How to Be Discipled by Committee
For years the church in the West has been guilty of abandoning babies. Not actual babies, but spiritual ones. From the outside looking in one might think that the end of the spiritual journey was baptism rather than the beginning. But that conversation is changing as more and more churches are beginning to focus on discipleship. Most of the literature on the subject focuses on how to create a discipling culture or how to disciple a person. Some of these books, like Mike Breen’s Building a Discipling Culture, have been especially...
read moreWhy I Stopped Blogging
I haven’t blogged since July. I haven’t heard a single complaint, which is probably good. More on that in a minute. Here are my good excuses: I broke the backend of WordPress. I had no clue what I had done. Big thanks to Aaron Box who recently gave me a few suggestions for troubleshooting. Turns out I had a bad plugin, WP TimeMachine. I removed the plugin and the site works fine. I got busy. I took on two new roles with Stadia mid-2011. I’m now serving as Director of Project Management, Director of Coaching...
read moreChurch Planting Fundamentals
Championship teams in sports are always great at the fundamentals. Right now all over the country kids are being coached in the fundamentals of football. Every team starts the season out with an emphasis on these fundamentals. So what are the fundamentals of church planting? At Stadia, we measure 5 key vitals of church planting, or the fundamentals. Team Players. Commonly called a launch team, Stadia classifies team players as being people 16 or older who are actively serving in a ministry role and/or giving financially. For...
read moreThinking About Planting a Church in a School? Read This, First
A buddy of mine sent me this article written by USA today Religion editor Cathy Grossman on the controversy surrounding churches meeting in schools. The question on the table is the constitutionality of church’s meeting in public school facilities. On the side against church’s meeting in schools they say: It’s unconstitutional because of the separation of church and state Leasing a school to a church effectively subsidizing churches who would pay more on the open market. The practice is biased to Christian groups as the...
read moreWin a $20000 Grant for Your Church Plant at NEXT Nuts and Bolts
I met Ron Silvia and Jan Greggo a few years back while attending their NEXT church planting conference. I went to several of them while I worked with Passion 4 Planting. They are very practical and will dig into the how tos of planting a church. NEXT has partnered with Exponential to offer the NEXT Nuts and Bolts. They have to be losing money on this because the conference is only $29 and that includes lunch. It also gets you a chance to win a $20,000 grant for your church plant. I’d go for that alone. Below is a write up on...
read morePoliticians Attempt to Manipulate the Church’s Message
I don’t blog about politics often mainly because it doesn’t directly relate to church planting and secondly because someone always gets made. But I’m making an exception today. The IRS is very clear that the churches are not allowed to attempt to influence legislation or support candidates. A church can lose their status as a 501c3 if they do. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois doesn’t care about that rule as long as churches are promoting his agenda. He’s calling on churches to set aside time this Fall to...
read moreAs a Church Planter You Will Be Uncomfortable
So last Saturday night at Skateland, I was that guy. You know the one guy at the rink who can’t skate. The nice thing about being 200+ lbs is that rather than laugh most people were just afraid I’d kill them and so they stayed away. To make matters worse I was wearing a pink shirt. I don’t wear pink. I don’t even own a pink shirt. Well I do now. I had to wear one for the roller derby match I went to earlier in the evening. It was paint the rink pink night. Apparently I was the only guy who got the...
read moreVault Conference: A Unique Church Planting Experience
The Vault Conference is coming up soon and its a church planting experience you don’t want to miss. Vince Antonucci has planted two churches. Most recently he planted Verve Church in Las Vegas. Not on the edge on Vegas or in a Vegas burb but right on the strip. Vince is a hard core evangelist and I have thoroughly enjoyed learning from him over the years. Here’s the details on the event. If you can make it, you should go. Vault will bring you deep inside the thinking and methods Vince Antonucci and Verve Church use in...
read moreMoney is our Idol and Stewardship is Our Repentance
Our country is in a big economic mess and many churches are following close behind. Unemployment is high, the debt ceiling is being raised, states can’t pay their bills, home values are way down, etc. It’s depressing. But according to Will Cain of CNN, the number that matters is our debt to GDP ratio. GDP is the Gross Domestic Product. It represents the total dollar value of goods and services produced over a period of time. Basically it measures the size of the economy. During the great depression of the 1930s,...
read moreState of Missouri Closes Mosaic Church
No this isn’t the beginning of persecution of the church in the Missouri. I shamelessly chose that title to get you to read about something far more boring: annual reports. I recently got a call from a planter I worked with a few years back. He had received a letter from the state of Missouri saying the church had been administratively dissolved because they had failed to file an annual report. Annual reports are very easy to fill out. Most states now allow for them to be filed online and usually you just have to update any...
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