Ideas from GCA Church Planting Conference – Day 2

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jan 30, 2007 in Church, Church Planting | 4 comments

Here are the sessions I attended today: Developing a Purpose & Mission, Determining Value & Styles (both taught from the infamous 600+ page GCA Church Planting Manual, so I won't quote these) and Redeemer's Global Cities Strategy.  Some ideas from today:

"Church plants are 250% more likely to succeed if they have a good leadership development plan." -Ed Stetzer (from his new research to be released in the book Comeback Churches: How 300 Churches Turned Around and Yours Can Too May 2007)  Of course people also enjoyed his quote, "There is more evidence from scripture for me to go out and get a concubine than to start a denomination." 

Ed suggested church planters to view the free resources at Namb.net/cmr 

 "European cities and the business class are vastly unreached by the Christian church."  – Al Barth Redeemer Church Planting Center.  Al went on to say that it is more strategic for a church planter to go after the educated and the business class, which in the long run allows you to reach the poor and have a greater impact on a city.   Al also said, "One of the most common false notions a church planter has (even if they verbally disagree) is that 'If we build a church that worships God, people will come.  It is rare today to succeed based purely on an attractional ministry model." (Ed Stetzer also stated this model only works in a few contexts and that often mailers don't work anymore.  Who does direct mail?  Does it still work for you?)

Al Barth also stated that Redeemer is looking for men to be involved in these church plants that…

1. Understand the Gospel (read Keller, Lovelace, C.Jack Miller to understand there view of the gospel expressed.) 

2. Transformed lives from the Gospel

3. are able to clearly Articulate the Gospel

4. and can Apply the Gospel surgically. 

Church Planting – Coaching & Network Development

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jan 28, 2007 in Church, Church Planting, Leadership | 0 comments

Tomorrow I leave to the North America Church Planting Conference with David Fairchild. "The North America Church Planting Conference is an inter-denominational training event designed to equip church planters, coaches and supervisors to start, grow and multiply healthy, gospel-centered churches that result in the spiritual, social and cultural transformation of entire cities and regions."  Leaders from Acts 29 will attend sessions to map out a network coaching strategy.  This is Phase I of several Acts 29 church planters being trained to be coaches of church planters. 

Phase II is Bob Logan of Coachnet.org coming to Seattle March 21-22 to also train Acts 29 coaches. From Coachnet: "Coaching is fundamental to everything we do in ministry, from discipling new believers to developing new leaders. Dynamic churches and ministries have coaching woven into their genetic code. CoachNet's desire is to see people become intentional about coaching — either in beginning to coach others or in improving the quality of coaching they currently deliver. Everybody talks about it… it's time to start doing it!  CoachNet's Coach Certification program is a specialized, comprehensive process that prepares Christian leaders to effectively coach and develop others."

It is good to be a part of Acts 29 as it continues to grow rapidly, but also mature as men who planted churches 3, 5 or 10 years ago are now coaching others who are just beginning.  If you are a church planter, it is a real opportunity to be coached by people who understand the challenges of church planting and are not so far removed from the process that they speak only in theory.  These relationships are critical to the future of Acts 29 as a church planting network.

Designers, Developers & Progammers Needed by Ministries

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jan 28, 2007 in Church, Church Technology | 1 comment

Are you a designers, developers or programmer?  MinistryCamp Job Board has launched “a listing of design and programming jobs offered by ministries looking for the best of the online industry that loves Jesus.”  One of the benefits of MinistryCamp, is a percentage of the sales is given back into practical Christian ministry determined on a monthly basis. This month MinistryCamp is giving to Campus Crusade for Christ in New Orleans. If you need designers, developers, programmers or others, check out MinistryCamp as a employment advertising option.

The Future of Spirituality and what is after Postmodernism

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jan 22, 2007 in Church, Culture | 11 comments

I'm always curious about social trends and the shape of things to come.  It is through this fascination, I've gathered some information and patterns to suggest where the future of spirituality is going and what is after postmodernism.  I believe postmodernism is already dead.  Unfortunately, it will take years (and even decades in some pockets of culture) to unfold the new era of where things are going.  I believe Christians need to be prepared for the challenges ahead as we desire to understand our culture and communicate the gospel to a dying world. 

Here are the shifts that I believe will radically alter the spiritual landscape of the west:

1. The Science of Faith - Science has, in the past steered away from non-empirical areas of faith.  But under increased pressure to explain the unexplainable, scientists are moving quickly to provide a framework of reducing faith to 'scientific' components.  Science must do this to restore the lost power from the rise of postmodernism and rejection of a naturalistic modern progression.  The day will come where issues of faith, belief and spirituality will be considered 0's & 1's that came from evolution.  Science will tell us why we have faith or beliefs and attempt to strip validity of all religion.  [Eg. One such area of study is memetics, an approach to evolutionary models of information transfer based on the concept of the meme.  'Meme ' is a term often used in blogging about the viral transfer of information through blogs but it actually was coined in the biological field prior by Richard Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene".]

2. Christianity as a Psychiatric Diagnosis and social ill - Under the 'new' science of the mind, people who are of faith will be considered in need of treatment.  As science enters into the faith equation all religions will be seen as 'Viruses of the Mind' or Faith Suffers as Richard Dawkins writes.  To deal with man's true problems will require treatment to remove the guilt, dogma and false belief structures imposed by religion.  True therapeutic healing can only begin after the Christian rejects the superstition of faith.  Dawkins argues  that religion may be "natural" but like a viral infection Christianity is still a disease that must be eradicated for the good of humanity.   

3. The death of Pluralism & Postmodernism – Religions will be blamed for the wars, prejudices and intolerance in our world.  There will no longer be a tolerance to religious differences.  As all religions are lumped into one malady, no religion will be considered right, except the faith in science & naturalism.  Pluralism and the relativity of postmodernism will be rejected as frameworks that are naive and unworkable.

4. The Rise of the New Atheist - All of these shifts will be aggressively pursued by thinkers who are no longer tolerant of any religious faith.  As described by Wired: "The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it's evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking."  (Source: Wired, The Crusade Against Religion Oct 23rd 2006)  Wired claims the three leading atheists are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.  Also see the Bright's Net , a collective of this new atheist.  (Logo from their website)  These atheists will not stop until all religion is labeled evil.

"We certainly have been placed in an interesting time.  In fact it is not much different than what Machen was experiencing in the early 1900's.  We have a rise of liberalism within the church labeled as Emergent.  And we have the rise of scientism outside the church labeled as Progess.  Both are trying to regain ground.  One attempts to gain ground they lost to the evangelicals, and the other ground they lost to the postmoderns.  The New Liberalism and the New Science which are not really new at all are they?,"  Tom Moller, an elder at Kaleo Church .

Acts 29 Bloggers

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jan 22, 2007 in Church Planting | 7 comments

For those who are church planters, I've put together a list of Acts 29 pastors who have blogs.  My assumption is that a lot of these planters will post on issues of church planting and being the church.

David Fairchild (San Diego)

Mark Moore (Dallas & Mark blogs about the International Acts 29 movement)

Mark Driscoll (Seattle)

Michael Foster (Cincinnati)

Bill Streger (Houston)

Pete Williamson (Bellingham)

Tim Wagner (West LA) 

Brent Rood (Bothell WA)

Ed Marcelle (Troy, NY) 

Jonathan Herron (Kent OH)

Ryan Mobley (Springfield IL) 

Justin Anderson (Tempe, AZ) 

duane matthew smets (Pacific Beach) 

Mike Edwards (Detroit)

Who else am I missing?