Thursday, February 26, 2009

Leadership Learning

Ed Stetzer has a great download of Leadership Nuggets from bloggers. We can all learn about leadership. Enjoy.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Attractional or Missional

Jeff Gauss presents some great thoughts about attractional vs missional models for church plants and churches. It is worth reading.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Staffing

Fellow pastor Gavin Retzer sent a great link that talks about staff hiring. Take a quick read of this little article from Pastor James McDonald:

"How About If You Learn from My Mistakes As An Employer"

Orlando and Connect 09

I just spent 3 great days with five awesome couples in Orlando at Connect 09. Four of the couples are praying about planting gospel centered, missional focused and kingdom minded churches in the heartland. God used our time in Orlando to connect with over 200 church planters as well as being challenged by several great sermons. We were challenge to live and proclaim a robust gospel. Someone needs to do something with the robust gospel was the second challenge.

What we do is done for His glory.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Church planting news from Corsica, SD

Following is Jon and Julie Lane's newsletter about what God is doing in Corsica.

Hello and greetings in the name of the Lord who alone has immortality, dwelling in unaproachable light..." 1 Tim. 6:16

Once again praying that this letter finds you in the joy of the Lord and in the service of the King Jesus Christ. It seems to be that time again to attempt to give a brief update of what the Lord is doing in our lives and this part of the world. Let me just state a few things.

1. As of December 7th, we moved into our new building for fellowship. At the present we are working (all volunteer labor) to finish the basement. The classrooms have been sheetrocked, painted and cleaned and we are presently having Sunday school in them. Also, our Wednesday night "kids club" has officially been moved over there. What needs to be done is the carpeting of the floor, completing the office and kitchen. Please pray for us in this matter as several of the men have given up most of their Saturdays and evenings to get this completed. In addition, please pray that the Lord would continue to lay it upon people's heart to give as we do not believe in debt. We have seen the Lord move in incredible ways to see this come about. He is so faithful and so confirming that all we can do is praise Him.

2. On January 14th, three of us from the church went on a mission trip to Romania and Muldova. It was my daughter, Allie, Shawn Jerke and myself. We met another friend from Iowa (Tony Allen) and then joined two other friends (Jesse and Jamie Boyd) over there. We worked with two churches in evangelism training and street evangelism. Numerous people heard the Gospel, including many Gypsie villages that seem to be forgotten or shunned, thousands of tracts went out and Bible believers were inspired and encouraged to continue to sow the seed of the Gospel. We worked with incredible translators who loved the Lord and their people. They will continue to do follow-up and minister to those who rsponded to the Gospel. One of the Pastor's openly admitted to starting to become somewhat lukewarm in their evangelistic efforts and was refreshed and empowered to reach out to the lost as the early church did.

It was neat to see my daughter adjust to the culture and see the world from God's perspective. I think we will have to send her off someday to the mission field, but praise God for that as there is no place better to be than in the will of God. Also, I saw Shawn come out of his shell. It was incredible how he boldly gave testimony of Christ, urged people to accept God's gracious offer. I have seen the Lord work in his life in such a powerful way lately which is such a blessing for a Pastor to see.

3. Several new families have come to the Lighthouse and we see so many hungry for the TRUTH of God's word and to live lifes worthy of the Gospel that the working of the Holy Spirit is evident. In a day when the church would rather court the world, than proclaim truth, we feel so blessed to be a part of this. The Lord has raised up men who feel the call of God on their lives for ministry and are growing in their gifts and being mentored. We are also praying and seeking the Lord with another church plant as he has raised up a family for that very purpose. We are seeing the children grasp the truth of God's word and really becoming His disciples.

4. Alomost last, we are wanting to see God move in a powerful way as far as souls for Christ. Please join in praying for this in the area. There are very few Bible believing actual preaching and teaching churches left, so these towns have grown cold and comfortable in their man-made religions, as Pastor's are more concerned about being politically correct than standing up and proclaiming "thus saith the Lord."

5. We are praying and looking into possible outreaches this summer for evangelism, including a mission trip to either Nepal or Ukraine. If this interestes you please let me know. We would love to have you. Also, coming up the weekend of May 17th we are having a PAstor, church planter from India coming and speaking on missions both in the morning and evening. Please join us as it will be encouraging, challenging and Christ centered.

Well, I hope that sums things up and keeps you posted on life in our family. We also take no credit in this, but give the glory to God and are just joyful that we can be used in some way to exalt Christ. May the Lord bless you and the peace of Christ surround you.

for the cause of Christ,

yours at the lighthouse

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Personal update

I am spending a few day in Orlando, FL with over 200 other church planters from ConvergeWorldWide. Beryl and I took a walk this morning at about 7 in shorts and t-shirt. We took a swim last night, OUTSIDE, at 9:30 and it felt great. Oh, yes this is about church planting in the Heartland.

This morning as we meet we talked about the vision for Kingdom work between 2010-2015. The question is being asked how can we get all of our churches involved in church planting? We all agreed that not all churches will plant a church, but all agreed that every church can have a part in planting. I am excited to join in what God is doing. I will have more to say later.

Know that I am suffering for the Lord in Orlando.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Church Planting opportunities in America

I have seen the data before listed in this video, but it they made a great presentation of the opportunity the church has today. The opportunity to proclaim the gospel message is great today then it has every been. See the video here.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Growing communites in the Heartland

In doing some planning for a group of guys providing great insight into church planting in the four states that I work with I located all the communities above 6000 people in the four states on GOOGLE MAPS. You can click on the pin and it will tell you the community, size and it growth or decline. Red means it is declining, green is growing between 0.1 and 9.9% purple is growing at a rate of 01% or greater.

Improving Church Plant Survivability

Leadership Network recently gave several reports on the state of church planting USA

From the reported titled “Improving the Health and Survivability of New Churches (if you have problems getting the full report let me know and I will attached it with an e-mail) the following observation were made.

“Certain factors, when present, correlate with higher baptisms (the report does not suggest baptism is a mean of salvation, but is using it as a mean of measuring a decision and some spiritual growth). Over 100 factors were tested and the following were found to be statistically significant:
- Engaging in ministry evangelism (i.e. food banks, shelter, drug/alcohol recover)
- Starting at least one daughter church within three years of the church plant
- Having a proactive stewardship development plan enabling the church to be financially self-sufficient
- Conducting a mid-week children’s program
- Sending out mailers for invitation to services and church events
- Conducting a block party as an outreach activity
- Conducting a new member class for new church members
- Conducting leadership training for church members
- Receiving church-planting training in terms of a boot camp or basic training by the church planter
- Working full-time over part-time as the church planter
- Being assed prior to the beginning of the church plan as the church planter
- Delegating leadership roles to church members.

“Interestingly, the chance of survivability increases by over 400% when the church planter has a ‘realistic’ understanding and expectation of the church-planting experience. On the other hand, conducting door-to-door or cold-calling evangelism in church planting decreases the odds of survivability by 59%.”

“The NAMB study also focused on the value of peer groups. Odds of survivability increase by 135% when the church planter meets with a group of church planting peers.”

Stephen Gray is a researcher who compared 60 fast-growing church plants with 52 struggling church plants. Here is some of what he found (his book is Planting Fast Growing Churches)
- 88% have church planting teams
- 63% have a core group of 26 to 75 people
- 75% use a contemporary style of worship
- 80% put ten percent or more of their budget toward outreach and evangelism
- 16% have a higher rate of full-time pastors than struggling church plants
- 63% of planters leading fast-growing plants raise additional funding, compared to 23% of those that are struggling.
- 74% of fast-growing church planters receive one or two weeks of training.
- Over 90% of struggling churches work with only one paid staff member. Only 17% of fast-growing plants started with only one paid staff member.