Church Conflict
Speaker: Steve Childers
"If you are a church planter, by its nature you are a conflict manager," said Childers. There is a relationship between the church size and conflict. The smaller your church, the greater the arena and likelihood an antagonist will be present. (The people set on absorbing the time and the attention of the church planter.) As your church grows, it brings change. People do not like change, so you will also experience conflict.
90% of all people that fail in their life vocation do so because they can't get along with the people. (source: Carnegie Tech Institute)
Christian conflict of opinions is typically much worse than the secular world. Christians believe their opinions stem from the Creator God of the Universe. If you and the God of the Universe are taking sides on an opinion, you will take a firm stance.
Childers gleans s from Francis Schaeffer's The Great Evangelical Disaster and said, "If church discipline is not done Biblically, there will be a loss of purity in the church (of both doctrine/life), if there is a loss of purity, there is a loss of power to change lives and culture". Churches need to expect, prepare for and lovingly deal with conflict. Thankfully, God condescends to us to teach us very practical steps to resolve conflict. If you want more, Childers strongly endorses, The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict.
Read David Fairchild's (thorough) post on Conflict Management.
Read MoreMobilizing Church Planters
Speaker: Dr. Steve Ogne
David Fairchild provides a good summary of the session on Mobilizing Church Planters . Steve gives a few suggestions for finding and igniting a multiplication movement. What are we looking for when we think of a lighting rod of a man who knows how to charge and take a hill?
1-The leader should engage the culture intentionally not accidentally.
2-The leader can be someone who is effective at disciple-making and can start and multiply a group.
3-The leader may be a pioneer church planter who starts and pastor a new congregation.
4-The leader needs to have a proven track record of being catalytic in his context.
5-The leader may come from an environment where he is the pastor of a parent church who sponsors new churches to begin.
6-The leader may be a coach who empowers and equips church planters.
7-The leader may be a mentor who raises up disciple-making leaders, church planters and missionaries to start and multiply churches.
8-This leader should be an intercessor who prays for others regularly.
Some qualities that an attractive church planting movement possesses:
1-Reputation- We need to know what our reputation is to the city and other churches. What are our distinctives? How would we clarify our theology? How do we articulate our ministry style?
2-Vision- Do you have an attractive vision for church multiplication? Does your movement have empowering visionary leadership?
3-Compassion for lost people- How do you emphasize outreach, compassion, ministry and evangelism?
4-Care- To what degree are you able to provide personal care for church planters and their families?
5-Diversity- How are you prepared to reach the diversity of the harvest and therefore attract a diversity of church planters?
6-Character- What is the quality and character of your leaders, pastors and people?
7-Coaching- What kinds of ongoing coaching, training and resources can you provide to the church planting team?
8-Resources- Do you have reasonable financial resources and benefits to attract the planters your need?
9-Success- Do you have a track record of successful ministry and church planting?
Recruiting Leaders for a Church Planting Movement
"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few…" (Matthew 9:37b) How do you raise and recruit leaders to change a city? Dr. Steve Ogne states that, recruiting is NOT a long term solution. Ogne believes that effective leadership development systems begin with the lost community. Pastoral leaders have the responsibility to raise up the next generation of pastors, church planters and missionaries from within their context. This is exactly what we at Kaleo Church are developing for 2007. Yet, as we seek to not build a church, but change a city we recognize how short-handed we are. It is Kaleo's vision to plant 15 churches within the next 7 years through a multi-site model. This February we are launching our third. (In this same period, we also have a goal of more than 15 traditional parent/daughter church plants in Southern California through our relationship with Acts 29.) With that said we are in need of people who have a heart for mission, church planting and seeing a city changed by the gospel.
In particular we need:
Church Planters who want to actively participate in not just one (a site) but a movement, multiple church plants that will occur throughout the city.
Worship Leaders, musicians and artists who understand the vision/philosophy of ministry where the style of worship is an expression of the local context, yet rich and true in it's theological proclamations.
Church Interns and others who want want to roll-up their sleeves and see what it means to learn theology while on mission.
Gospel-Centered Counselors who want to join our counseling center to change & counsel people through gospel transformation. We just launched Kaleo Christian Counseling Center to minister to both people in the church and to the city at large.
Supporters who have a heart for reaching San Diego and are willing to pray, donate time, finances and other resources to change the city.
Read MoreRaising Leaders for Multiplication – Session at GCA
Speaker: Dr. Steve Ogne
Ogne's session presented a framework for raising up leaders in a local church. One of the thoughts I've had for a month or so (I mentioned it about re-thinking the role of elders that I still haven't posted on yet, but plan to) is:
Churches tend to primarily raise leaders to serve the internal needs of the church, rather than towards leading/developing others toward mission.
Ogne believes most churches conduct the leadership process backwards. First they try to train people in a theological competence, only later do they teach them to mobilize/lead others and disciple people. This is something at Kaleo we have thought about. We take theology very seriously and often want to have this trained-out prior to giving people an opportunity to lead. Rick Mckinley made a good point to David Fairchild a while back that has caused us to rethink this, "We assume we should teach people their theology and then send them on mission, rather than teaching them theology on mission." (paraphrase). Theology is best taught in practical application. Thinking through the theology of suffering is quite different as a logical/theological argument versus counseling a family who just lost a child.
For more of the actual session, David did a great summary: Raising Leaders for Multiplication
Read MoreGCA Conference quotes
CHURCH PLANTING NETWORKS
"Church plants that are part of a network are 400% more likely to succeed."
Ed Stetzer new stats
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
"We've found that if you aim to develop leaders, you'll get what these people can do. If you aim to develop gospel pacesetters, you will get what only the gospel can do."
Daniel Montgomery (Sojourn Community Church) retelling a quote that Dick Kaufmann (Harbor Presbyterian) gave him regarding developing leaders.
Read MoreDrew Goodmanson
CEO of Monk Development creators of Ekklesia 360. Co-Founder of Kaleo Church where I served as Pastor for 8+ years and helped coach several church plants in San Diego. Co-Founder of the GCM Collective, President of the Board at the Center for Church Communication, Board Member of the Entrepreneurship Organization, Internet/Technology Advisory Chair at the Christian Leadership Alliance. Connect
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