There are several different kinds of strategies that people use to plant churches. There is the Seed model in which a solo church planter lands in his “field” and gets to work. This parachute drop-style of planting can be fruitful, but it often takes longer and has a lower rate of success. Then there is…
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What comes to mind when you think of church planting? Maybe it’s locating and outfitting a building; maybe it’s thinking throughout outreach strategy; or maybe it’s forming a team or gathering the broken and lost together. Maybe your mind pictures a charismatic leader or dollar signs. While all of these things can certainly part of…
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Most of us desire excellence and would love to be excellent at what we do. Overall, I think this is a good thing and something that God would praise and encourage us toward. However, like almost everything, there is a dark side to excellence, especially when it comes to church. In short, I believe the…
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If you’re over the age of 40, perhaps the first thing that pops into your head when you see this is “Cowboys”. Where have all the cowboys gone? You wouldn’t be alone. The song by the same name was released in 1997 by Paula Cole and went to number eight on the Billboard Hot 100…
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Given my role to work with churches in regard to church planting, I spend a lot of time talking to church planters and people who work with and coach church planters. I also spend a fair amount of time reading material devoted to this topic. Over the years I have found a few prominent themes…
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A few years ago at Ignite, Lt. Col. Brian Daum, an RMD chaplain with the National Guard, introduced himself as a cross-cultural worker. As I recall he said something like, “Members of the military are a different culture. They wear different clothes, speak a different language, and eat different food (MREs).” While there’s a bit…
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Perhaps, like me, many of you were taught early in ministry that the way to multiply something is to divide it in half. If you want to multiply a small group, develop another leader and divide the group into two groups. If you want to multiply your youth group, find another leader and divide the…
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If you have raised kids you remember the questions they had about the “__” word. You know, the “d” word, the “h” word, the “s” word, and on and on they go. In the church world we have one of those seemingly taboo words too, the “e” word… Evangelism. I think there are three things…
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We all know that we are called to be a “going” people. The church is to “go” and make disciples who in turn “go” and make disciples. The question for us, then, is how do we create this culture in our local church? Below are some ideas to consider along these lines. Start with you. God…
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I spent most of my school-age years living in a small dryland farming community. Consequently, I worked for a farmer who was part of our church. He was a good farmer and a great man who worked hard and smart to steward his farm well. He put in long hours to prepare the soil, cared…
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