. Nearly 7,000 fans would fill the high school athletic arena. The ceremony before each home game was designed to intimidate the away team. After everyone stood for the national anthem, the announcer would introduce the starting lineup for the visitors. The cheerleaders
November 4, 2015
By Jennifer Johnson The Virginia Evangelizing Fellowship and Envision (North Carolina), two mid-Atlantic evangelizing associations, publicly announced their merger at last week”s International Conference on Missions. The two groups are joining to become Waypoint Church Partners. The two organizations completed a two-year process syncing their legal, financial, and organizational structures to form a new regional alliance. Envision, once known as the Piedmont Evangelizing Association, had been involved with more than 30 new church projects in North Carolina over the past 45 years. VEF, in existence since 1938, planted more than 80 churches in Virginia and more recently in the adjoining
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April 28, 2026
Rick Cherok
April 28, 2026
David Faust
April 28, 2026
Rick Cherok