One of the cool things working at Monk Development is we are able to do most of our work with churches and ministries.  I've posted a number of the churches we've done using Ekklesia 360 Church CMS, but here are a few ministries we are working with:

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals  is an organization of individuals that believes Evangelicals have largely forgotten the foundations of the Christian Gospel and is dedicated to calling on the Protestant churches, especially those that call themselves Reformed, to return to the principles of the Protestant Reformation. To that end, they produce print and internet resources, broadcast radio programs (The Bible Study Hour, Every Last Word, and Dr. Barnhouse & the Bible) and hold conferences (Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, Princeton regional Conference on Reformed Theology, Reformation Societies) aimed at educating different segments of the Christian population.  The Alliance consists of a who's who of pastors/theologians such as Dr. R. C. SPROUL, Dr. ALBERT MOHLER, Mr. C.J. MAHANEY, Dr. JOHN MACARTHUR, Dr. MARK DEVER, Mr. JERRY BRIDGES and many others.

The Alliance was formed in 1994, out of what was known as Evangelical Ministries, when the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, then senior pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and teacher on "The Bible Study Hour" radio program, called together a group of like-minded pastor-theologians from a variety of denominations to unite in a common cause to help revive a passion "for the truth of the Gospel" within the church.

Design Partner: Designwise

Services: Content Management System, Application Development, E-Commerce.  The Alliance  brought Monk Development in to build an e-commerce resource site (ReformedResources.org) to host 60 years of reformed resources, including conferences, videos, digital downloads, books and others. 

Launch: 2nd Quarter 2007 

Enjoying God Ministries

Enjoying God Ministries (EGM) exists "to proclaim the power of truth and the truth about power." This isn't just a catchy phrase. It reflects both what is lacking in the church today and what is burning in Sam Storm's heart.

EGM exists to serve the body of Christ. Their aim is to be a resource not only for pastors and leaders but for all Christians who long to dig more deeply into the Word of God and to experience the fullness of the Spirit's power. Enjoying God Ministries is a non-profit ministry organization of Dr. Sam Storms who brings over 30 years of ministry to believers seeking a deeper and more passionate relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Design Partner: DesignWise Studios

Services: Content Management System, User Interface, Content, Ecommerce, Application Development

Launch:  Enjoying God Ministries

CFCC Job Boards

Center for Church Communication is the parent company for Church Marketing Sucks.

Churches have the greatest story ever told, but no one's listening. We think there's a communication problem. That remarkable story is lost thanks in part to poor research, little or no planning, bad clip art, cheesy photos and ignorable ads.  We believe there's a better way. It's not simply flashy designs or catchy slogans, but effective and authentic communication. If we can't communicate, how can we fulfill the great commission? We want the Church to matter. We want your church to matter.

We help the church by offering information, resources, advice and starting the conversation about church communication. We are a non-profit organized by communications professionals who have been serving the church and mainstream clients since 1998.

Services: Content Management System, Application Development, E-Commerce.  Monk built a job board to allow users to post freelance gigs and full-time positions in the church communication space.

Launch: 2nd Quarter 2007 

Pastors Edge

Pastors Edge is the web ministry of Dr. James Merritt, a pastor and two time president elect of the Southern Baptist Denomination. Pastors Edge was birthed out of Dr. Merritt's desire to help pastors across the country preach God's Word with power. His passion is to offer the best resources available for the price in order to help congregations across the country flourish.

Design Partner: Designwise

Services: Content Management System, Application Development, E-Commerce

Launch: Pastors Edge 

Dr. Michael Goheen led an excellent session that I wanted to post some of his comments and thoughts here. (The mp3 with the full session should be up in a week or so from the Acts 29 Regional Church Conference ).

1. Church with faithful and relevant worship.

a. Our worship ought to be missional (oriented to the world).
b. Our worship is an end in itself (oriented to God).

If you want to be relevant you are always in danger of absorbing the idols of your culture.  Trying to avoid this by using 'traditional' worship from the 17th Century only absorbs the idols of Enlightenment.  People may do this to avoid the pomo idol of emotionalism and others.

2. A church immersed in the biblical story

A story is the best way to tell people the way things really are.  History has a beginning, a goal and meaning.  We all will live out of some story.  It isn't a matter of whether, but which story.  The dominate story in western Christianity is idolatrist.   When the bible is broken into little bits or systematics these pieces fit into the listeners existing framework they've adopted.  It is possible to become a theologically orthodox, morally upright, warmly pious and driven by idolatry.

Why we like Paul but are afraid of Jesus.  We (in the West) like Paul more than Jesus.  We think he is systematics.  Paul takes one of the benefits (justification/adoption) that the Galatians & Romans needed to hear.  Of course, we don't understand Paul.  Authority of New Testament Scriptures  If you start with Jesus (Gospel & Kingdom) all these other things fall into this.  Paul (end of Acts) teaching the Kingdom of God.  We are previews of the Kingdom of God

3. A church devoted to communal prayer

Western Christians are generally a prayer-less people.  Our secular worldview has made us much better at planning than praying.

a. More we see the significance of prayer, the more significant small groups becomes.
b. More time we will spend time as leaders praying.

4. A church of well-trained leaders

A missional leader is one who can say, "Follow me as I follow Christ."  Often we look to someone who has the gifts, rather than if this person is following Christ and people are following them.

5. A church with parents trained to take up the task of nurturing children in faith

6. A church with small groups that nurture for mission in the world

Small groups have a tendency to become introverted, rather than praying/thinking/acting outwardly. Being the people of God for 'that place' as they go in their area and ask people what their needs are.  We want to love, pray and meet your needs.

7. A church that seeks and expresses the unity of body Christ

8 A church that understands its cultural context

The US and Canada more unaware of it's own story than any other culture.  (I'll do a full post on some ideas from this…)

The two dangerous myths in Christianity

1. Myth of a Christian culture
2. We are a secular neutral culture

Kraemer there is a tension between these idols and our true story.  The deeper the consciousness of the tension and the urge to take this yoke upon itself are felt, the healthier the Church is. The more oblivious of this tension the Church is, the more well established and at home in this world it feels, the more it is in deadly danger of being the salt that has lost its savour.Kraemer, Hendrik. 1956. The Communication of the Christian Faith. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 36.

9. A church trained for a missionary encounter in their callings in the world

Not one square inch exists that isn't claimed by Christ.

10.  Church that is deeply involved in the needs of their neighborhood and world.

11. Church trained to do evangelism in an organic (not methodological) way

Proselytizing vs. Evangelism "We spend more time trying to convince people rather than telling them the good news." The average person who becomes a Christian has had 8 encounters w/ other Christians.

12. Church committed to missions 

Missions is specific mission trips to unreached people.  Mission is what every church is on in their local community 

There is nothing more beautiful than to see a city transformed by the Gospel. As a fellow laborer for seeing Gospel going forth, 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 (this Saturday). 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 build your church for mission), how to prepare and preach Gospel-centered messages, Gospel transformation, and much more.

Sessions:

The 12 Musts of a Missional Church 

Gospel, Story, Worldview, and the Church’s Mission

Preparing & Preaching a Gospel Centered Message

Q/A with Dr. Michael W. Goheen Geneva Professor of Worldview and Religious Studies at Trinity Western University , co-author of The Drama Of Scripture: Finding Our Place In The Biblical Story and author of “As the Father Has Sent Me, I Am Sending You”: J.E. Lesslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology. 

Acts 29 Vision & Values 

Learn more: San Diego Regional Acts 29 Conference  

10 Ways to Keep Me from Discovering Your Church (ChurchRedone)

10 Ways to Avoid Building Community Within the Church (Askingy)

BONUS LINK: Integral Mission Topic: Technology for the Good of the Church (Sent to me by Justin Browne @ Redeemer)

Our church has been rethinking our hospitality ministry.  One of the things we asked our people was, what questions do you typically ask new guests to our church?  It was amazing, upon reflection many of the questions asked, were more centered on us (the church).  Eg. What did you think about our service?  How did you find out about our church?  These setup an air of, I want to ask you questions to find out more about us.  The second question in particular was common to ask where people heard about us from.  It can come across as a form of market research to see what are effective ways we target new people.  I could just see a drop down box to select: Website, Direct Mail, etc.  Now, I know this isn't the heart of our people when they ask.  Typically, it could be they want to know if a friend invited them or if they read about us on the internet as a point of conversation.  Are there better questions to ask?  Here is a new question that may do a better job:

What brought you to church today?

The point of the question is to listen to the guest, learn about them and possibly discern ministry opportunity.  If we are to minister to and love guests, it is good to know what brought them.  Did they return to church after many years?  Did they find out a family member passed away?  Are they looking for a new church because they came to a place of conviction about their last church?  Did they just move to the area?  Did they just become a Christian?  It seems like this is a more effective way to really listen to our guests and begin a conversation where we can love and pray for them based on where they are at.

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.) 

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.

Brian Thomas, Kaleo Church's worship lead and founder Semper Reformanda Records began a series asking worship leaders 10 questions.  Check out the first one: 10 Questions for Worship Leaders

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)

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.  This is a document Dick Kaufmann put together that we will unpack further in the months to come.  The first 6-steps occur prior to identifying the leader and must be in place prior to the second 6.  (Based on a triperspectival model for those keeping track)

1.    Understand who develops leaders In developing leaders in the church, the most important question isn’t “how?” but “who?”  Who develops leaders?  The Bible makes it clear: Christ develops leaders in the church (Mt.16:18; Acts 1:1, 20:28; Ep.4:11).  Christ does it by exercising his leadership, in our midst, as:  prophet, priest and king.  

A.  Prophet – Authority >  Vision >  “This is where God is leading us!”

B.  King – Control >  Plan >  “This is how we can get there!”

C.    Priest – Presence >  People > “You can be a part of this.  I’ll help you!”

2.    Clarify the values we want to instill in leaders
A.  Gospel-Centered – Committed to viewing all of life through Gospel

B.  Missional – Committed to living in mission to engage culture

C.  Grace-Renewal – Committed to on-going grace renewal

3.    Commit yourself to developing leaders
To develop leaders you must be willing to:

A.  Share the ministry
    
B.  Make it a scheduling priority

C.    Pursue personal growth

4.    Cultivate and communicate vision   Leaders who develop leaders cultivate and communicate Christ’s vision for:

A.  The work of the church (Mt.28:18-20; Mk.16:15-16; Lk.24:45-49; Acts 1:8)

B.  The development of leaders (Ep.4:7-13; 2Tim.2:2)

C.  The potential of each developing leader (Mt.4:19, 16:18; see also A. above)

5.    Organize the ministry

A.  Develop a Ministry Map  

B.  Insert existing leaders

C.  Use brackets to show needs

6.    Pray for leaders

"One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God." (Luke 6:12-13)
"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." (Mt. 9:37-38)

A.  Pray  

B.  Look

C.  Receive

7.    Understand the process

A.  Potential leaders  -To potential leaders, Jesus said, "Come and see" (Jn. 1:39). The key word during this phase is "know." The followers get to know Jesus, his character, his vision.  And Jesus gets to know the followers on their turf. (Mk. 1:16)

B.  Emerging leaders - to emerging leaders, Jesus said, "Come and follow me" (Mt. 4:19, Mk. 1:17). The key word during this phase is "show." Jesus models his life and ministry as the emerging leaders observe and listen.

C.  Existing leaders - to existing leaders, Jesus said, "Come and be with me" (Mk. 3:14). The key word during this phase is "grow." Jesus calls them into an intimate relationship with him and involves them in ministry.

8.    Know the potential leaders

A.  Where do you find them?  

B.  How will you get to know them?

C.  What’s the next step?

9.    Show the emerging leaders

A.  Identify (Three questions)

B.  Invite

C.  Involve

10.     Grow the existing leaders What do they need from you?

A.  Clear expectations

B.  Personalized leadership

C.  Regular and honest feedback

11.      Take time to reflect

A.  Evaluate

B.  Celebrate

C.  Recalibrate

12.      Help your leaders develop leaders Things to consider as leadership needs/base expand

A.  Revise Ministry Map  

B.  Assist leaders in developing apprentices

C.  Facilitate leadership connections

Download  Church Planters’ Meeting Developing Leaders pdf

This is our second survey on the missional nature of our church (read the first one about Sunday service & individuals) and we wanted to examine how missional our small groups are and the people who attend.  We sent out a request to people in our church to fill out a 10 question survey asking them about the small groups teaching, community and missional aspect.  We want to (1) learn what people felt about the missional nature of these small groups, (2) their response to the teaching and group accountability and (3) see what suggestions and recommendations that had to make them more missional.  

Here are some observations: 

1. Accountability is a tricky thing in small groups.  At Kaleo, small groups are open to anyone.  With new people showing up, the groups growing larger and the changing environment, many people struggled having an environment of accountability. (To remedy this we created Gospel Christianity discipleship/accountability groups and limited the size to 3 people who meet regularly.  Many people in our church have been very blessed by this environment.)

2. Being Missional doesn't always happen spontaneously.  Many of the responses to  How well do you feel your home group is preparing you to be on mission? requested more specific, creative tangible ways to be on mission.  Simple suggestions like having dinners together to invite others to, having one night a month be social only for visitors, adopting a mercy ministry and inviting other to serve.

3. It is challenging to teach a range of Christians.  Some people felt like the teaching would go over their heads.  Others wanted to ask more deep theological questions.

4. People do not attend a small group to be on mission.  Most people are looking for teaching and community, being missional was not a reason people cited as why they attend a small group. 

RESULTS: If you'd like to see the rest of the results, I've attached a pdf summary of our Small Group Missional Survey.   Again, this does not include the pages of comments we got that were quite helpful.

HOW-TO:  If you'd like to do a similar survey, here is the online form & questions we used to conduct the Small Group Mission Survey Form.  We used Wufoo to build our forms. 

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

Found this article on evangelism/outreach methods from EllisonResearch published in the 2007 January/February edition of Facts & Trends magazine. The findings are from a representative sample of 811 Protestant church ministers nationwide.  Here is a snippet:

The methods churches are using for evangelism are quite varied. The most common is Vacation Bible School, or VBS, which has been used by seven out of 10 churches for evangelism in the last year. At least half have used literature such as tracts or magazines (59 percent), events such as block parties or a Fall Festival (56 percent), musical events or concerts (51 percent), mailings or fliers (50 percent), and nursing home or retirement center visits (49 percent) specifically for the purposes of evangelism.

Other relatively popular evangelistic efforts include “invite a friend to church” days (42 percent), revivals or crusades (40 percent), evangelism training classes or groups (38 percent), door-to-door visitation within the community (37 percent), community service such as cleanup days (31 percent), online efforts such as blogs or web sites (27 percent), audio or visual products such as tapes or DVDs (26 percent), and booths at community events such as the county fair (20 percent).

Ninety-seven percent of all churches report doing something specifically for the purposes of evangelism over the last year.

Just what churches are doing to evangelize their communities differs quite a bit by denominational group. Southern Baptist churches are particularly big on using revivals or crusades, literature, evangelism training classes or groups, and door-to-door visitation, but are less likely than average to use any sort of online evangelism. Other Baptist groups (National, Progressive, General, etc.) are fairly close to average, but are a bit more likely than others to use literature and door-to-door visitation.

Methodist churches are more likely than average to use events, but less likely to use literature, door-to-door visitation, and revivals or crusades. Lutherans are particularly likely to rely on Vacation Bible School, online methods, and mailings or fliers, and less likely to use revivals or crusades, musical events or concerts, or audio/visual methods. Pentecostal churches are particularly likely to employ musical events or concerts, revivals or crusades, “invite a friend to church” days, and audio/visual products, but less likely than average to use Vacation Bible School for evangelism. Presbyterians are especially unlikely to use literature, revivals or crusades, door-to-door visitation, or audio/visual products.

In general, evangelical churches use a greater variety of evangelistic tools than do mainline Protestant churches. Evangelical churches are considerably more likely to attempt evangelism through literature, revivals or crusades, evangelism training classes or groups, door-to-door visitation, and audio/visual products, while mainline churches have only a greater propensity for doing community service as a form of evangelism.

Full report:  Four out of ten pastors lack strong interest in increasing community outreach

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.