"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. 

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

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.

In 2007, we will devout considerable time to building, re-thinking and planning how we Communicate (see previous Missional Survey), Connect, Develop & Send people.  The first ministry we will focus on is the Connect Ministry. See attached Connecting/Hospitality/Assimilation Ministry pdf that lays out some of the goals, plans and methods to do this.

1. To be the community of God, a hospitable and friendly church changed by the gospel (Acts 2).  We cannot program this, it must be gospel motivated. (Romans 15:7)

2. To see hospitality as a ministry. Ministering to why people visit the church. Common ministry needs that are discovered through hospitality:

• They are experiencing a life transition (loss of job, death in family, conversion, illness, marriage).  People who are in a life transition may need counseling, prayer and other support. 
• They are new to the area and seek a church.  People that are new to the area need to find gospel community and fellowship.
• They are ‘church shopping’ and their reason for leaving their prior church ranges from consumerism to legitimate theological convictions

How do we connect with these people and gather this information in order to minister to them?  We are looking to train our greeters where there will be a 'front door' welcoming greeting team and a second greeting team inside near a resource table to meet these people.  Our goal is to partner these guests with people in our church who can help minister to them and help them connect.  We would hope to have our people pray for, meet with and love these guests.  The attached pdf (click on image link) describes how the connecting process works and how ministry needs can be escalated as required.

How do you ensure you connect with all visitors?  We will offer guests a Kaleo Vision Package.  This packet would include our vision/values and a cd that they could listen to in their car during their 15-minute drive home from church.  At the same time we would gather their information if we had not received it.  On subsequent visits 2nd time guests could pick up copies of our worship cd and third time The Gospel for Real Life (or other resource).  This is how we would see our greeting operating as a ministry to those who visit Kaleo.

For the sake of the gospel advancing, the elders at Kaleo wanted to examine how missional our Sunday services are and the people who attend.  We sent out a request to people in our church to fill out a 20 question survey asking them about the preaching, hospitality, worship and many other elements of our sunday service.  We want to (1) learn what people felt about the missional nature of our church and (2) see what fears and hindrances keep them from inviting others to Sundays.  It is our desire that people would invite non-believers to our church to hear the Word of God preached.  

Some observations (many of these came from comment areas for people to post):

1) Non-Christians, new Christians and those little to no church background loved the service style.  People with the most 'churched' background were the most likely not to like our worship style.  (To hear our style of worship, you can listen to the Bazelel mp3 samples at Semper Reformanda Records.  We have had people steeped in a conservative/traditional background struggle with the worship style.)

2) Contrary to many people's fears, non-Christians understood the messages that were preached.  We are really blessed to have a preacher who is able to preach to both mature Christians and address the non-Christian's objectives to the faith.  This talent both acknowledges to non-Christians that we are aware of the prevailing secular worldviews and the arguments against the faith. (eg. "Now, if you are not a Christian, this claim that Jesus was God seems absurd…"  This is the type of address that non-believers appreciate, we don't need to lie or dumb down our faith that we believe is the only true reality.  But we don't leave it there, we address these objections each week.)  Second, it emboldens Christians who hear an apologetic for the faith and often have these same doubts and questions.  And as these Christians face questions from non-believers, they move from doubt to gospel courage.

3) Sunday service is the event Christians are most comfortable inviting people to.  This is over, socials/bbq's, home groups, mercy ministries, etc.  People remarked that they also knew the guests would hear the gospel each Sunday, so this is where they'd want someone to visit.

4) Desire, lack of time, lack of relationships and fear of rejection are the most common stumbling blocks to people living missionally.

RESULTS: If you'd like to see the rest of the results, I've attached a 23 page summary of our Church 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 similiar survey, we used Wufoo to build our forms .  Here is the online form & questions we used to conduct the Kaleo Mission Survey.

Future: As a church we are going to do additional surveys on connecting, developing & sending aspects of our ministry. 

This seems to be the month of conference announcements as we all plan our new year.  I want to add another one for you to consider:  The 2007 Multi–Site Church Conference (the model is not multi-site through video venue but through pastors preaching at multiple sites).     The conference is hosted by Harbor Presbyterian & The model of church planting comes from by Richard Kaufmann, while Executive Pastor at Redeemer Manhattan, and now is the model they are using at Harbor Presbyterian here in San Diego. Doug Swagerty now serves as Executive Pastor and will be leading the conference.    We at Kaleo Church have embraced the model because it allows us to:

 - Plant churches faster and with lower resources. 

 - Centralized administrative tasks allow church planters to focus on ministry without the details of managing an organization.

Other info on the event from the website:

During the two days, we will be presenting not only the model and strategy that we are using at Harbor, but we also will be highlighting other forms of multi-site ministry that some of you are doing.  In addition, we want to share in more detail why we decided to use this model as a church-planting strategy to reach additional communities in San Diego.  So we are planning to present and address a variety of models for churches at all stages of their development.  Approximately half of the conference will be plenary sessions on such topics as “Why Multi-Site Ministry,” “Models of Multi-Site Ministry,” “Pillars of Multi-Site Ministry,” and “The Importance of Team Ministry.”  Then we will also have a number of breakout sessions on such topics as leadership structure, leadership development, central services, financing and budgeting for multi-site ministry, centralized ministries, and the nuts and bolts of getting started on a second site. 

You can register for the conference online by going to http://www.pca-mna.org/multi_site/2007MNAMultiSiteChurchConference.htm.  The dates will be March 13-14.

Here is the announcement that the 2007 San Diego Church Planting Bootcamp has been scheduled.  This conference is hosted by Kaleo Church and several other Acts 29 churches.  We are fortunate to have the Harbor Presbyterian churches with us and many of the other local denominations.  The conference is scheduled for  March 30th & 31st 2007.

Sessions Scheduled: (These are working titles, actual titles wil change.  Additional sessions to be scheduled.)

The 12 Musts of a Missional Church by Michael W. Goheen

The Gospel Story & Worldview by Michael W. Goheen 

Missional Ecclesiology (Newbigin's Missional Logic) by Michael W. Goheen

Preparing & Preaching a Gospel Centered Message by Richard Kaufmann  

Main Speakers:

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.  (For more, open Michael W. Goheen 's 26 page PDF Cirriculum Vitae.) 

Richard Kaufmann, the Movement Leader for Harbor Presbyterian Church in San Diego, where he also pastors the Downtown and Uptown sites.  Prior to moving to San Diego in 1999, Dick was the Executive Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan for five years.

NOTE: You can view & download all the sessions from the 2006 Church Planting Bootcamp. (Except my session is located here Church Technology & Mission.)

Last month I transitioned from many of my responsibilities, such as overseeing our deacon development (which has entered a more mature season, we've installed 3 new deacons and have 3 more identified this year) into thinking through the process people go through from the time they visit the church, through connecting, being developed and being sent on mission. Over the next couple months, I'll document some of these thoughts in a Ministry Design series focusing on Connecting, Developing & Sending. 

The first step in this is greeting people when people visit our church.  Most churches have 'greeters' to welcome people on Sundays.  But how many churches are deliberate about using their greeters as a ministry beyond hospitality?  Each week I typically speak to 2-3 visitors who are attending a Kaleo service for the first time.  The 3 most common reasons people visit Kaleo are: they have newly moved to the area, they are looking for a new church or their life is in a transition.  In each of these there are direct ministry opportunities for us to provide these people. 

• People that are new to the area need to find gospel community and fellowship.
• People who are looking for a new church are leaving because there was some un-met need (whether consumerism driven or legitimate we are still responsible to minister to them.)
• People who are in a life transition (loss of job, health, death in the family) many need counseling, intense prayer and support.  

How do we connect with these people and gather this information in order to minister to them?  We are looking to train our greeters where there will be a 'front door' welcoming greeting team and a second greeting team inside near a resource table to meet these people.  Our goal is to partner these guests with people in our church who can help minister to them and help them connect.  We would hope to have our people pray for, meet with and love these guests. 

How do you ensure you connect with all visitors?  We will offer guests a Kaleo Vision Package.  This packet would include our vision/values and a cd that they could listen to in their car during their 15-minute drive home from church.  At the same time we would gather their information if we had not received it.  On subsequent visits 2nd time guests could pick up copies of our worship cd and third time The Gospel for Real Life (or other resource).  This is how we would see our greeting operating as a ministry to those who visit Kaleo.