There is a lot of talk among churches as being 'relevant'.  I urge you to go beyond being 'relevant to our culture' to seeking to transform the city you live in.   At Kaleo Church we see the gospel story as a salvational message, means for ongoing grace renewal by God and the announcement of God's Kingdom on earth.  We must see the good news as a call to bring shalom in our cities and be a city within a city that is a foretaste of the eternal Kingdom to come.   Here are a few resources that have been suggested to us: 

The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World

To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City

Communities First (including a theology of development) 

Asset Based Community Development (pdf)  ABCD Institute website

The 2007 Multi-Site Church Conference just wrapped up.  The conference looked at why do multi-site, different models of multi-site and specifically the Redeemer NY (multi-site) and the Harbor Presbyterian (multi-congregational & multi-site) models.  (No video venues)  Here are some ideas from the conference:

Launching a second site only increases a church costs 35-45% (with a pastor preaching these two locations each Sunday).

If you are going to launch a second service you must provide an equal level of excellence in these four areas or people may return to the first site: worship, preaching, fellowship, children.  Fellowship will take a hit, in terms of splitting people but they must see this as being on mission. 

To go multi-site you must have a movement leader who provides (1) integrity to vision, (2) vitality to mission and (3) unity in the sites.  

[Generis a sponsor led this session but I thought it was interesting] If you conduct a campaign to raise money in your church, their are three types of people who will give Major, Leadership & Congregation gifts.  I wont' go into too many details but typically the congregational represent 56-85% of the total givers yet only 15-25% of the total raised.  Just preaching on tithing isn't enough, stewardship needs to be a ministry in your church.  Many Major donors feel it unwise to tithe what they could, because the church could become dependent on it.  They are willing to donate for one-time events or projects.

Six Key Questions to ask to determine if you should go multi-site or not

1. Does multi-site ministry fit with your vision & values?  (For example, if you are bridging  together different cultures into one multi-cultural service, to go multi-site can actually harm your vision.)

2. Would the multi-site model best fit your context & gifts?

3. Is your leadership enthusiastic to do this?  (Going multi-site can cause some people to feel overwhelmed or even feel threatened by their loss of influence and power.)

4. Is your key leadership in place to support this goal & vision?

5. Have you effectively communicated your vision?

6. Is the pastor and his wife ready/willing/able to do this?  (Multi-site will have a big impact on your ministry style and patterns.) 

Ed Stetzer's full 47-page 2007 Church Planting Survivability & Health Study (pdf) is now available. See previous post for summaries: Church Planting and Survivability, How Many Church Plants Really Survive—and Why?, 10 Factors for Higher Attendance in Church Plants

Including the fourth major portion dealing with baptism. Higher Baptisms in Church Plants

Buildings, baptisms, and budgets—the benchmarks most people use to evaluate church health. But are these the best measures? There are many who question which is most appropriate, but we wanted to see church plants that are reaching the lost through conversions. In most cases for denominations in our study, that was measured in baptisms.

Thanks Ed for the work on this! 

Many of you may have seen this, but you can check out a podcast of Ed Stetzer & Mark Driscoll in preparation for the National New Churches Conference. Also, Acts 29's blog got pimped , so you can see the new digs & read more about Mark Driscoll in an interview there.

This is based on the Developing Leaders to lead from Harbor.  How do you develop leaders at your church?  This is a common challenge for churches, who must utilize the volunteer pool to lead important ministries in their church.  Harbor Presbyterian, Kaleo Church and a group of other church planters meet monthly to discuss these types of challenges.  Here are a few thoughts from this meeting:

3 Questions to ask prior to selecting leaders

1. Can they do the job?  Do they have the capability, giftedness, track record, competency, and theological training.  NORMATIVE

2. Will they do the job? Character/Motivation EXISTENTIAL

3. Do they fit?  Compatibility to co-workers, fit in context/culture SITUATIONAL  

Systemic & Personal Leadership Development

How are you developing leaders personally and does your church have a systemic leadership development component built into its design? Your church should be developing leaders through the whole church and ministry process.  Jesus did this both and created twelve disciples who had a group of 120 when the church waited for the Holy Spirit.  There also was a 1 to 10 leader to person ratio.

Moving from Pragmatism to Prayer in Recruiting Leaders

Pray prior to meeting with a potential ministry volunteer who you have identified through some personal connection. Avoid the pragmatism of seeking to just 'delegate a task'.  Tell them based on your knowledge of them why you believe this ministry is a good fit for them, their personal growth and use of gifts.  Ask them to pray if they will respond to this call.  Be motivated to do this because of love for them.

10 Factors for Higher Attendance in Church Plants is up as part 3 of the Church Planting Survivability and Health Study.  Why do some church plants grow large with others struggle to gather people?  Are there any common factors that these growing churches share?  This survey looked at over 1,000 church plants and hundreds of interviews.  Here are the common characteristics:

The Location Factor
The Ministry Factor
The Promotion Factor
The Training Factor
The Expectations Factor
The Financial Factor
The Staff Factor
The Missions Factor
The Leadership Factor
The Achievement Factor

Read the whole report:  10 Factors for Higher Attendance in Church Plants

Ed Stetzer has released the second part of this study.  (Read the previous post on Church Planting and Survivability.)  In the study, expectations were the largest determining factor to survivability. 

Expectations might not seem like they would make such a profound difference in the survivability rate, but they had the biggest impact (400%). When realistic expectations are combined with a plan to develop leaders, benefit from others, and develop stewards, the difference is remarkable.

Other factors considered were:

Leadership Development - "If the church planter provides leadership development training for new church members, the odds of survivability increase by over 250 percent."

Church Planter Peer Group - "The church planter who meets with a group of church planting peers at least monthly increases the odds of survivability by 135 percent. We found that out of those church planters who were part of a peer group, 83 percent of their churches survived whereas only 67 percent of church plants among those who did not have a peer group survived."

Stewardship Plans - "Church plants that have a proactive stewardship development plan enable the church to become financially self-sufficient. They also increase the odds of survivability by over 178 percent. Of those church plants who have a stewardship development plan, 81 percent of churches survived whereas only 68 percent of church plants survived among those who did not have a stewardship plan."

Read the full article:  How Many Church Plants Really Survive—and Why? (Next, in part 3, Factors for Higher Attendance)

Ed Stetzer has been working an a number of church planting statistics that we've all been waiting for…well wait no more: 

Statistics are a dangerous thing. Some use them well; some use them badly; but most evangelical leaders use them—and church planting is no exception.

One of the statistics that is frequently cited but never sourced is the survivability and health of church plants. I've heard quite an array of statistics—but one of my favorites is that often repeated "80 percent of new churches fail in the first year."

Well, not so fast.

Full report by Ed Stetzer:  Church Planting and Survivability

Once a year Kaleo preaches a 'state of the union' address of where our church is and where it is going.  This was done in a dialogical format by David Fairchild and I last Sunday.  In it we were able to cover:

1. An overview of Kaleo's brief history.
2. Purpose of the Church
3. Gospel Renewal Dynamics in our church
4. A missional ecclesiology 
5. Our vision for San Diego

You can view the whole sermon: Kaleo 2007

The Gospel Gone Public: Worldview·Mission·Preaching
Regional Event | San Diego
March 31, 2007

There is nothing more beautiful than to see a city transformed by the Gospel. As a fellow laborer for seeing Gospel going forth in San Diego, you are invited to the next Acts 29 regional event in San Diego, The Gospel Gone Public: Worldview·Mission·Preaching on Saturday, March 31, 2007.

Covered at this one-day conference will be topics that affect every pastor passionate about transforming San Diego with the Gospel, including the Church’s biblical mission, how to prepare and preach Gospel-centered messages, Gospel transformation, and much more.

Learn about the speakers, sessions, schedule, registration and the conference partners.

The cost for this conference is $45, and will include the conference materials, lunch, and a copy of Michael Goheen’s The Drama of Scripture.

My friend Ed Stetzer is working on a research project with The Leadership Network (www.leadnet.org) on the state of church planting in the U.S. One key aspect of this study is a close look at multiplying churches and networks: what are they doing, how they are doing it, etc.If your church or organization has been actively involved in supporting new church starts over the past few years, and you have not already participated in the study, would you take a moment to fill out an online survey about your work and efforts? If you know others who should be involved, would you please forward this to them?

The church planting church survey can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=861003202740

The survey for organizations/denominations can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=545713205672.

We appreciate your time and effort to share your thoughts, experiences, successes and challenges. You won't want to be left out of this groundbreaking study.

In April I will be presenting two sessions at the National New Churches Conference.  On Tuesday Brad Abare, founder of Church Marketing Sucks and I will co-present a session tentatively titled "Get the Word Out! What Every Church Planter Needs to Know About Communication" my emphasis will be on the web.  Later that week I will present "Using the Internet to Gather, Connect and as a place of Mission."  

The National New Churches Conference is the largest gathering of church planting leaders in North America, the conference is designed to connect, inspire, equip and challenge church planting leaders. The lineup of speakers includes Bill Hybels, Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, Wayne Cordeiro, Ed Stetzer, Dave Ferguson, Bob Roberts, Larry Osborne, Ron Sylvia, Bil Cornelius, Mark Batterson, Jim Putman, Rick Rusaw, Matt Chandler, Darrin Patrick, Shawn Lovejoy, Vince Antonucci, Bob Logan, and David Putman.

The National New Church Conference is in Orlando, Fla. April 23 - 26, 2007.  You can register here.

Church Planting Resources posted a paper that "sets out a new paradigm for church planting that may help create such a culture. Missionary and Missiologist Roland Allen calls the kind of church planting movement referred to in the MNA church planting vision as “the spontaneous expansion of the Church”, its “unlimited expansion” and the “spontaneous freedom of expanding life.”

It includes:

1. Principles of Spontaneous Church Planting Expansion (with applications)

2. Case Studies: Mars Hill in Seattle (of a Spontaneous Expansion), Harbor Presbyterian in San Diego (of a One-Church/Multi-Congregational Movement)

3. Written by Tim Keller it includes much of their philosophy @ Redeemer

4. Feedback in Paul’s Missionary and Church Planting Method

5. The Mission to North America’s (MNA) Church Planting Vision

Go here to download Emergence Theory and the Spontaneous Expansion of the Church – a vision for Church planting in the 21st Century a 22-page PDF. 

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. 

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?