I love living in a part of the world that has four true seasons. When I have visited other places that don’t, I always find it a bit disorienting, and it makes me even more appreciative of the change in weather and scenery. I wonder if part of the reason for this is due to…
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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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In the July RMD Newsletter it was announced that Rev. Jens (Monika) Sundem had resigned as Senior Pastor of Real Life (Alliance) Church in Bigfork, MT to lead a microchurch plant project in Kalispell, MT. This month, I sat down with Jens and asked him a few questions. Why did you leave a healthy full…
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We celebrate to remember. Have you ever thought about that? One of the big reasons we celebrate certain days is to remember something. Whether it’s the 4th of the July in the United States or Passover in ancient Israel, “red letter” days, as they used to be known, are a pause for remembering. And so…
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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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Well, it’s now mid-February, which means that a large percentage of the new gym members who signed up January 1st have stopped going and are getting ready to cancel their memberships. While this is typically a bit of a joke among gym regulars, I find it a bit sad. Everyone one of those new members signed…
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I often think of Psalm 20 as the Church Planting Psalm. I think it’s such a great picture of what we would want a sending church to say to a plant team that’s stepping out in faith. Here are the first few verses: May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the…
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