We had 95 entries for the Gospel Tweeting Contest to find the best 140 character or less gospel explanation. We need to choose a winner. Here is the original contest tweet:

“Looking for best tweet explaining the gospel in 140 characters or less. Winner gets copy of Driscoll's Religion Saves” (I am going to try to get a signed copy by Mark!).

Now, help me to vote for the winner. Choose up to three of your favorite by tweeting the numbers in order of preference followed by hashtag #gospeltweet. For instance: "@acts29 101, 98, 107 #gospeltweet" Some really good explanations are found at the end of the list so don't vote too quickly.

Tweet your favorite to @acts29 or to facebook or leave a comment at the bottom of this blog. Follow the votes on Twitter here:

Scott was interviewed by Yohaan Philip while he was at CCK in Brighton. Below are the interview notes.


YP: Can you tell me a bit about yourself, Scott?

ST: I grew up in a fundamentalist type of church as a young man. It was kind of empty because it didn't seem to be consistent with where scripture was going. So when I went to Bible College, I questioned everything - why things were done the way they were, why certain rules still remained intact?  The college president said not to worry about it. He said to focus on Jesus and the rest will come. So I began to live my life around that principle and it all began to make sense. A lot of the rules still didn't make sense, but following Jesus did. So that's how it all began. I began youth ministry at the age of 19. I was a youth pastor for 10 years and then a lead pastor for 16 years. In 2003, I attended an Acts 29 boot camp. Prior to that I always felt out of place as a pastor. I couldn't relate to a lot of pastors as I felt they were more concerned about their jobs rather than reaching the lost. So when I found Acts 29, it was a perfect mix - finally I had found my match! It was all Jesus, all mission all through the local church. In the very first session when the director got up to talk, I felt the Holy Spirit say clearly and very strongly, "You're supposed to do this." I kept this to myself and eventually came into Acts 29. I was on the Board of Acts 29 and when the Director left, Pastor Mark asked if I could take it on. I had to respond to what the Holy Spirit had said to me 3 years earlier. So for the past 3 years we've been helping young guys to start churches, establish them and strengthen them. It's all for His glory.

Scott standing just outside of Brighton next to the English Channel

YP: Tell me a bit about your family.

ST: I will have been married for 28 years this summer. I’ve got 2 boys - a 20 year old and a 16 year old. They're both serving the Lord. My oldest son works for Acts 29. He's Tyler Powell's assistant. He is very intelligent and will probably lead through a visible leader as opposed to being a point person. My younger son will probably be leading something. He's going in that direction. On his first day at Kindergarten, I asked him to be the leader. And at the end of the day, the teacher who said that he had wanted to be first in everything - to go out to break, to eat - called me in saying that his father said that he was the leader! He has grown considerably as a leader since!

YP:  You mentioned during the meeting with the CCK men that you got to experience at close quarters Mark Driscoll the family man, and that was something to be emulated. We have seen Mark the preacher, but can you tell us more of Mark the family man.

ST: First of all, I would say that being a preacher is a privilege, not a right. And before you can be a preacher you have to be a pastor. And that takes a lot of work. A lot of young men have this idolatrous idea of being a preacher because they want to preach to thousands of people and they don't realize what goes on behind it. It’s hard work to be a shepherd of a flock. Mark is first and foremost a pastor who wants to reach people. That's his passion. And he does that through the best way he is gifted - communicating. He tries to communicate to reach lost men.

Where I’m really impressed with Mark is the fact that he loves his kids. I love to see him and his wife hold hands, her just really paying close attention to him, and him responding to her. He lights up when his kids come into the room. That man, the character of the man in his own home, really makes him worth listening to.

YP: Thanks for using that pastor - preacher illustration. I find that quite helpful! During the meeting, you mentioned how Mars Hill is so predominantly Jesus centered. What's been helpful in shaping that underlying foundation for you?

ST: It's really ultimate that we have Jesus as the centre of everything we do. The gospel really is at the centre of everything. The person and work of Jesus Christ and how He has saved us and redeemed us from our sins is the metanarrative of the entire Bible. It must be the communication that we have from the beginning to the end - the thing that we're saying and everything we do. Sadly today, the Bible is being used, or even more crudely, it’s being raped to help build the Church, instead of being the focus of Jesus. So being Jesus centered means that everything we do is centered on the redemptive work of Jesus. Keeping that the very focus of everything, we turn it into building the Church. There's always a danger of Christians becoming insular and wanting to build the Church as an institution rather than building up Jesus Christ, the One for whom we're building the Church.

YP: On the subject of building the Church, what are some of the key features that you look for when you develop and assess church leaders and planters?

ST: First, we'd look for a man who has spiritual vitality. A man has to lead from within. He's a gospel-transformed man and he's going to lead others. That's what's got to drive him. It's not that he's a pastor preacher, but he's called to transform lives by the power of the gospel.
Then it comes to a man who has a real calling on his life. He understands that he has been called by God to do a certain work. Acts 17 talks about how God has appointed certain men at certain times to do certain work. And that calling has to keep him secure especially during difficult times. We realize that we can't be just called ourselves, but a group of men, church leaders, commend a man. Acts 13 says that Paul and Barnabas were set apart by the Holy Spirit, and the church commended them and sent them out to do that work.

Additionally, a man has to have theological clarity. So he has to be very teachable. He has to understand what the gospel is all about and he has to be able to communicate that quite well.

Also, in a pastor’s home he has to know what it means to be a man of God. In his home, he has to live in the authority and identity of Christ and from that we have instruction and discipline. The foundation of that is Jesus Christ. It's all wrapped in worship of Jesus. And a man has to lead that. He lives in the foundation of Christ, for the glory of God and under His authority and identity of Jesus.

YP: This is your second time in Brighton. I hope you've enjoyed coming back?

ST: We just barely got in and went straight to work, so I've hardly seen anything yet.  But more than Brighton, I've been impressed with the development of CCK and seeing it move forward. It's exciting to see issues that were identified a year ago being addressed and brought into fruition. It's not so much about seeing Brighton, but the work that's being done in Brighton through CCK.

As a side note, I am driving a Ford Edge that was loaned to me free of charge by Ford Motor Company in their Influencer program. They target bloggers of popular websites. Acts 29 is ranked as the 15th most popular Christian blog. This is a pretty nice ride, although I haven't driven it myself since Jeannie is enjoying it so much.

We are excited to announce that we assessed and approved our first church planters in our newly formed Acts 29 Western European Network. Stuart and Rachel Dean are starting a church in Haywards Heath England in West Sussex (39 miles south of London).

On a few occassions in the past, our church planter assessors have emerged from their assessments by stating, "We have just been to church!" I didn't know what they really meant. I do now. When we assessed Stuart and Rachel, we experienced a Holy Spirit enriched, God-glorifying assessment. Stuart and Rachel blew us away with their love for Jesus and commitment to His call in their life in spite of their personal struggles with Rachel's health.

New Western Europe Director Steve Timmis with Stuart and Rachel Dean

For more information about our Western Europe Network, contact Steve Timmis.

To contact Stuart, email him here

Standing on the outside of the church in London where we are having the conference.

“Church is the result of mission and the means of mission,” said Steve Timmis. He argued that the New Testament is a model for mission. It is reaching out where there are no existing works of gospel evangelism. Steve said that every church is called to be a church planting church. Church planting was not vital to evangelism; it is central to it. Steve illustrated it through Acts 13 where the local church sensed a call to proclaim the gospel by planting churches. They chose Paul and Barnabas, their senior pastor and associate. They didn’t choose the interns who had just finished Bible College. They chose their best men. Church planting doesn’t happen circumstantially, but rather intentionally.

Over 100 men from 12 different countries attended the Church Planting Conference. The men were intrigued, challenged, energized and eager to learn.

David Fairchild led a session on “Keeping the Gospel Church” from the Book of Galatians chapter one. David summarized the gospel as “Jesus Christ, God’s promised rescuer and ruler lived our life, died our death and rose again in triumphant vindication as the first-fruits of the new creation to bring forgiven sinners together…under His gracious reign as His Kingdom people.“ David urged the attendees to make an unwavering commitment to the gospel in our church planting. He identified 10 ways we have a tendency to distort the gospel.

The men enjoyed periods of worship and filled the old church (built in 1796) with robustly sung hymns.

Jeff Vanderstelt led a session about “Being a Leader who Grows Leaders.” He pointed out the fact that Jesus’ Great Commission includes making disciples. If our churches are not raising leaders, then we are not making disciples who can make disciples. This same mandate is found in Deut. 6 where fathers are to raise children who will raise children. A good Dad raises his children to lead their own families, not to keep their 40-year old children in their basements. A good church planter raises up leaders who will lead, sometimes better than the planter. 2 Timothy 2:1-2 encourages us to develop leaders who will develop other leaders.

In the final session of the day, David Fairchild talked about “Keeping a Gospel Heart” and he confessed the difficulties he had when he planted Kaleo church out of a heart of anger and not a heart of gospel. He made an interesting statement. He said “It is possible to preach about Christ without preaching the gospel.”

Our day ended with a quick trip to the spectacular St. Paul’s Cathedral (where Princess Di and Prince Charles were married) and then pizza with the volunteers of the Church Planting Foundations Conference.

Taken from the Inside of St Paul's about the same time Tyler (and the security guard) told me it says "No Photography." Oops.

Tomorrow, Steve Timmis, Jeff Vanderstelt and I will share with the men who are eager to learn and network with us.

If you haven’t caught the buzz already, be sure to check out Re:Train, Mars Hill Church’s new, Missional Leadership educational training center.

This year, only 50 will be admitted to the Resurgence Training Center’s inaugural class, kicking off August 16.

Within that number will be a cohort for future church-planters overseen by Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Director. If you have a desire to plant a church through Acts 29 and are looking for both practical and academic training -- this is all that and includes coaching from top leadership within Acts 29 and Mars Hill Church. This is an incredible opportunity.

With such a small class this first year around, and many applicants, we stress that you apply for this as soon as possible.

Make sure to check “Church Planter” under the Purpose in Seeking Enrollment section of the application so we can identify you correctly.

The program launches in August for a year’s worth of training from excellent teachers such as Sam Storms, John Piper, Ed Stetzer, Mark Driscoll, Gregg Allison, Rick Melson and Bill Clem.

Get the catalog with details here, but hurry! You have 26 days… the application deadline is July 1.

By Pastor Scott Thomas

This week, Mark Driscoll and I were honored to have spent some time with Jonathan Falwell and a few members of his team including David Early, Matt Wilmington and Charles Billingsley. It was an extremely meaningful trip for Mark and me. We felt loved and befriended in an authentic way.

Scott, Jonathan and Mark in Lynchburg

We met some of his key pastors and had a fun meeting where we talked at length about church planting, multi-site and missional evangelism. We all went out to eat and then visited Thomas Road Baptist Church’s new 930,000 square foot facility. That’s like a million square feet for Jesus! The highlight of the trip was when Jonathan drove Mark and me around Liberty’s campus that ended at Jerry Falwell’s grave. For both of you that don’t know Jerry, he was an evangelical Christian pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church. He founded Lynchburg Christian Academy (now Liberty Christian Academy) in 1967, Liberty University in 1971, and cofounded the Moral Majority in 1979. Jonathan said his Dad raised over 3 Billion Dollars during his lifetime.

Mark and Jonathan at Jerry Falwell's Gravesite

We somberly observed the gravesite that was just outside of his former office that overlooked the baseball field, a pastime favorite of Jerry’s. Jonathan told stories of Dad and explained the many nuances of the beautiful site. When Jonathan asked us if we wanted to see his Dad’s office, we both agreed like a puppy getting a treat. And what a treat it was! Jonathan was visibly touched afresh by entering into Dad’s office that lay intact as it was found when Jonathan found his Dad the day he died on May 15, 2007.

Jonathan and Mark in Jerry's Office

On the wall near the Jerry Falwell Memorial Garden were brazened sayings often heard from Jerry during his ministry. One said, “We do not determine a man’s greatness by his talent or worth, as the world does, but rather what it takes to discourage him.” Another said simply, “Never Quit.”

Never Quit. It struck me that it was that saying that will be the legacy of the Falwell family. Five things I saw in Jonathan that he did not quit.

Very few days are as meaningful as this one. I am grateful for Jonathan's heart to close the gap between world-class leaders and make the issue about the glory of Jesus and His Kingdom and the desire to see us cooperate in the unity of the gospel.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ,so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. Phil. 1:27

We flew back to Raleigh that evening humbled, challenged at a lifetime of service and proud of the leadership of Jonathan who inherited his Dad’s personality, generosity and passion for the lost. We were also grateful for a new friend with whom we want to stand side by side for the faith of the gospel.

by Scott Thomas

When I went to London with Mark Driscoll, he kept saying something that I had not heard from him prior to that trip. Maybe, like some verses in the Bible, I just missed Mark ever saying it. He repeatedly said, “I am here to learn from you.” Since then, Mark has returned from trips or speaking events and has updated the Executive Elders of Mars Hill what he learned. It has been super helpful to us to learn insights from discussions he has had with John Piper, Craig Groeschel, Rick Warren and others.

In that spirit, I want to share five things I have learned on my trip with Billy Hornsby, the President of ARC (church planting organization co-founded by Greg Surratt of Sea Coast) headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama.

1. Never Complain

Billy mentioned that he hates complaining because God hates complaining. Complaining can derail a church, an organization and a family. Billy embodies a spirit of resting in the sovereignty of God in the midst of suffering. Billy’s wife, Charlene has cancer in her liver and pancreas and she has surpassed the date of her oncologist’s predicted life expectancy. You NEED to watch the video of Charlene’s testimony of her fight with cancer. Pastors are notorious for complaining, explains Hornsby. He said complainers spit in the face of God because they are always expecting more from God, as if they earned special privileges from God. Billy has Level 5 melanoma (invasion of the deep, subcutaneous tissue) that generally spreads into the lymph nodes. Prognosis is not hopeful so Billy is living his life to plant as many churches as he can. ARC wants to plant 100 churches this year—a number that is ridiculously high. I think they may do it with Billy’s intentional leadership.

2. Adore Your Wife

Billy and Charlene were married 42 years ago at age 17. I stayed in their home and watched a devotion to each other that is unequaled to any other marriage. After 42 years, they called each other cute pet names, kissed each other for no apparent reason and expressed to me how that neither can realize their life without the other. Billy said, “Son, other than Jesus, she is the best thing in my life.” He is a Cajun who only uses the term “son” when he wants to emphasize something as true. Their home was immaculate and when she brought Billy his breakfast (followed by a kiss on the forehead), it looked like a plate served at a restaurant.

3. Discipline Your Children

Billy has three girls and all of them are serving the Lord faithfully and are living in Birmingham. He didn’t worship his girls like we see many parents doing. He loved them like a father and disciplined them to respect his words and God’s words. “We never had to yell at our girls because they knew if we asked them to do something, they would do it without whining.” He said his girls are people he wants as his friend now because he didn’t try to be just their friend when they were small by letting them get away with disobedience and rebellion. His goal was to raise good adults, not just good kids—that requires a parent who takes responsibility to discipline consistently. He is one of the few fathers I know that have great kids (grown and otherwise) who spoke of them in a way that honored the Lord’s grace more than the children’s actions.

4. Take Time Off

This was actually discussed in the context of a rebuke to me for doing nothing but working. I received this as truth. He said something that resonated with me strongly: “Nobody in your church or your organization will care if you work too much and don’t take time off. You are the only one that will take responsibility for your days off and your vacation.” Then he hit me in the gut by saying, “Then when nobody notices, a guy gets angry at others like it’s their fault, and it can’t go anywhere but ugly from there.” Billy says that even God took a day off and “son, we ain’t no better than God.” If you are around Billy for five minutes, you will discover that he is not validated by his work. He works hard, but he also takes time to play. We were able to take time to fish and shoot guns because Billy took a couple of days off because he is working on the weekend. Billy has a good message for many pastors and church planters, I suspect.

5. Delegate Quickly

Billy said his spiritual gift was delegation. “If you want a job done right, you have to delegate it to the right person.” Many church planters encourage their members to make the planter as their functional savior by doing for others what they could do for themselves. This isn’t a new problem birthed by church planting. Moses had this problem and his father-in-law rebuked him. A pastor is called to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4) not to be the guy in the spiritual ice cream truck taking orders from the overly-fed consumers. Some church planters need to quit running the bulletin, balancing the checkbook, setting up the building, overseeing every ministry, counseling every dysfunctional family and then trying to preach in their spare time. To be effective, many business experts say, you have work ON the organization and not just IN the organization. It is equal to the captain of an army who is trying to lead a group of guys while he is cleaning the latrine and being the chief cook. It doesn’t make sense for anyone.

We don’t have to agree with everything a person practices to learn from them. We have to be humble to learn from others. God, grace us with friends like Billy with whom we can learn for the glory of God and good of your Kingdom.

You can visit Billy’s personal blog.

I asked people on Twitter to share the characteristics of what they thought comprised a good sermon. I compiled their helpful thoughts and came up with 8 qualities.

1.    Gospel-centered

2.    Bible-based, exegetically-sound (Intelligent but not academically arrogant)

3.    Empowered by the Holy Spirit

4.    Preached through a passionately changed man

5.    Relationally-connected

6.    Simple, memorable and concise with clarity of thought

7.    Bible-generated points of application

8.    Leads to the worship of Jesus

Kevin Bruursema, Location and Teaching Pastor at New Life Community Church in Chicago offered these nuggets on preaching in an email to me.

Smoke

Fire

Blood

Water

This evaluation is to be used to identify strengths and weaknesses for preachers and their messages. The questions are divided into two main categories: faithfulness and communication. Dr. Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, is credited for the original thoughts for these categories.

We use this form to evaluate Acts 29 and Mars Hill sermons preached.

Faithfulness to Scripture and God. These questions are related to the preacher's theological accuracy.

1. The preaching assertions (points) were clearly rooted in the text and squared with the whole teaching of scripture. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

2. The central theme was an illustration of Christ - the message was clearly all about Jesus. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

3. The speaker seemed in awe of God, not merely focused upon his sermon and the audience. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

4. The speaker avoided moralizing or psychologizing, and distinguished these from the gospel. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

5. The goal was to get people face-to-face with God, rather than merely instruct. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

6. Christ and His finished work were applied as the practical solution to any problem. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

Message Delivery and Communication. These questions are related to the preacher's communication abilities and connection with the intended audience.

7. It was clear where the preacher was driving - and the progression of points was traceable. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

8. The points were presented in a fresh, wise, and striking way as opposed to boring & cliché. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

9. At the end of the preaching, the main point was both clear and persuasive. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

10. It was clear the speaker understood the hearers’ hopes, fears, problems, concerns, etc. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

11. The central metaphor or "hook" was gripping. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

12. Jesus was made visible, not just taught about. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

13. There was a balance of warmth, love and humility on the one hand and force, power and authority on the other. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree)

14. The notes followed the message and enhanced comprehension. (1 - Strongly Disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Not Sure 4 - Agree 5 - Strongly Agree or N/A)

What I Mean by Preaching
May 12, 2009

From Desiring God website

Some of you may have little or no experience with what I mean by preaching. I think it will help you listen to my messages if I say a word about it.

What I mean by preaching is expository exultation.

Expository means that preaching aims to exposit, or explain and apply, the meaning of the Bible. The reason for this is that the Bible is God’s word, inspired, infallible, profitable—all 66 books of it. The preacher’s job is to minimize his own opinions and deliver the truth of God. Every sermon should explain the Bible and then apply it to people's lives.

The preacher should do that in a way that enables you to see that the points he is making actually come from the Bible. If you can’t see that they come from the Bible, your faith will end up resting on a man and not on God's word.

The aim of this exposition is to help you eat and digest biblical truth that will
    * make your spiritual bones more like steel,
    * double the capacity of your spiritual lungs,
    * make the eyes of your heart dazzled with the brightness of the glory of God,
    * and awaken the capacity of your soul for kinds of spiritual enjoyment you didn’t even know existed.

Preaching is also exultation. This means that the preacher does not just explain what’s in the Bible, and the people do not simply try understand what he explains. Rather, the preacher and the people exult over what is in the Bible as it is being explained and applied.

Preaching does not come after worship in the order of the service. Preaching is worship. The preacher worships—exults—over the word, trying his best to draw you into a worshipful response by the power of the Holy Spirit.

My job is not simply to see truth and show it to you. (The devil could do that for his own devious reasons.) My job is to see the glory of the truth and to savor it and exult over it as I explain it to you and apply it for you. That’s one of the differences between a sermon and a lecture.

Preaching is not the totality of the church. And if all you have is preaching, you don’t have the church. A church is a body of people who minister to each other.

One of the purposes of preaching is to equip us for that and inspire us to love each other better.

But God has created the church so that she flourishes through preaching. That’s why Paul gave young pastor Timothy one of the most serious, exalted charges in all the Bible in 2 Timothy 4:1-2, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.

If you're used to a twenty-minute, immediately practical, relaxed talk, you won't find that from what I've just described.
    * I preach twice that long;
    * I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful;
    * and I am not relaxed.

I standing vigilantly on the precipice of eternity speaking to people who this week could go over the edge whether they are ready to or not. I will be called to account for what I said there.

That's what I mean by preaching.

July 21-24, 2009 (Tuesday through Friday)

Orlando, Florida

Global Church Advancement (GCA) is an Acts 29 partner in the gospel and in church-planting, and they are hosting their 2009 North America Church Planting Seminar in Orlando this July -- and for the next two weeks they are offering greatly reduced prices for this training event.

Every church planter should attend the Foundations Track before attempting to start a church. Acts 29 recently presented an overview of this material at the Seattle Boot Camp and was enthusiastically received. We strongly recommend that you attend both tracks. You can hear Hunter Beaumont teach the Foundations principles and Russ McKendry teach on the Essentials principles.

GCA’s Foundations and Essentials training tracks are staples in a church planter’s training and are highly recommended by Acts 29.

What you should know:

Details:

July 21-24, 2009

Holiday Inn Resort

Orlando, Florida

40% off new & spouse registrations through May 31, 2009 ($270; $99 for spouse)

$95 deal for full time college / seminary students through May 31, 2009

Read more & register here

Read the GCA Blog

Become a GCA Facebook Fan 

Check out upcoming GCA Events 

Follow GCA on Twitter

Follow GCA President (Childers) on Twitter

We feel the call of God to participate in what Jesus is doing in the hearts of young men (our unique emphasis) in Western Europe. The first major step we have taken is partnering with Steve Timmis. We know that the only way to participate in furthering church-planting in Europe is through working with an established British church planting leader like Steve, our new regional director for Western Europe.

In the States we have a record of generously coming alongside networks, denominations and church planting centers to synergistically advance the gospel. Acts 29 cannot do it alone and neither can other organizations. We are approaching the UK and Western Europe in the same way and are expecting a win-win outcome as we have experienced in the States. For instance, while in London this summer, Acts 29 will also serve the Newfrontiers' network.

Just to be clear: our goal is that more churches are planted, not that other networks are marginalized. We have seen the opposite of that negative effect in our past as we are all strengthened as a result of our cooperative efforts. It is gospel community played out among the various church planting organizations for the glory of God. We choose to lay down egos and logos in favor of the gospel.

With this clearly in mind, we grow in our anticipation and excitement for what the Holy Spirit will do at the upcoming conference and in our time partnering together with those organizations who love Jesus and want to see more people saved through churches planting churches.

For those who are considering joining us, here's the schedule (Register here):

Tuesday, June 9:

10:00-11:00 - Acts: How to Plant a Church Steve Timmis

11:30-12:30 - Keeping a Gospel Heart David Fairchild

1:30-2:30 - Being a Leader Who Grows Leaders Jeff Vanderstelt

3:00-4:00 - Keeping a Gospel Church David Fairchild

Wednesday, June 10:

10:00-11:00 - Acts: How to Plant a Church Steve Timmis

11:30-12:30 - Being a Church that Plants Churches Jeff Vanderstelt

1:30-2:30 - Acts 29 Church Planting Scott Thomas

3:00-4:00 - Q&A

Register here.

More questions? Ask Becs Bridge becs.bridge@theporterbrooknetwork.org

 
Steve Timmis, co-author of Total Church, will direct a new Acts 29 Network in Western Europe beginning today. Steve is handing off The Crowded House duties, an alliance of gospel communities in Sheffield, England to focus on establishing a wider network of churches planting new churches all across Western Europe.

Steve and I first interacted when he graciously sent his Total Church manuscript to me to review. Not having any reference for Steve, I set it aside for a week and then something prompted me to read his chapter on Church Planting. I was thrilled at the theological clarity combined with the gospel-oriented praxis. I then read his chapter on World Missions, which was equally intriguing, fresh and saturated with the gospel. I proceeded to suggest almost 300 changes to the manuscript, most to correct Britain’s version of “English!” A kindred relationship was forged between us, mostly around the gospel and mission of Jesus, but occasionally around our common snarky attitudes.

I invited Steve to speak at an Acts 29 Boot Camp in Seattle where he was well received and sparked an interest among the church planters searching how to articulate the establishment of a church around the gospel and community.

I told him that we had to get this manuscript published in America and about that time, Crossway formed a relationship with us and the Re:Lit line was established. I pitched the idea to Mark Driscoll and Crossway published the book. Our network of young theologically savvy men received it heartily. Mars Hill Church pastors made the book mandatory reading for all their community group leaders.

In London last summer, Driscoll, Steve and I spoke at a conference together for church planters. Something significant happened to me there. Mark had spoken non-stop for five days and was tired. I told him after his first session to leave and get recharged before his final session, which he gladly agreed. When we announced a break, the planters did not leave. Instead, many formed an impromptu line like we were handing out free donuts to eagerly ask questions of Steve and me. I was used to a throng of planters waiting in line to speak to Mark. It happened the week prior in Brighton, England. But he wasn’t even in the building. The men begged us to help them start a church or revive a church in one of the 12 countries represented at that conference. My favorite was a planter wannabe from Liverpool. With a John Lennon accent, he said that God had called him to plant a church in Liverpool but that he wasn't sure how he was going to plant a new work. I think his exact words were, “I haven’t got a bloody clue, Mate.” We turned lunch into a question and answer session to accommodate all of the interest. The verse that kept coming to me was "For a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries" (1 Cor 16:9).

A door was opening but we were not equipped to walk through it. We needed someone who understood the culture; who was well-respected; who knew how to plant a church in a European context and who knew how to work with other church planting groups already present for the advancement of the gospel.

I returned from London and asked our Lead Pastor, Jamie Munson to allow me to concentrate on Acts 29 almost exclusively so that we could plant churches around the world. He gladly obliged, sensing a call for global church planting. I transitioned most of my pastoral duties at Mars Hill and prayed for an answer.

At our inaugural World Church Planter’s Summit in March, Steve made himself available to lead this European network. It was an answer to a prayer that began in London after numerous men begged for help in establishing a gospel-centered work in their part of the world. “Go and make disciples of all nations” was the authoritative command of Jesus. We had no more excuses.

We are honored to have Steve Timmis join our network as a proven pastor, trainer, church planter and author. We pray that he will be a movement leader through Acts 29 that will help assess, train and send out hundreds of church planters into a post-Christian world that needs the gospel desperately.

Church Planting Foundations

Acts 29 Conference

London, England

June 9-10, 2009

Information Here

Bookings/Registration Here

By Pastor Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Director

This is a longer blog than normal, but these are the notes from my talk at Exponential 2009 in an effort to serve those who attended and wanted to engage dialogically in the conversation live.

The Power Point Handout is found here.

Introduction

Every young man that considers church planting asks the question, Am I a Church Planter? It is the question I asked myself many years ago. It is the question we ask every man who submits himself to our Acts 29 assessment process to be a lead planter in our network. Many times he is depending on our assessment process to confirm his calling.

When we assess church planters in Acts 29, the top five negative conditions identified are in order, Theology, Vision, Family, Calling and Character.

The pushback that I receive about doing assessments is that they are not consistent with Scripture. People become very volatile over this issue. I see the church in Jerusalem and Antioch identifying, equipping and sending men to plant churches.

Acts 11:19-26

Acts 13-16

A lot of churches do not have a theologically-based vision for church planting and lack insight into what a church planter looks like. Other churches that are interested in church planting have an intuitive sense of a church planter prospect but have not articulated it and thus may not recognize a man that would make a great church planter. Every church leader should be able to spot a church planter and then send him to plant as soon as he is ready. The problem I am seeing is that we are so desperate for good men that we are not sending them into the field. We take warriors and make them into administrative clerks.


While not politically correct, Acts 29 teaches that this office of an elder and pastor is reserved for males. God is a God of order and balance. He has established order within the family (Gen. 3:16; 1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 5:22-33; Col. 3:18-21) and the church (1 Tim. 2:11-14; 1 Cor. 11:8-9). Even within the Trinity there is an order; a hierarchy. The Father sent the Son (John 6:38) and both the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 15:26). Jesus said, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." (John 6:38). It is clear that God is a God of order and structure.

Charles R. Ridley compiled 13 Characteristics  of a church planter and this list is the most utilized profile in church planter selection.
1.    Visioning Capacity
2.    Personal Motivation
3.    Creating Ownership of Ministry/Building a Core Team
4.    Reaching the Un-churched
5.    Spousal Cooperation
6.    Relationship Building
7.    Commitment to a Healthy Reproducing Church
8.    Responsiveness to Community
9.    Gift Utilization
10.    Flexibility and Adaptability
11.    Builds Group Cohesiveness
12.    Resilience
13.    Exercising Faith

My friend, Allen Thompson, an expert with a PhD in church planter assessment compiled the following list of 18 characteristics of a successful church planter.   He divided them into Personal, ministerial and intrapersonal characteristics.

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church compiled a list of 20 characteristics for a church planter.  He divided them into Personal Qualifications (humility, love, integrity and spirituality), and Functional Qualifications (nurture -counseling and discipling, communication, leadership and mission).
    
Although it seems a little reductionist and arrogant to list the characteristics of a church planter, I offer ten characteristics based on evidence in the Acts 29 Network and a plethora of books and articles associated with church planting. After reading this list, some men will be more discouraged from church planting than will be drawn to it. But the fact is that church planting is tough for the most qualified men. If a man does not have the needed characteristics, he will frustrate himself and everyone around him.

There are lots of other ways you can serve God in an established church or a church plant apart from being the lead planter. Some very good pastors would make bad church plant leaders. That call from God to do church planting might be a call to go join a team led by another man to help plant a church, or it might actually be a call to financially support so others can go. Please pray as you work through this list that God will either confirm your call or show you that you are not meant to lead a church plant after all.

I.  Spiritual Vitality (Integrity is the number one value of a church planter).

1.    Gives evidence of a personal relationship with Jesus and a transformed life.

2.    Has a vibrant devotional life, prayer, spiritual disciplines
3.    Has a deep commitment to Biblical authority
4.    Evidence of fruit of Spirit and that the gospel is presently at work in his life

5.    Evidence of a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led and Spirit-controlled life.

6.    Confesses the life of an Elder above reproach (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1)

II.  Theological Clarity

1.    Possesses a clear understanding of the doctrines of faith

2.    Has a right understanding of the centrality of the gospel

3.    Articulate apologist for the faith
4.    Commitment to the local church as an expression of a gospel community on mission.
5.    Exercises grace toward those who hold to other views of theology
6.    Biblical church governance
7.    Demonstrates an ability to learn, grasp and communicate theological concepts

III.   Clarity and Strength of Calling

1.    Communicates a compelling personal call to plant church in this area at this time
2.    Spouse shares husband's calling to plant
3.    Commitment and sacrifice to obey call to plant a church demonstrated clearly

4.    Has a clear, compelling vision for the church plant that motivates others
5.    Has been commended for ministry by sending church (Acts 13)

IV.  Strong Marriage and Family Life

1.    Exhibits a healthy marriage (loving, serving, mutual submission, kindness, communicative, respect)
2.    Demonstrates integrity and stewardship in managing finances

3.    Family members exhibit joy in serving the mission
4.    Commitment to raising and providing for family in exemplary way
5.    Understands balance of family and ministry
6.    Professes healthy sexual relationship and purity.

V.  Relationship Building

1.    Establishes and maintains healthy relationships
2.    Takes initiative to meet new people; is friendly
3.    Conversationalist, including listening skills
4.    Team builder who equips others for effective ministry
5.    Empathetic and compassionate for others
6.    Displays patience and sincerity with others

VI.  Leadership Abilities

1.    Has a clear and reproducible system for leadership development
2.    Has shown he is able to accomplish tasks with limited resources
3.    Ability to raise up men to become leaders in church, home, business, community

4.    Portrays resilience under opposition and setbacks
5.    Is adaptable to meet needs, identify barriers and articulate vision
6.    Organizes teams of people to accomplish goals (using time, resources and personnel effectively)
7.    Demonstrates courage to lead others who are not easily following

VII.  Emotional Maturity

Most church planters get fatter, fussier, angrier, lonelier, poorer and at odds more with their mate and their Lord during the first two years of a church plant. Don't think that having a church baby will solve your deficiencies any more than a baby will solve the problems of a troubled marriage.

1.    Ability to identify own strengths and weaknesses

2.    Displays confidence without arrogance
3.    Ability to accept constructive criticism and input from others
4.    Willingness to be accountable to others in community
5.    Exhibits flexibility and adaptability to changes and needs

6.    Appears to be a problem-solver

VIII.  Missional Lifestyle

In our quest to be missionally engaged, hip and cool, I think we have lost the "edge" for a radical, passionate engagement with God. Connecting with culture is overrated; connecting with God is underrated.

James 4:6-10 calls us to draw near to God. We have to make this the primary point of our church plant and then we connect to culture in a way that is understood by them. We don't want to be too hip and too cool that we overshadow the person and work of Jesus.

If you are a church planter, you have to be a missionary. Every pastor needs to see himself as a missionary for the glory of God and the good of the city. Don't be someone who wants to start something because of self-centeredness and pride and my desire to be recognized. It's not about the church planter or personal success. It's about exalting the grace of Jesus.

1.    Consistently and effectively shares faith with others in a manner understood by unchurched
2.    Commitment and passion to reach unchurched throughout entire city
3.    Understands cultural context of proposed church plant (behaviors, attitudes, idols)
4.    Leads others in a missional lifestyle
5.    Has meaningful relationships and rapport with unchurched people
6.    Planter is a cultural fit to the area where the church will be planted

IX.  Disciple-Making Skills

A missional community is a committed core of believers who live out the mission together in a specific area or to a particular people group by demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms and declaring the gospel to others-both those who believe it and those who are being exposed to it. This community is led by a team to shepherd, equip and organize a community on mission.

This group is the church throughout the week. They identify, equip and send out new men to lead missional communities. Missional Communities operate unlike a Bible study and more like a family, a missionary team, a band of servants and eager learners.

I was attending a small group years ago and one of the participants mentioned that she was struggling with honoring her father the way the commandments stated because her father had raped her as a child. This was a real issue, a hurdle for her to clear. She felt dirty still after years of abuse and she refused to honor her Dad who abused her as a child. The group leader said, "Okay, we better get through this lesson." He completely missed the point of the community. He thought it was an academic process and not a family issue. No man would just ignore that statement made by his daughter or wife so he could continue his conversation.

These missional communities may come together to form a church. For instance, one group meets that replicates and those two groups replicate into four groups. A leader is identified among the communities and this person builds into the formation of the leaders. These groups may come together to grow into a church in the future.

As a normal method, these groups come together, they enjoy food together, they pray together, and they learn together. They discuss their mission and the ways they are serving the community.

1.    Clear and effective plan for discipleship
2.    Preaches with effectiveness
3.    Skilled in establishing and multiplying gospel communities (discipleship, missional small groups, learning teams, etc.)
4.    Inspires others toward spiritual maturity
5.    Models a lifestyle of following Jesus

X.  Entrepreneurial Aptitude

What have you started successfully? Some men can't see the vision of what is to come, and some-even if they see the vision-can't find the steps toward accomplishing their vision. If you can't be the architect, then you are in trouble. As an example, some very pastoral people are NOT the best people to start a church, or at least not as the main team leader. Be clear about who you are. If you're a shepherd, counselor, caregiver, and you could be a success doing those things in an established church or as part of a team, then that is where you should be. Someone who is called to plant a church is frustrated if they don't do it. Number two leaders rarely make good number one leaders.

1.    Has demonstrated past successes in starting new ventures
2.    Is an innovative and strategic visionary
3.    Is highly energetic and enthused about starting a new work
4.    Shows ability to enlist others in new ventures
5.    Evidences of being a self-starter
6.    Has a willingness to work intensely for an extended period of time


Church Plant Stoppers

Adapted from: © Copyright 2007, Church Leader Inventory: A PCA Qualitative and Quantitative Study, ICPC J. Allen Thompson, Church Planter Competencies as Perceived by Church Planters and Assessment Center Leaders: a protestant North American study, Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois, 1995. 

Church Plant Stoppers:  Church leaders must find their identity in Christ's forgiveness and acceptance.  When they are overly preoccupied with themselves they show signs of insecurity, pride, love of attention and acclaim and at times irritation and anger.  Being eager for quick success they may cut corners and betray trust. The following characteristics may curb a church plant from maturing and reproducing.

Arrogance:  displays conceited self-sufficiency.
1.     Takes criticisms of ministry programs personally.
2.     When under tension is cold and aloof making others feel inferior.
3.     Seeks to be the ultimate authority in the ministry.
4.     Tends to be abrupt and impatient in manner.
5.     Tends to live a parallel life from spouse.

Betraying of trust:  breaks confidence placed in him by others.
1.    Is a people pleaser and consequently changes mind frequently.
2.    Fails to follow through on commitments.
3.    Says one thing and means or does another.
4.    Betrays trust by sharing confidential information with others.
5.    Fails to listen to and understand the needs of spouse.

Unethical Lifestyle:  lives on the margins of moral standards and values.
1.    Is involved in indiscreet relationships with the opposite sex.
2.    Wrestles with an addiction (excessive eating, smoking, drinking, etc.)
3.    Operates too close to the margins of appropriate behavior.
4.    Tends to cut corners (sacrifice good theology) to reach goals.

Conclusion
Mark Dever has said the local church, in all its glory, makes the audible gospel visible (A Display of God's Glory (9marks: Washington, D.C., 2001). The gospel is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  Jesus Christ died and rose again and ascended - people do not see Him.  The Church is His Body here on earth.  The place where Jesus Christ is made visible is His Body, not just by one individual.  When one meets a congregation that is "displaying God's glory" faithfully, one encounters Jesus in one sense.  So planting a church is an exercise in making visible the audible gospel of the Blessed God.

What if I am called? What if I am not sure? What do I do?

"Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Tim 4:12-16).

A lot is written about leadership principles. Most of it is written from a sterile academic perspective or from theory, not from real life. I am asked a lot about what makes Mark Driscoll so successful. He’s a complicated dude. In fact, I usually tell people that he is a “freak” to dissuade them from trying to be Driscoll 2.0. I say that with the greatest amount of respect and admiration because he is one of a kind. Most world-class leaders are.

Mark has some methods he employs that make him a great leader. I offer 6 ways Mark Driscoll leads to inspire us toward leadership.

Mark is just a man. But he is a leader that God is using to influence many people for the gospel. Even those in Mars Hill Church sometimes misunderstand his passion to proclaim the gospel. But he leads in a way that points people to Jesus, even if he has to yell at you to wake up and see the victorious Jesus awaiting His return.

Mark is teaching at the upcoming Acts 29 Boot Camp in San Diego:

To Register click HERE

“I have been in Seattle for ten days,” Eddie said. “I am looking for a job. I am a heavy equipment operator and I can’t find any work so I have to sleep here [points to the sidewalk].”

Men sleeping on sidewalk across from Union Gospel Mission

On Good Friday, a few of us went down near the Union Gospel Mission in Downtown Seattle to show mercy to the homeless. We were prepared to hand out sleeping bags that were donated by several readers of our blog. We weren’t prepared to be as impacted so meaningfully by the men we encountered. Our strategy was not to chuck the sleeping bags out of the back of my truck Kamikaze-style, but rather, to walk up to those who appeared to be homeless and to dialogue about their needs and then offer them a sleeping bag and a vitamin water.

I first encountered Larry, a self-proclaimed drug addict who was obviously angry at the world. I liked Larry, even though he yelled at me a few times. We took a walk toward Pioneer Square and he told me about all of the homelessness in the area. He was honest and articulate—only interrupting himself to yell at others across the street. He said he ran away from home at 15 years old because he father beat him, got addicted to Heroin and has been on the streets ever since. Larry has no intention to get off drugs or to get a job.

Eddie was from Guatemala. He didn’t speak English fluently, but communicated that he had his green card and was having a hard time finding work. Eddie received our first sleeping bag and is pictured below.

Eddie is looking for work

Monterey Mexico man (I couldn’t pronounce his name even after he repeated it three times) had been in Seattle for 8 weeks. He thanked me over and over for giving him a sleeping bag and asked if I knew of any work he could do.

Five college students from the Univ. of Washington came down to help me talk to the men and to hand out water and sleeping bags. They were encouraged by the lucidity of the men and were moved by their stories. They helped James, an aging homeless man get to the hospital. He lugged his new sleeping bag along with him. Two of the guys took another man to get something to eat and paid for it out of their own pockets.

Three college students were entertained by the story told by Henry

Phil talked to me about how that he was in the program of the Union Gospel Mission and that he had been helped tremendously by staying faithful to their policy of no alcohol and no drugs. He was a construction worker but was out of work because he injured his knee. He said that if it wasn't for the UGM, he would be dead. He is trying to get back to work and get off the street.

The Union Gospel Mission serves three hot meals a day and provides a mat for the the men to sleep in two large rooms. They have limited space and limited funds but they do a great job of helping the men to get off the street and being productive in society. The three men that ran the evening program were all graduates of the UGM program. One of them attends the downtown campus at Mars Hill Church. They were serving the men out of deep empathy, but holding them to a standard to help them to get back on their feet. The men that did not have a space to get into the program, we helped out by providing sleeping bags. I am talking with David below (clutching his new sleepong bag) while Derrin watches. James, bent over in the foreground below patiently waits to receive his sleeping bag.

Gladly Receiving a Sleeping Bag on a Cold Night

Jesus said that if we give a cup of cold water in His name, we will honor the King (Matthew 10:42). I was refreshed to see the gospel at work in the lives of men and of us as we served Jesus in this way.

Thanks to Charlie Marsh for taking the pictures, for the four other college students and for Fred Meyer in Ballard who gave us a 10% discount on the sleeping bags. And thanks to you for your generosity to raise over $600 to make this possible.

by Pastor Scott Thomas

Photo by Adriel Ifland, Acts 29 Administrative Assistant

Missional leaders influence others to follow them through their brokenness. How does brokenness help a leader to lead? How is the gospel displayed through brokenness? 

One aspect of leadership through brokenness is being a leader who regularly repents and does not hide. Darrin Patrick warns would-be planters of falling prey to power & control, the "two great sins of leadership" and preaches on Paul's ministry and how it was marked by confession, dependence and weakness more than it was marked by strength, vision and opportunism (listen here). "Godly character is grown in dependency crises," states Patrick. "You are forced to deal with God and with yourself. Great leaders don't just visit these places of dependence; they try to live there."

Photo by Adriel Ifland, Acts 29 Administrative Assistant

He also discusses a holy reluctance in true leaders as they are accurately aware of how much it will hurt and how incompetent they are to the task of leading. Listen to him teach of Paul's pain and brokenness as he vents to Timothy (2 Timothy 4:9-16). Darrin will be speaking at the boot camp in San Diego May 5-6.

Matt Chandler also teaches on and shares his own brokenness in leadership in Gravity: The Weight of Pastoring from 2006's Reform & Resurge conference. He will be teaching at the upcoming boot camp in San Diego May 5-6.

David Fairchild, planter of Kaleo Church in San Diego, will be speaking on Influence through Brokenness next month at the Acts 29 Boot Camp hosted by his church in San Diego.

Host: Kaleo Church

New Life Presbyterian Church 
5333 Lake Murray Blvd.                    
La Mesa, CA  91942

Cost: $149 each | $99/couple for assessment (Must have Phase 1 completed in the application process with Acts 29)

To Register click HERE

To Register click HERE

May 5-6, 2009

Host: Kaleo Church

New Life Presbyterian Church
5333 Lake Murray Blvd.                   
La Mesa, CA  91942

Cost: $149 each

10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Theme: Missional Influence: Multiplying Leaders on Mission for the Gospel
Primary Text: Book of Nehemiah (Gospels, Acts, Pastoral Epistles)
Premise: Jesus relies on leadership multiplication as His chosen vehicle to spread the gospel and to establish His church for His glory through redeemed lives.

To Register click HERE

To Register click HERE

Tuesday May 5

Session 1 – Influence through Leadership by Mark Driscoll (10:30 am)
Nehemiah 1-13

Session 2 – Influence through Brokenness by David Fairchild (3:00 pm)

Session 3 – Influence through Mission and Vision by Jeff Vanderstelt (4:20 pm)
Nehemiah 2:5-20; 6:15-16

Wednesday May 6

Session 4 – Influence through Community by Brian Howard (10:30 am)
Nehemiah 3:1-32; 4:15-23; 5:1-19; 7:1-73; 10:1-39

Session 5 – Influence through the Word and Worship by Matt Chandler (3:00 pm)
Nehemiah 8:1-18; 9:1-13, 36-37; 13:1-3

Session 6 – Influence through Persevering by Darrin Patrick (4:20 pm)

To Register click HERE

Tuesday:
1.    Wives’ Track led by Erin Young
2.    Art on Life: Engaging Media Redemptively by Mike Brown
3.    Leading the Mission by Justin Anderson
4.    Calling by Thomas Young
5.    (Private) Coaching Track by Scott Thomas

Wednesday:
1.    Wives’ Track led by Erin Young
2.    Leading a Team by Dave Fandy
3.    Setting the DNA for a Multi-ethnic church plant by Thien Doan
4.    Practical Missional Ecclesiology by Drew Goodmanson
5.    (Private) Coaching Track by Scott Thomas

To Register click HERE

Picto:Blog - April 7, 2009

By Pastor Scott Thomas

Cute Home of the deceased Edith Macefield in Ballard (Seattle)

Last summer, Ballard’s Edith Macefield passed away quietly in her home situated in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. In the wake of her life and her choices she has left many admirers and a few critics. Some have gotten tattoos imaging her home with the word “Steadfast” underneath. Others roll their eyes and call her “selfish” for refusing to sell her home and move off the lot.

Developers of the new Ballard Blocks offered her more and more money for her land as they purchased all the surrounding lots in prime real-estate in booming Ballard. Edith continued to state she didn’t care about the money. Even as the offers reached $1M for her tiny home, she wouldn’t budge.

So the jackhammers pounded, the walls of all her surrounding, familiar old neighborhood came crashing down. Her house stood on its foundations, while the world around it became rubble, then spray-painted rubble, then empty lots, then new foundations and then gargantuan structures seeming to swallow her little house.

Macefield refused $1 million for her 1,000-square-foot, circa 1900 house, so the developer of Ballard Blocks built the retail and office building around it, blank walls rising on three sides (see picture below). Construction superintendent Barry Martin befriended Macefield, who willed her house to him before she died.

The little house stood out, and from the vantage point of the Ballard Bridge, became a symbol of courage and conviction to those who glanced across the industrial wasteland beneath the bridge.

On June 15, at age 86, she died in her home--with courage.

Nestled in between a massive shopping district

The top questions church planters ask have to do with doctrine, evangelism, methods of preaching, finances, website design, administration, Bylaws, budgets, missions, marketing, projectors, sound systems, power point, demographics and finding a location. Young men (and old) think that if they accomplish all of the best practices, have enough money for a mass mailing and get a cool band, they won't have enough chairs to hold all of the people that will show up at their new church plant. Best practices aren't bad, but nothing will derail a church plant any quicker if the planter does not have courage rooted in the gospel.

Courage. Webster defines it as "mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty." It has a few synonyms that are helpful: mettle, spirit, resolution, and  tenacity. They mean mental or moral strength to resist opposition, danger, or hardship. Courage implies firmness of mind and will in the face of danger or extreme difficulty, particularly unpopular causes. Mettle suggests an ingrained capacity for meeting strain or difficulty with fortitude and resilience. Spirit suggests a quality of temperament enabling one to hold one's own or keep up one's morale when opposed or threatened. Resolution stresses firm determination to achieve one's ends. Tenacity adds to resolution implications of stubborn persistence and unwillingness to admit defeat.

I have exercised courage well at times and not so well at other times. I have received a vision from Jesus for the direction of the local church and I have called people to follow it by abandoning self, former practices, traditions, sinful habits and neglect of having a passion for God's plan. I have also overlooked sin in others, been afraid to speak up in a confrontational way, and side-stepped a challenging doctrine. Additionally, I have exerted courage in a prideful way. Here's where the tight-rope balance is tricky. I have courageously confronted others with arrogance and pride, and not with the gospel. I have dared others to follow my courageous passion in a condescending way.

I can say that every time I exercised godly courage--one with humility and love for others, the results have been blessed. Likewise, every time I either was not courageous or did not exercise it in a way that was imaging the gospel, it turned out horribly. Those are times when it is necessary to be courageous enough to repent to those you have wronged, whether in action or attitude or both.

Edith showed courage, an old lady stood up to a major developer and her house stands in tribute to her courage and conviction.

Jesus showed courage by coming to earth as a human and accepting the pain and suffering and eventual death to take our place and to atone for our sins. The empty tomb stands as a tribute to His courage and victory over sin.

Resources:

Next Boot Camp: San Diego, CA

Host: Kaleo Church

New Life Presbyterian Church
5333 Lake Murray Blvd.                   
La Mesa, CA  91942

Cost: $149 each | $99/couple for assessment (Must have Phase 1 completed in the application process with Acts 29)

To Register click HERE

by Pastor Scott Thomas

Picto:Blog April 6, 2009

Marco is living on the streets in Seattle and needs a sleeping bag.

At church yesterday, Mark Driscoll mentioned that Mayor Greg Nickels has asked Mars Hill to participate in addressing the homeless situation in Seattle. He needs 500 team member volunteers and 200 team leaders to help with the City of Seattle’s upcoming survey on homelessness in Seattle.

I walked out of the downtown campus after the announcement and across the street to speak to a homeless man, Marco (pictured above). Marco was sitting in an area where men are normally picked up to do day labor. I asked Marco how things were going and he said that he was waiting for someone who needed work done but that it had been slower lately. Marco is willing to work. He said that he was getting by and had a sweet attitude. I told him I was one of the pastors at the church across the street and asked him how we could help him. He said, "Everything I have is in this paper bag and everything else is wet. The rains lately have made getting work harder and have soaked my bed. I need a sleeping bag." A sleeping bag?! That's all?

I sipped on my Storyville Coffee served at the downtown campus, some of the best coffee you will taste. We take it for granted that we have everything we need when there are people right across the street from where we worship that have nothing. My heart was broken because Marco had scrounged somebody's discarded leftovers for his lunch. I wanted to be able to address Marco's request.

Here's my proposal. I would like to participate in 29 Acts of mercy for the homeless on Good Friday by purchasing 29 sleeping bags and handing them out to those in need. And I am asking you to participate by showing an act of mercy by participating in the purchase of these. Go to our secure online form and donate to purchase sleeping bags. (Acts 29 is a 501c3 non-profit organization and will provide a donation letter upon request).

Homeless Men in the park near Pike Street on April 5

This will not solve the homeless situation in Seattle, but it will demonstrate the gospel by showing acts of mercy. It is a great time of the year, just before this Easter Sunday, to not only plan for our big Easter worship service, but to plan to serve others. Let's plan to love, plan to care, plan to give and plan to show the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus didn't just feel the plight of those around Him, He did something about it.

Several men were seen sitting on benches, no where else to go

I talked to a security officer working near Pike Street and asked her about the homeless. She said that some of the men had chosen that lifestyle. They have no bills, little stress and no responsibilities. Some of them, according to her, were addicted to alcohol and drugs but there are a number of men that lost their jobs and are desparate. These are the men, she said that we could help.

I talked with a female who approached me and asked me for $1.50 for some lunch. I asked her how long she had been on the street. "Oh, I'm not on the street", she retorted quickly. It was obvious to me that she was and I asked where her home was. She said it was in Kenmore and that she had just been up all night drinking. She didn't want to admit that she was homeless. She needed someone to care, somebody to love her and a reason to try.

Marco said that he remembered when the downtown campus gave him some food at Christmas time. He said they showed the love of "Jesuchristo." One day, I believe, Marco will be off the street. Until then, the men like Marco may not deserve our help, but neither did we deserve the love of Jesus who saved us from our sins and continues to show mercy to us when we disobey Him. Let's show mercy on Good Friday. If you would like to financially participate in 29 Acts of Mercy, go to our secure online form and donate to purchase sleeping bags to help us help those in need. We will share pictures and stories on this blog.

If you are unable to give and live in the Seattle area, you can participate in the Homeless Needs Assessment. Basically, teams of volunteers will be sent out to various parts of the city, and will speak with every person they meet to determine if they are homeless. If they are, the volunteers will ask them to participate in a survey to help the city understand their needs. Volunteers will need to commit four hours on the evening of Monday, April 13, 2009 and one hour of training prior to the evening of the assessment.

Here are the details:

Who: 700 volunteers (in partnership with the City of Seattle, United Way, and the Committee to End Homelessness)

Where: Volunteers will be grouped in teams of three and will be assigned a specific part of the city to cover

When: Monday April 13th, 8:00pm-12:00am

Why: The survey will be used to help allocate the annual $40 million our city uses to fight homelessness

Sign up here for the Seattle Survey on Homlessness.

Faith Visuals (Christianity Today) posted its Top Ten Easter videos recently and my friend and former worship pastor Todd Vaters is among the artists featured. He produced another nice original musical arrangement that is sung in the background while he creates a time-lapse chalk-drawing of Jesus on the cross interspersed with Scripture. It is a powerful and artistic depiction of Christ's sacrifice. Information is available here. The video can be downloaded here.

Finished chalk drawing on video

Picto:Blog - April 4, 2009

by Pastor Scott Thomas

Photo of old organ by Scott Thomas

I love driving worship leaders crazy. Therefore I have inundated them with 87 resources for worship. They will hardly know where to start. That's for all the times they asked me to sing, "Shout to the Lord" or "I Can Sing of Your Love Forever" or any song that has the word "river" in the title! There, we're even. Now enjoy.

Section One: Acts 29 Resources (audio and articles)

Section Two: Institute for Christian Worship audio files (Southern Seminary)

Section Three: John Piper seminar on Worship

Audio:

Articles:

Justin Taylor posted audio files from Southern Seminary's Institute for Christian Worship. Some of the ones you will find are listed below:

David Peterson:

D.A. Carson thinks that Peterson's book, Engaging With God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (1992), is one of the very best treatments available.

John Frame:

Frame's two books on worship are Worship in Spirit and Truth: A Refreshing Study of the Principles and Practice of Biblical Worship (1996) and Contemporary Worship: A Biblical Defense (1997). These books make some in the Reformed camp uncomfortable, but I found both of them to be very helpful.

Harold Best:

Best's two books on worship are Music Through the Eyes of Faith (1993) and Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts (2003). Music Through the Eyes of Faith has had a significant impact on John Piper, and he highly recommends the book.

Michael Card:

For Card on lament, see A Sacred Sorrow Experience Guide: Reaching out to God in the Lost Language of Lament (2005) and The Hidden Face of God: Finding the Missing Door to the Father Through Lament (2007).

Keith and Kristyn Getty:

Stuart Townend, Keith Getty, and Kristyn Getty:

Bob Kauflin:

Kauflin's book is Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God (2008). See also his blog, Worship Matters. If you lead others in worship, this is probably the first book to get your hands on.

Kevin Twit:

Jason Harms:

See Jason's writings and music at JasonHarms.com.

John Piper:

John Piper's five-hour seminar on worship is a bonus. With the links below you can either watch the videos, read the notes, or listen to the audio for free:

by Pastor Scott Thomas

Zoka - one of my Top Ten coffee spots in Seattle (Photo by Scott T)

In Seattle you cannot find a Cracker Barrell--the famous indoor garage sale with gravy on the side. But you can find coffee shops--lots of them, everywhere; places that you have never heard about. Of course, you know that coffee was invented in Seattle--at least the mass marketing of Starbucks was invented there. It's not the best coffee in Seattle. Sorry. It's not even in the top nine. I have the original Starbucks location as #10, just because of the novelty of it.

But going out for coffee is a cultural thing. I mean it's not like you can plan anything outside during the 360-day rainy "season." But you can go to Tully's, Seattle's Best, Cafe Bambino, Verite, Fuel, Java Bean, Cafe Ladro or even Starbucks to meet a friend for a Latte on an overcast day. Seattle people are snobs about their coffee. They can be. They should be. It's a cultural connection. And they need more sunshine to be happy, so they counter it with caffine.

In Nashville, it's music. In Ozark, MO, it's antiques. In Denver, it's skiing and John Elway (I know he retired, but he's the only QB left in Colorado). Every community has their own language and their own world view. The transplants into those communities must learn the "language" of the natives to be integrated, to sell a product or to develop relationships.

If you are a church planter, you have to be understood by the locals in order to communicate with them effectively. A good missionary will communicate in a manner that is understood by the culture in which he ministers. You can't walk in to French-speaking Quebec and start screaming, "Hockey sucks. Y'all Repent!" To be effective, you must learn French, hate America and wear funny hats. Buick released their sedan, La Crosse into Quebec and it was not well received. "La Crosse" is a street slang name in Quebec that is an embarassing sexual connotation. Whoever named that one for Quebecers La rondelle ne roule pas pour lui (The puck isn’t going his way). Some church plants have made the same faux pas with their contextualization of the Good News of Jesus and they wonder why people don't flock in (or stay).

Ed Stetzer said, "Being Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound" (Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches, 19).

Mark Driscoll said, "It is imperative that Christians be like Jesus, by living freely within the culture as missionaries who are as faithful to the Father and his gospel as Jesus was in his own time and place" (Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission, 40).

Here are a few resources to get you started:

Audio Links:

Articles:

BOOKS:

Next Boot Camp: San Diego, CA

Host: Kaleo Church

New Life Presbyterian Church
5333 Lake Murray Blvd.                   
La Mesa, CA  91942

Cost: $149 each | $99/couple for assessment (Must have Phase 1 completed in the application process with Acts 29)

To Register click HERE

Picto:Blog April 2, 2009

by Pastor Scott Thomas

Picture above is not necessarily a representation of the article

Replanting
Dictionary.com defines replanting: "To plant (something) again or in a new place..." In a church replant, a church avoids permanent death by recognizing it will no longer flourish unless conditions are drastically changed to facilitate growth. A "transition church" on the other hand, starts with a healthy organism and applies biblical principles to foster new growth.

We can actually glorify Jesus by intentionally bringing death to a comatose body so that it could become the seed planted in nutrient-rich soil that gives life to a new body-not a stuffed carcass. Jesus said that unless a seed dies, it cannot give life (John 12:23-25). Jesus Himself was the first fruits sacrificially planted in the ground (tomb) as an offering to His Father and by doing so, made life possible for others.

"Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel" (2 Timothy 2:8).

Instead of holding on with inordinate pride to the past, a replanted church dies to its former glory, its methods, its structure, and its practices and strategically plants its resources (body, budget, board and buildings) into the spiritual ground. The result is a virile replanted church with a God-renewed mission to give life to the spiritually dead community in which it ministers.

I believe Jesus is glorified significantly when this happens. It can be a corporate example of the spiritual renewal many individuals need. Is your church ready to live by dying?

A Biblical Solution
Jesus said that we live by dying (John 12:23-26). This is true in the natural, agronomic world, in the spiritual world, for our own spiritual lives and is true for churches.  

If we are to glorify Jesus (John 12:23), we have to die daily to see a bountiful harvest (John 12:24). Jesus said that a grain of wheat can fall on the ground and still be alone or the Greek word monos-single. It infers that it is non-reproductive. Many people who come to church and look like Christians can actually just be monos-non-reproductive. Many people who claim they are spiritual may only be a non-reproductive seed on the ground.

It is only when we die that we release life. A kernel of corn has a hard shell that is protecting the life-giving germ inside of it. When it is put into the ground, the outer shell decomposes in the earth and releases the germ to draw its nutrients from the ground where it is buried. As the embryo grows, it eventually produces a plant that will reproduce that one seed thousands of times. Jesus said we would produce much grain; Gr., polus; abundant fruit.

Jesus had to die to give life. He couldn't just be beaten (fall to the ground). He had to die so that He could live and produce much fruit. We are the fruit of that firstfruit in Jesus if we have accepted the call of God.

If we try to hold on to what we have, we will lose everything. If we hand it over to Jesus to use, we reap an eternal multiplicity of rewards for God's glory (John 12:25). If we have affection for our lives here-our temporal life-we bring destruction to our life. We don't just lose it as we do something valuable. We destroy it. John Calvin said if we love our own life we actually devote it to destruction. This passage has a strange play on words, meanings and nuances.  It is essentially saying that if we try to live our life here, we will destroy our lives. However, if we destroy our lives, we will live.

We either serve ourselves by following our own dreams, dollars and desires or we serve God by following His plan to save the lost world-no matter what it costs, including our own lives (John 12:26). We serve Jesus by His words and by His works. We learn diligently about Him and we fulfill His work to seek and to save that which is lost (Luke 19:10).

Here's the plan from Jesus: die to self, hate your lives here, follow me to Calvary where you will experience death and become My servant. However, in exchange for all of this, He offers to bear much fruit through our lives, to give us an eternal life, to join Jesus in glory and to be honored by God.

A Redemptive Decision
Every church and every believer needs to decide what they are going to do with the seed of life God has given them: keep it for their own purposes or allow it to die in the hands of God, trusting that He will produce much fruit. Redeeming people, property and plans for a brand new church gives glory to God.

If you are a church that would like to bring redemption to the original mission by allowing a new congregation to emerge, contact me.

Replanting Articles

Ten Deadly Sins of a Dying Church by Stephen Gray

Ten Characteristics of a Missional Church by Scott Thomas

Replanting a Missional Church (audio) by Scott Thomas – San Diego 06 and Presentation Notes

Replanting Missional Church Overview by Scott Thomas

Replanting (Dallas Workshop) by Elliot Grudem – Dallas 08
Replanting, Part 2 (Dallas Workshop) by Matt Adair – Dallas 08

Replanting Books:

Comeback Churches

Breaking the Missional Code

Legacy Churches

Picto:Blog - April 1, 2009

Introducing the members of the Pastor's Training Program at Mars Hill

After serving as a Lead Pastor for 16 years, I became the Director of Acts 29 on April 1, 2006—three years ago today. It has been the ride of my life. I keep waiting for Driscoll to walk in and say in a (gruff) singsong voice, "April Fool's!"

I attended my first Acts 29 Boot Camp in May of 2003. Forty-three people met in the foyer of the current Ballard building when Mars Hill was running a very respectable 1,500 people. At that time, they had about 400 matching chairs in the front section of the auditorium and another mosaic array of about 200 chairs of the recycled quality: lawn chairs, old kitchen chairs, rusted folding chairs and garage sale rejects. The church was growing faster than its ability to keep up with the purchase of chairs. Classic.

Tim Keller suggests asking three questions to determine a call:

The Call
Tyler Powell and I were at this boot camp in anticipation of starting a new church in Denver. Mark spoke at that boot camp as well as Rick McKinley. We were challenged by the Acts 29 perspective, yet firmly resonated with their passion for the mission of the church. When Eric Brown, then director of Acts 29 spoke, the Spirit of God immediately impressed me, "This is what I want you to do." It wasn’t audible, but it was clear and concise. I never told anyone about this—not even my wife.

The Opportunity
Three years later, I was a church planter and serving as a volunteer board member of Acts 29 when we needed to replace the outgoing director, Steve Tompkins as he was departing to become the campus pastor of Mars Hill's first video venue in Shoreline. Driscoll, the President of the Acts 29 Corporation, asked if any of us had any names for a replacement. No one offered a simple grunt. From my chair, I leaned in toward Mark and asked, "What kind of guy are you looking?" He said matter of fact, "You." I said, "A guy like me?" and he said, "No. You."

The Affirmation

I sat back in my chair and rehearsed the voice of the Spirit three years prior and wondered how I should respond to this unexpected proposal. Mark asked if the men had any other names for the directorship. Nobody said anything. Finally I said, “If you are serious, I would like to ask some questions.” Two months later, I transitioned my church plant to another pastor and started a wild ride on April Fool’s Day.

The Passion
I am deeply honored to serve in this capacity where we get to participate with the Spirit and with other Acts 29 churches to help young men make their dreams and callings a reality. One of those blessings is leading our inaugural training program for church planters (pictured above). Several of these men launched their churches during their tutelage and were nurtured through the yearlong training and coaching overseen by Pastor Gary Shavey.

I’m following the call of God—no fooling.

______________________

Next Boot Camp: San Diego, CA

Host: Kaleo Church

New Life Presbyterian Church
5333 Lake Murray Blvd.                   
La Mesa, CA  91942

Cost: $149 each | $99/couple for assessment (Must have Phase 1 completed in the application process with Acts 29)

To Register click HERE

Steve posted a blog about this today and it brings encouragement to me as the gospel is displayed through this reconciled relationship.

Thank you, Steve for your firendship and your humility. Thank you for "surrendering your heart."

By Pastor Scott Thomas

I am wearied by the inordinate attention given by some Christian leaders to the details of another organization’s  way of doing things. It borders on stalking and voyeurism the way they publicly blog and mention their disagreements in sermons and social networking venues. I am concerned. One does not have to agree with another person to be joined in the pursuit of proclaiming the gospel, albeit with different methods. We do not have to agree with everything done by one of God's shepherds to glorify the person of Jesus. In fact, the gospel is proclaimed more pronouncedly when it is used in multiple means to produce a disciple.

The problem when we deride the non-essential practices or methods of others is that we usually elevate ourselves over them. We often unwittingly display a lewd attitude and a coarse spirit. It is like saying that we are proud of our humility. It is contradictory communication between our attitudes and our words.

I talked with one former contrarian to the methods of Mark Driscoll last week. He said, "If the attitude in my blogs was anything like this other person's, I am embarrassed." This public figure and active blogger had a change of heart about Mark after he agreed to sit down and talk through the differences. As John Madden might say, "Bam! Now, there's the gospel right there."

I am personally working full-time on my own shortcomings, am devoted to the spiritual care of my family and those under my responsibility. I certainly don't have time to stay up all night like a voyeur in another’s windows to find their faults. If you are offended by my actions and attitudes, you will be offended greater by my thoughts and the defilement in my heart. I am grateful for the gospel. It is unmerited grace.

Mark Driscoll's recently wrote this olive branch-like tribute to the ministry of John MacArthur. This serves as an example to all of us how to respond to critics. Mark's sermon on March 29, 2009 at Mars Hill Church is another great example of humility.

If you are struggling with pride (and who isn't?), I commend my friend C.J. Mahaney's book, Humility: True Greatness. In our attempt to convey truth, we must simultaneously convey the Spirit of Jesus and the work of the gospel in our own life.

In San Diego, all new materials will be presented by Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, Darrin Patrick, Jeff Vanderstelt, Brian Howard and host David Fairchild speaking on the topic, Influence: Multiplying Leaders on Mission for the Gospel through the context of Nehemiah's life.

By Pastor-Dad Scott Thomas

Some of you want to call Child Protective Services and others want to know the secret to losing a teenager. My oldest son just turned 20 today - officially at 7:26 pm Mountain Time. It seems just like yesterday that our long awaited firstborn arrived and had to be rushed to NICU with a hole in his lung.

Jeannie and I were married during the first term of the Reagan administration. That's a long time ago. I was in college playing basketball, leading a community group, and teaching a college Bible class and working full-time at night. Jeannie was an only child now living 2,000 miles away from her parent's home, a mere 18 years old and madly in love with her new 21 year old husband. Okay, maybe not "madly." We dreamed of raising a beautiful family, serving the Lord together as a family and staying as thin as we were at that time forever. You can't have all your dreams come true.

We didn't get pregnant after seven years into our marriage. After talking about adoption, we were prepared to have me tested to see why she couldn't get pregnant. When she ran into my office after returning from seeing the doctor about her unexplained sickness, our lives changed forever.  After seven years of barrenness, we were thrilled to be expecting a child.

Parenting delayed us seven years and then this unborn child (we were told it was a girl) was two weeks late. Jeannie was pregnant 9 and a half months by this time and unless she was having an elephant, she figured she was ready to bring this kid into the world. The doctors induced her and she still struggled through the labor. Ten hours later we had a son (either that or the promised daughter had carry-on baggage).  They rushed him into NICU with a hole in his lung and put him in an oxygen tent. We were stressed, but trusting that this long-awaited child was in God's hands no matter the outcome. After three days in the hospital, his lung repaired itself and he has been healthy ever since.

Twenty years later, he is leading a community group at Mars Hill Church, working part-time and is in his sophomore year at the University of Washington. At 16, he told his Mom about a girl he was seeing regularly. He said, "Do you know why I like her? Because she reminds me of you." Ahhh.  We couldn't be more grateful for the grace of God in his life.

How did you do it, we are asked often of young church planters. I offer five simple tips to encourage you, but push the glory to God who shaped a boy's life in spite of his parent's mistakes.

So, I lost a teenager today, but I gained a friend. For this, I am blessed.

Hear these messages:

Mark Driscoll - Spirit-filled Life of Jesus and Acts 29 Movement (must hear)

Wayne Grudem - Gospel Centered Reformed Theology

Danny Akin - Preaching the Gospel

Andreas Kostenberger - The Effects of Planting on Family & Self

Scott Thomas - Ten Qualifications of a Church Planter (Biblical mandate on the man)

Daniel Montgomery - Our Mission

Ed Marcelle - Mission Rises Out of Discipleship

Tyler Jones - Mission Rises Out of Community

In San Diego, all new materials will be presented by Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, Darrin Patrick, Jeff Vanderstelt, Brian Howard and host David Fairchild speaking on the topic, Influence: Multiplying Leaders on Mission for the Gospel through the context of Nehemiah's life.

Boot Camp Location:

New Life Presbyterian Church
5333 Lake Murray Blvd.                   
La Mesa, CA  91942

Schedule (subject to minor change) 

Tuesday, May 5:
9:00am - registration
10:00am – Welcome | Scott Thomas
10:10am - Worship
10:30am – Session 1: "Influence Through Leadership" - Mark Driscoll
11:30am –Presentation |  Logos
12:00pm – Presentation | Great Commission Ministries
12:15pm – lunch (provided)
1:00pm - workshops
3:00pm – Session 2: "Influence Through Brokeness" - David Fairchild
4:00pm – Break
4:20pm – Session 3: "Influence Through Mission & Vision" - Jeff Vanderstelt
5:30pm – End of day 1

Wednesday, May 6:
10:00am – Welcome | Scott Thomas
10:10am – Worship
10:30am - Session 4: "Influence Through Community" - Brian Howard
11:30am – Q & A
12:00pm – lunch (provided)
1:00pm – workshops
3:00pm – Session 5: "Influence Through the Word & Worship" - Matt Chandler
4:00pm - break
4:20pm –Session 6: "Influence Through Persevering" - Darrin Patrick
5:30pm – Worship

Cost: $149 each | $99/couple for assessment (Must have Phase 1 completed in the application process with Acts 29)

If you are interested in undergoing assessment as an Acts 29 Network Church Planter, please complete the online application. **Note: the wife of the planter is required to be at assesment. Assessments will take place on Thursday, May 7 for those who have completed Phase 1 in the application process. Cost for assessment is $99 per couple. If you would like to be assessed please contact tyler@acts29network.org

To Register click HERE

Darrin Patrick and Jonathan McIntosh of The Journey hosted the Lead Conference in St Louis October 20-22, 2008. Speakers included Darrin Patrick, Matt Carter, Bryon Chappel, Randy Nabors, Eric Mason and Jonathan.

Find audio here.

The opening session of the 2009 Acts 29 Boot Camp held in Seattle on March 9-10, 2009.

The first one is mandatory. One other is needed as well (not every one).

1. Have I responded to the gospel call & received the Spirit?

 
2. Is the Holy Spirit out ahead of me planting the church?

3. Is my church planting call obvious to other godly leaders? (Acts 2:14)

 
4. Has God confirmed my church plant by showing up in miraculous power? (Acts 3 & 4)


5. Am I reaching lost people to start my plant? (Acts 8:5-9, 12)

 
6. Has Jesus showed up & told me to plant? (Acts 9:15-16)

 
7. Has God called me to plant through a vision? (Acts 10-11:18; 16:9-10)

 
8. Has God providentially relocated me to plant? (Acts 11:19-21)

 
9. Is God sending me to plant because my church does not much need me? (Acts 13:1-3)


10. Is God calling me to plant because I am wasting my time in a toxic place? (14:1-7)


11. Am I called to be a catalytic church planter or plant a church planting church center? (Acts 14:23-26)

12. Has God called me to plant by giving me a deep burden for a city/people? (Acts 17:16)

 
13. Has God called me to plant by giving me a core group? (Acts 18:7-8)

My family name was originally O’Driscoll until it was changed a few generations ago by relatives hoping to more fully assimilate into American culture after immigrating from Ireland. Though I was raised Irish Catholic, I knew virtually nothing about Saint Patrick other than the green beer, parades, shamrocks, leprechauns, and drunken Red Sox fans that celebrated in his honor every March 17th.

Technically, Saint Patrick is not even a saint, as he was never canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Additionally, Patrick was not even Irish. Rather, he was an Englishman Roman-Britain who was a Roman citizen that spoke Latin and a bit of Welsh.

Patrick was born around 390 A.D. When he was roughly 16 years of age he was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland on a ship where he was sold into slavery. He spent the next six years alone in the wilderness as a shepherd for his masters’ cattle and sheep.

Patrick was a rebellious non-Christian teenager who had come from a Christian family. His grandfather was a pastor, and his father was a deacon. However, during his extended periods of isolation without any human contact, Patrick began praying and was eventually born again into a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. Patrick endured the years of isolation in rain and snow by praying up to 100 prayers each day and another 100 each night.

In his early twenties God spoke to Patrick in a dream, telling him to flee from his master for a ship that was waiting for him. Amazingly, Patrick made the 200-mile walk without being caught or harmed to find a ship setting sail for his home, just as God had promised. The sailors were out of food for the journey, and after Patrick prayed a herd of pigs miraculously ran toward the ship, providing a bountiful feast for the long voyage home.

Upon returning home, Patrick enrolled in seminary and was eventually commissioned as a pastor. Some years later God spoke to Patrick in a dream, commanding him to return to Ireland to preach the gospel and plant churches for the pagans who lived there.

The Roman Catholic Church had given up on converting such “barbarians” deemed beyond hope. The Celtic peoples, of which the Irish were part, were an illiterate bunch of drunken, fighting, perverted pagans who basically had sex with anyone and worshipped anything. They were such a violent and lawless people, numbering anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000, that they had no city centers or national government and were spread out among some 150 warring clans. Their enemies were terrified of them because they were known to show up for battles and partake in wild orgies before running into battle naked and drunk while screaming as if they were demon-possessed. One clan was so debased that it was customary for each of their new kings to copulate with a white mare as part of his inauguration.

In faith, the forty-something year-old Patrick sold all of his possessions, including the land he had inherited from his father, to fund his missionary journey to Ireland. He worked as an itinerant preacher and paid large sums of money to various tribal chiefs to ensure he could travel safely through their lands and preach the gospel. His strategy was completely unique, and he functioned like a missionary trying to relate to the Irish people and communicate the gospel in their culture by using such things as three-leaf clovers to explain the gospel. Upon entering a pagan clan, Patrick would seek to first convert the tribal leaders and other people of influence. He would then pray for the sick, cast demons out of the possessed, preach the Bible, and use both musical and visual arts to compel people to put their faith in Jesus. If enough converts were present he would build a simple church that did not resemble ornate Roman architecture, baptize the converts, and hand over the church to a convert he had trained to be the pastor so that he could move on to repeat the process with another clan.

Patrick gave his life to the people who had enslaved him until he died at 77 years of age. He had seen untold thousands of people convert as between 30-40 of the 150 tribes had become substantially Christian. He had trained 1000 pastors, planted 700 churches, and was the first noted person in history to take a strong public stand against slavery.

Curiously, Patrick’s unorthodox ministry methods, which had brought so much fruit among the Irish, also brought much opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. Because Patrick was so far removed from Roman civilization and church polity he was seen by some as an instigator of unwelcome changes. This lead to great conflicts between the Roman and Celtic Christians. The Celtic Christians had their own calendar and celebrated Easter a week earlier than their Roman counterparts. Additionally, the Roman monks shaved only the hair on the top of their head, whereas the Celtic monks shaved all of their hair except their long locks which began around the bottom of their head as a funky monk mullet. The Romans considered these and other variations by the Celtic Christian leaders to be acts of insubordination.

In the end, the Roman Church should have learned from Patrick, who is one of the greatest missionaries who has ever lived. Though Patrick’s pastors and churches looked different in method, they were very orthodox in their theology and radically committed to such things as Scripture and the Trinity. Additionally, they were some of the most gifted Christian artists the world has ever known, and their prayers and songs endure to this day around the world, including at Mars Hill where we occasionally sing the “Prayer of Saint Patrick” and the Celtic hymn “Be Thou My Vision.”

According to Time magazine, the New Calvinism is the third biggest idea changing the world right now. While the article inaccurately painted God as essentially the author of evil, the fact that Reformed theology has gotten so big that it merits this kind of attention is nothing short of shocking.

Sadly, Cruel Calvinists are a small but loud bunch. Thus, now more than ever, it is vital that all Christians in general, and Reformed Christians in particular, demonstrate the kind of love and humility that our theology requires. The cruel, flame-thrown half-truths and misquotes between Christians do not speak well to the watching world of the love we are supposed to share. Therefore, it is vital that we distinguish between what I will call state and national theological borders.

Indeed, there are theological national borders that need to be retained, such as Scripture as God’s Word; God as Trinitarian community; humanity as sinful; Jesus as God and man; the virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus; and the necessity of Jesus alone for salvation from sin, hell, and the wrath of God.

Beyond these sorts of national borders are state borders. State borders include spiritual gifts, baptism, communion, worship styles, Bible translations, sense of humor, and the like. Various states can have their own proverbial borders on these issues. Nonetheless, like states we must be able to live as a loving and unified nation. We cannot turn our state borders into national borders and refuse to live at peace in unity and love with those who live in other proverbial states. Simply, the state borders should not be battle lines where personal and theological wars are fought because bigger things are at stake, such as the evangelizing of lost people and the planting of missional churches.

“Thank you Sovereign God for an opportunity to influence the nations for good. May you please give us your Spirit to keep our minds learning, hearts loving, ears listening, hands serving, and humility growing for your glory and our joy. We ask this for your fame by the Spirit’s power in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Acts 29 Conference

London, England

June 9-10, 2009

Bookings/Registration Here

Bookings/Registration Here

Are you registered for the Seattle Boot Camp March 9-10?

The Seattle Boot Camp teaching is all new materials and is based on the thesis based on the thesis of the Great Commission: "We are called as a community of believers to proclaim the gospel to all nations in the power of the Holy Spirit." We will look at the person that is called to a gospel-centered church, what he is called to and how that calling is incarnated through the local church.

1.    Mark Driscoll – The Calling of the Planter
Mark will kick off the boot camp with a discussion surrounding the calling of a man into church planting. What does a calling entail? How does a man know he is called to plant a church? What are the special characteristics of that man called to plant? What are some examples of a called man in Scripture? What are some contemporary examples of a called planter?

2.    Scott Thomas – Great Commission Call to Plant Churches
Scott will set the overview for the remainder of the messages by examining the five biblical references to the Great Commission. The summation is that we are mandated to proclaim the gospel to all nations in the power of the Holy Spirit. This will give an overview of the boot camp as well as call men to plant churches as an expression of the Great Commission.

3.    Matt Chandler – the Call to Preach
Matt will focus on the proclamation by the church planter. Why is it important to be a preacher in the context of a church plant?  What are the characteristics of good preaching that transforms lives?

Tuesday, March 10:

4.    PJ Smyth – The Call to Proclaim the Gospel
PJ will focus on the gospel message. What is the gospel? What are the enemies of the gospel in the context of a church? How has Christendom rejected the gospel? How can a church planter defend the gospel?

5.    Dave Bruskas - The Call to the Nations/City
Dave will address the call to plant church TO ALL NATIONS. Our call is not to plant a single church, but rather to plant the gospel in our cities, our regions and our world.  He will explore the recipients of the gospel and how we are shortsighted to limit the mission of God to a single congregational model.  Where are the “nations” in the cities in which we live? How can we expand the gospel to the nations?

6.    Mark Driscoll – The Call to Endure
Mark will address the calling of a man that is necessary to endure the hardships of planting a church in the midst of a generation of idolaters. How can the planter endure in light of the gospel?  How does he endure the calling of other Christians to move away from the mission? How does the Holy Spirit help us to endure?

Are you registered for the Boot Camp?

Register for the Seattle Boot Camp March 9-10

My friend, PJ Smyth, is a popular Newfrontiers speaker, and the leader of GodFirst Church Johannesburg. While I was in London last summer, PJ and I had fun together as our hearts knit in the Spirit of love. You can find a number of sermon mp3's and a range of e-books on his website. PJ is a punchy, impactful, and clear communicator. I learned much from him while I enjoyed time with him and his wife. PJ will speak about The Call to the Gospel. He will identify its enemies and how we can defend it. The following quote comes from a book on the Bible, available free on his site, entitled The Sword.

"The Word will bring you faith. Romans 10:17 makes this one crystal clear. Do you want that kind of faith that pleases God, causes the impossible to become the possible, moves mountains, destroys satanic strongholds, and violently advances the kingdom of God? It comes from hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing the things that God has to say!

You can have faith in your feelings, in which case your feelings will govern your life. You can have faith in your fears, and so be paralyzed into inactivity. You can have faith in others, and often be disappointed. Or you can have faith in God’s Word, and learn that He is utterly trustworthy in every situation. Smith-Wigglesworth said, “Except the word of God, everything else is sand. It’ll stand forever, it’s settled in heaven, not one jot or tittle will fail, it can’t be broken or improved upon, and those who believe in it shall be like Mount Zion that cannot be moved.”— P-J Smyth, The Sword

Are you registered for the Seattle Boot Camp March 9-10?

Dave is speaking on Preaching the Gospel to all Nations. Dave lives in Albuquerque where multiple people groups live alongside one another. It is our conviction that Jesus did not die for any one ethnic group in exclusion of another. He has called to proclaim the gospel to ALL NATIONS.


Watch the heart of Dave Bruskas in this video as he describes how we get a heart formission by being agitated at the idols of our city. Feel his compassion, his missionary's heart and his love for the city as he encourages his listeners to see the needs around them.

Are you registered for the Seattle Boot Camp March 9-10?

Are you registered?

Watch this video of Matt produced by Desiring God. Matt talks about the right way and wrong way to preach.

Thank You Laura and in his grace Photography for your time and sharing these photos with the Acts 29 community.

Acts 29 Network

In the past decade I have preached through fifteen books of the Bible and have covered scores of topical issues at Mars Hill Church. In addition, I have preached at well over one hundred conferences around the U.S. and world. For many just starting to listen online, trying to keep up with that amount of content is like drinking from a fire hose. We have a solution but need your help. My friends at Logos Bible Software are willing to transcribe every sermon of mine and make them fully searchable by topic and verse. But we need your help! If 1,000 people pre-purchase the Logos collection of my sermons, Logos will transcribe all of these past sermons.

So, please do me two favors.

Click here to get the sermon archives from Logos.

What we could do with transcribed sermons in the future:

I am deeply honored to serve as Director of Acts 29 Network and as a pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. I am witnessing God's blessings on both organizations in a way that I have never experienced and that few people get to witness in their lifetimes. Acts 29 just completed a Boot Camp in Raleigh NC last week where we united with the esteemed author and professor Dr. Wayne Grudem, Southern Baptist Seminary President (SEBTS) Dr. Danny Akin and SEBTS professor and author Dr. Andreas Kostenberger. These men served alongside the other Acts 29 pastors who presented the gospel as strong as any place I have been. Sin and fallenness were acknowledged repeatedly, the grace of Jesus was brightly illuminated and the message of Redemption through the blood of Jesus was consistently presented.

I saw Wayne Grudem set aside his academic brilliance and respond to the Holy Spirit's leading to shepherd a pastor through an issue. Unexpected. I saw speakers humble themselves under the grace of Jesus and admit that we are blessed to proclaim His Word as dying men to dying people. I am proud of Tyler Jones, Ed Marcelle, Daniel Montgomery, Jason Roberts, John Fooshee, Justin Anderson, Chris Atwell, Elliot Grudem, Jamie Munson, Taylor Roberts, Kevin Marshall and the 30 other Acts 29 pastors who came to serve sacrificially to help men to plant and thrive on the front lines known as church planting. I saw Mark Driscoll gave a final address to us envisioning our movement reaching 300,000 people in the next 7 years. You can download it here.

I saw men pray for one another, hug one another, counsel with one another, assess one another and love one another.

And then I saw the article from the official denominational press. Sad. (I refuse to reengage your mind with a link to their site).

I have had dealings with the editors of this publication in the past. I have challenged them to report news and not biased opinions. I have challenged them to do proper research BEFORE sniping another organization that loves Jesus, believes in the inerrant Word of God and is seeking to evangelize the lost for the glory of God. I have given them my cell phone number and asked them to contact me with any issues, questions or problems because we have many of our Acts 29 pastors who are affiliated with this denomination. My phone is silent, but their vulgar reporting skills are not.

Many people have commented to them and about them and I have a list of over 20 blogs that have criticized their "sloppy journalism," as one noted author put it. But, I am calling for all of us to ignore the innocuous criticisms and get back on the front lines of presenting the gospel faithfully to those who are desperately in need of redemption. The sniping of one publication has hindered our focus on the real enemy: Sin, Satan and the effects of a fallen humanity.

A movement does not stop to address every critic. It moves on in spite of critics and in expectation of critics. I'm bored with it all and my neighbor needs Jesus.

On March 9–10, 2009, we will be gathering in Seattle for a boot camp with the Acts 29 Church Planting Network

Calling All Potential Church Planters and Multi-Site Campus Pastors

By Pastor Mark Driscoll

On March 9–10, 2009, we will be gathering in Seattle for a boot camp with the Acts 29 Church Planting Network and the World Church Planting Summit. Anyone interested in being an Acts 29 church planter and/or Mars Hill campus pastor needs to join us.



The Acts 29 Church Planting Network now has over two hundred churches in the U.S. and many more overseas. Our goal is to be at five hundred churches in less than three years and over one thousand church plants in less than ten years, running a total of 250,000 people.

Additionally, Mars Hill Church is currently running eight thousand people in twenty services spread across seven campuses. We are pregnant with our eighth campus, and are exploring options to start two more in 2009. Now our goal in ten years is roughly one hundred campuses running fifty thousand people.

We recently hired Rick Melson from Bethlehem Baptist Church (with Pastor John Piper) to architect the growth of our Mars Hill campuses along with Scott Thomas, who directs Acts 29. This will include launching a training center that will offer a master's degree in missional leadership. You will hear much more about that in the coming year.

We are deadly serious about the great commission and loading all guns to storm hell with the gospel of grace. And we need more men. Nine hundred men. Not boys—men. Real men. Men who care less about padding their resume and getting their vacation days than about seeing lives transformed and legacies altered for generations. We need men who love their wives, pastor their children, submit to Scripture, bleed the gospel, and have steel in their spine, love in their hearts, and the lost in their sights.

Most of the guys reading this likely do not have the calling, courage, conviction, compassion, compulsion, or character to qualify as a church planter or campus pastor. But if you think you have the stuff, by God's grace, to plant a church for Acts 29 or launch a campus for Mars Hill, we invite you to join us in Seattle on March 9–10. I don't care if you are sixteen or sixty-one years of age. If you have gas in your tank and a calling in your life, show up for training, networking, and possibly even assessing, if you qualify.

Furthermore, if you attend Mars Hill Church and your Campus Pastor says you can come, you get in for free. We'd love to see hundreds of our best men, especially our best young men, sign up, show up, and step up.

If you attend, you will receive some great teaching on church and campus planting. Some dear friends, such as Matt Chandler, South African P.J. Smyth, Acts 29 Planter Dave Bruskas, and Acts 29 Director Scott Thomas, will join me in teaching at the boot camp. Joining us will be leaders of established and emerging church planting movements in Quebec, Melbourne, Sydney, Johannesburg, Cape Town, London, India, Albania, Uganda, Thailand, and others. Most of these movement leaders are younger men. Together they represent literally thousands and thousands of churches from around the world with literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. We are pulling these young high-level leaders together for a World Church Planting Summit to learn and network, and you get to network with them and learn from them. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

For more information and details about the boot camp, go here, or you can register here. There are also two free bonus sessions, one on Sunday afternoon ( March 8 ) and the other on Monday evening ( March 9 ).

1.    Mark Driscoll – The Calling of the Planter
Mark will kick off the boot camp with a discussion surrounding the calling of a man into ministry. What does a calling entail? How does a man know he is called to plant a church? What are the special characteristics of that man called to plant? What are some examples of a called man in Scripture? What are some contemporary examples of a called planter? In what other ways is a man called into ministry aside from the vocational aspect?

2.    Scott Thomas – Great Commission Call to Plant Churches
Scott will set the overview for the remainder of the messages by examining the five biblical references to the Great Commission. The summation is that we are mandated to proclaim the gospel to all nations in the power of the Holy Spirit. This will give an overview of the boot camp as well as call men to plant churches as an expression of the Great Commission.

3.    Matt Chandler – The Call to Preach
Matt will focus on the proclamation by the church planter. Why is it important to be a preacher in the context of a church plant? What are the characteristics of good preaching that transforms lives? Is preaching a method that is no longer effective? How can a non-vocational believer proclaim the Good News?

4.    P.J. Smyth – The Call to Proclaim the Gospel
P.J. will focus on the gospel message. What is the gospel? What are the enemies of the gospel in the context of a church? How has Christendom rejected the gospel? How can a church planter defend the gospel?

5.    Dave Bruskas - The Call to the Nations/City
Dave will address the call to plant churches to all nations. Our call is not to plant a single church, but rather to plant the gospel in our cities, our regions, and our world. He will explore the recipients of the gospel and how we are shortsighted to limit the mission of God to a single congregational model. Where are the "nations" in the cities in which we live? How can we expand the gospel to the nations?

6.    Mark Driscoll – The Call to Endure
Mark will address the calling of a man that is necessary to endure the hardships of planting a church in the midst of a generation of idolaters. How can the planter endure in light of the gospel?  How does he endure the calling of other Christians to move away from the mission? How does the Holy Spirit help us to endure?

Monday and Tuesday (1:00 pm – 2:45 pm)
The following tracks will present part one on Monday and part two on Tuesday.

1.   Redemption Groups (Mike Wilkerson and James Noriega)
Mars Hill Church pastors have developed a biblical approach to dealing with addictions and past trauma. Redemption groups are based on the concept of God redeeming broken people back to his image through community-based learning environments.

2.    Missional Community Groups (Caesar Kalinowski and Mike Gunn)
A missional community is a committed core of believers who live out the mission together in a specific area or to a particular people group by demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms and declaring the gospel to others—both those who believe it and those who are being exposed to it. This community is led by a team to shepherd, equip, and organize a community on mission. This group is the church throughout the week. They identify, equip, and send out new men to lead missional communities. Missional Communities operate unlike a Bible study and more like a family, a missionary team, a band of servants, and eager learners.

3.    Pitfalls of Church Planting (Jeremy Erb and Shaun Garman)
Two pastors from the Portland region describe the pitfalls experienced in church planting and the ways they applied the gospel to bring glory to God. Too many church planters launch a new work naively without counting the cost (Luke 14:28).

4.    Seven Seasons of a Church Planter (Russ McKendry and Hunter Beaumont)
Global Church Advancement (GCA) has developed the Seven Seasons of a Church Planter. Two experienced planters present an overview of the GCA seasons and explain real-life examples of how they applied to their church plants.

5.    Q&A Panel (Hosted by Chris Swan)
Seattle-based Acts 29 planters will answer questions about church planting, pastoring, family life, finances, benefits of planting a church, and more. (Monday: Brent Rood, Sam Ford, Scott Golike, and Chris Mayfield; Tuesday: John Needham, Pete Williamson, Rob Berreth, and Paul Dean)

6.    Wives' Track (Grace Driscoll, Christy Rood, Susan Swan, and Toni Spry, author of Fulfilled Woman)

1.    Missional Worship (Sunday, March 8, 1:30 – 4:00 pm)
Pastor Tim Smith, Lead Worship Pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, will lead a session about missional worship. When Pastor Tim came to Mars Hill Church it was a two-year-old church plant with about two hundred people in a rented space on Sunday nights. Now, by the grace of God, it is a church of roughly eight thousand people with seven campuses, twenty services each Sunday and twenty unique bands leading the church in song. As Tim has led the corporate worship of Mars Hill throughout these years, he has had a deep conviction that it is much more about Jesus and standing in awe of his glory than any particular method, service order, or music style. Join Pastor Tim Sunday afternoon as he digs into questions like what is worship, what role should the world of cultures play in forming our corporate worship, and how does all of that result in building leaders and bands. The afternoon will be divided up into multiple parts with extended Q&A following each section. Hope to see you there.

2.   Total Church Community Training by Steve Timmis (Monday, March 9, 7:00 pm  – 10:00 pm)
Steve Timmis is the co-author of Total Church (along with Tim Chester). Steve will give an overview of the concepts in the book, paying particular attention to the formation and mission of Gospel Communities. Register for this free event here.

The Boot Camp speakers will concentrate on the call to ministry and the call to proclaim the gospel to all nations in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Featured speakers are myself and Matt Chandler, along with South African PJ Smyth, Acts 29 planter Dave Bruskas and Acts 29 director Scott Thomas.

1.    Mark Driscoll – The Calling of the Planter
I will kick off the boot camp with a discussion surrounding the calling of a man into ministry. What does a calling entail? How does a man know he is called to plant a church? What are the special characteristics of that man called to plant? What are some examples of a called man in Scripture? What are some contemporary examples of a called planter? In what other ways is a man called into ministry aside from the vocational aspect?

2.    Scott Thomas – Great Commission Call to Plant Churches
Scott will set the overview for the remainder of the messages by examining the five biblical references to the Great Commission. The summation is that we are mandated to proclaim the gospel to all nations in the power of the Holy Spirit. This will give an overview of the boot camp as well as call men to plant churches as an expression of the Great Commission.

3.    Matt Chandler – the Call to Preach
Matt will focus on the proclamation by the church planter. Why is it important to be a preacher in the context of a church plant?  What are the characteristics of good preaching that transforms lives? Is preaching a method that is no longer effective? How can a non-vocational believer proclaim the Good News?

4.    PJ Smyth – The Call to Proclaim the Gospel
PJ will focus on the gospel message. What is the gospel? What are the enemies of the gospel in the context of a church? How has Christendom rejected the gospel? How can a church planter defend the gospel?

5.    Dave Bruskas - The Call to the Nations/City
Dave will address the call to proclaim the gospel to all nations. Our call is not just to plant a single church, but rather to plant the gospel in our cities, our regions and our world.  He will explore the recipients of the gospel and how we are shortsighted to limit the mission of God to a single congregational model.  Where are the “nations” in the cities in which we live? How can we expand the gospel to the nations?

6.    Mark Driscoll – The Call to Endure
I will address the calling of a man that is necessary to endure the hardships of planting a church in the midst of a generation of idolaters. How can the planter endure in light of the gospel?  How does he endure the calling of other Christians to move away from the mission? How does the Holy Spirit help us to endure?

1.    Missional Worship: Sunday afternoon, March 8 from 1:30 to 4:00 pm.

My friend, Pastor Tim Smith, Lead Worship Pastor at Mars Hill Church, will lead a session on Missional worship. When Tim Smith came to Mars Hill church we were a 2-year-old church plant with about 200 people in a rented space meeting on Sunday nights.  Now, by the grace of God, it is a church of roughly 8,000 people with 7 campuses, 20 services a Sunday and 20 unique bands leading the church in song.  As Tim has led the corporate worship of Mars Hill through these years he has a deep conviction that it is much more about Jesus and standing in awe of his glory than any particular method, service order or music style.  Join Pastor Tim Sunday afternoon as he digs into questions like what is worship, what role should the world of cultures play in forming our corporate worship and how does all of that result in building leaders and bands.  The afternoon will be divided up into multiple parts with extended Q&A following each section.  Hope to see you there.

2.    Total Church Overview by Steve Timmis Monday night, March 9 from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm,

Steve Timmis is the co-author of Total Church (Tim Chester) and Steve will give an overview of the concepts paying particular attention to the formation and mission of Gospel Communities.

Monday and Tuesday 1:00 pm – 2:45 pm
Two-day tracks – total of 3.5 hours (1:45 on Monday and Tuesday each)

The following tracks will present part one on Monday and part two on Wednesday.

1.    Redemption Groups (Mike Wilkerson; James Noriega)
Mars Hill Church pastors have developed an biblical approach to dealing with addictions and past trauma. Redemption groups are based in the concept of God redeeming broken people back to His image through community-based learning environments. Mike and James are killing it with this new way to shepherd and care for God's people.

2.    Missional Community Groups (Caesar Kalinowski)
A missional community is a committed core of believers who live out the mission together in a specific area or to a particular people group by demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms and declaring the gospel to others—both those who believe it and those who are being exposed to it. This community is led by a team to shepherd, equip and organize a community on mission. This group is the church throughout the week. They identify, equip and send out new men to lead missional communities. Missional Communities operate unlike a Bible study and more like a family, a missionary team, a band of servants and eager learners.

3.    Pitfalls of Church Planting (Shaun Garman & Jeremy Erb)
Two Acts 29 planters and friends from the Portland region describe the pitfalls experienced in church planting and the ways they applied the gospel to bring glory to God. Too many church planters launch a new work naively without counting the cost (Luke 14:28).

4.    Seven Seasons of a Church Planter (Russ McKendry & Hunter Beaumont)
Global Church Advancement (GCA) has developed the Seven Seasons of a Church Planter. Two of our experienced planters present an overview of the GCA seasons and apply real-life examples of how they applied to their church plants. Russ and Hunter are spooky smart.

5.    Q&A Panel – host Chris Swan
Nine Seattle-based Acts 29 planters will answer questions about church planting, pastoring, family life, finances, benefits of planting a church and more.
Monday: Brent Rood, Sam Ford, Scott Golike, Chris Mayfield
Tuesday: John Needham, Pete Williamson, Rob Berreth, Paul Dean

6.    Wives’ Track (Grace Driscoll, Christy Rood, Susan Swan and Toni Spry, author of Fulfilled Woman)

Over 30 church planters are attending the Boot Camp to participate in a World Church Planter’s Summit (by invitation only). These catalytic movement leaders are from South Africa, Australia, England, Thailand, India, Uganda, Albania, Brazil and Quebec.

We will have these men to share small bites of their church planting in the world at each of the sessions.

At the Acts 29 boot camp in Raleigh, we used the hashtag #a29 to track the tweeting conversations live. I wanted to share a few of the highlighted comments. The boot camp was phenomenal with Track One speakers Mark Driscoll, Wayne Grudem, Andreas Kostenberger, Danny Akin, Ed Marcelle, Tyler Jones, Daniel Montgomery and myself.

Jason Roberts led track Two, Thrive, with Justin Anderson, John Fooshee, Chris Atwell, Jamie Munson, Elliot Grudem, Taylor Roberts and Kevin Marshall. Mark Driscoll spoke at Track Two as well as Wayne Grudem who had a Spirit-filled session.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to attend the next Boot Camp in Seattle, March 9-10.

REGISTER TODAY FOR SEATTLE BOOT CAMP.

Now, a few retweets to make you wish you were there:

Mark Driscoll talks @pastormark

RT #a29: The Calvinists who argue over secondary issues and split churches are not true Calvinists. John Calvin started churches.

RT #a29: Driscoll said, Acts 29 is Reformish and Charismatish. Emphasis on the ISH

RT #a29: Be sure you love your lost neighbor as much as you love the lost overseas. Don't miss Jerusalem over uttermost.

RT #a29: Mark: Jesus' incarnation is what it looks like to be missional.

RT #a29: You are not planting your church for God, you are planting with God.

RT #a29: "I didn't even believe in spiritual warfare until I planted a church."

RT #a29: Pastor Mark said, "Being Spirit-led and Spirit-filled means to be like Jesus- a Jesus-centered, Spirit-filled, Spirit-led Movement"

RT #a29: The first boot camps were 8 guys with one guy making up stuff on a white board, now Wayne Grudem is teaching theology"

Dr. Wayne Grudem talks and references @fakegrudem (Author and Professor, Phoenix Seminary)

RT #a29: Grudem: Results of no quiet time: Pride, selfish, need praise, lack of love, irritable, uneasy, no peace, self-reliance.

RT #a29: "Sound doctrine alone won't build a great church. Truth must be taught in love." -Dr. Wayne Grudem

RT #a29: @fakegrudem: I am preaching at the Acts 29 Boot Camp in Raleigh NC. I forgot my choker necklace. Hmm. Hope they understand me.

RT #a29: grudem - the danger to fight over every minor opinion - rejoice that the kingdom is advanced even though its not like you would do it.

RT #a29: Grudem. Stand firm in the faith, act like a man.

RT #a29: Truth is normally unpopular

Dr. Danny Akin talk (President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary)

RT #a29: Danny Akin "A theology that does not tell you to take the Gospel accross the street and across the world is worth throwing out." AMEN

RT #a29: Dr Danny Akin: Jesus is the hero of the BIble. You can't treat the Bible correctly without teaching it through Jesus. AMEN.

RT #a29: People who don't think like Jesus won't act like him, and people who don't act like Jesus won't think like him.

RT #a29: "if there is going to be an offense in your ministry let it be the Gospel!"

Scott Thomas talk @Acts29

RT #a29: Scott Thomas - Connecting with culture is overrated. Connecting with God is underrated. Both are critical.

RT #a29: Scott Thomas - your calling is to make disciples. Your life should show what that looks like.

RT #a29: I've seen John Owen and I've seen my wife naked. John Owen ends up under the mattress every time.

RT #a29: Too many go into ministry to get validated because they have their own father issues.

RT #a29: Your life and your doctrine must match up, your life must prove what you believe.

RT #a29:  "We're so desperate for real men in the church, that we're afraid to let them go." - Scott Thomas

Ed Marcelle talk @edmarcelle

RT #a29: Ed Marcelle "Discipleship is Jesus retooling our failings into tools to worship, serve and honor Him."

RT #a29: Marcelle-Our job is to be pilgrims, not hermits. We are not used to community. Our culture is about consuming goods-just buy things

RT #a29: "Discipleship is Jesus retooling our failings into tools to worship, serve and honor Him."

Tyler Jones talk @vintage21

RT #a29: Quote in Tyler Jones preacher locker room. Pretty powerful. "Preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men."

RT #a29: Tyler Jones is talking about Strategic Planning, "You are taking people into battle. You better have a plan."

RT #a29: Tyler "Your primary calling is NOT to be a church planter, but a child of God and follower of Jesus" Powerful truth!

RT #a29: The gospel should be preached to change the culture, not the gospel changed to please the culture.

RT #a29: "a church is to be one that gathers and sends at the same time, continually"

Dr Andreas Kostenberger talk

RT #a29: If someone cannot manage their own household, with character, they have no business running a church. Kostenberger

RT #a29: The "above reproach" qualification is almost always listed first. Paul saw this as the most important characteristic.

RT #a29: If someone cannot manage their own household, with character, they have no business running a church.

 Daniel Montgomery Talk @danielsojourn

RT #a29: "We don't want DOING the church to get in the way of BEING the church."

RT #a29: Daniel Montgomery: "The gospel forms and fuels everything we do in a church and in our personal lives."

RT #a29: "All this gospel-centered talk [and missional talk] is lame if there isn't love."

RT #a29: if you don't love your city... leave. Why do you complain about, and do not love, your mission field? Dan Mont: A Great truth!

RT #a29: We don't even have to talk about this. You are an object of God's affection. He loves you. You know that.

General Tweets:

RT #a29: Justin Anderson "the thing that changes your church is not the 'one thing' you haven't figured out - it is God"

RT #a29: info overload from #a29--but came away w/renewed love 4 God, the gospel & the church. Felt loved & cared 4 by peeps personally praying for us

RT #a29: You can't love Jesus and not like his church... it is his bride -

RT #a29: Our pride needs to be put in the rear naked chokehold everyday

RT #a29: Can't tell if I'm at an A29 boot camp or Macworld Expo...

RT #a29: "John Piper is kind of a patron saint of Acts 29."

RT #a29: (on challenge of childcare) "Stop looking at your kids as an obstacle, problem or hassle. Look at them as an opportunity"-J. Roberts #a29

RT #a29: "How is the invisible kingdom made visible through your leadership?" That's accountability right there for leaders.

RT #a29: Paul didn't boast in missions, didn't boast in community groups. We boast in the Cross, the Gospel.

At the Seattle Acts 29 Boot Camp, Steve Timmis will cspeak about Total Church and its concepts on Monday evening March 9.

REGISTER TODAY!

Total Church is published by Crossway through the Re:Lit line of books managed by Resurgence.

Read Part One...

Read Part Two...

Read Part Three

PTP Member: What’s the relationship between your church and existing churches, such as the Anglican church, is your church received well? Is it making an impact or viewed as a leading church with the other traditional churches?

Timmis: I think we’re beginning to do that. One of the reasons I was willing to close down one of my (house) congregations to go do a replant of a more traditional church model was because I wanted to demonstrate that the principles that we’re committed to (which are essentially gospel word and gospel community and evangelicals are called to fidelity with both of those). I wanted to demonstrate how they could be worked out in more of a traditional church setting – you don’t need to start from scratch and clear the desks and get a handful of people together. Just because we started The Crowded House together like that years ago doesn’t mean to say that has to be done. So churches can go through transition. And I think increasingly churches are seeing that the principles are workable and are beginning to work them out.

On an anecdotal level: I got a phone call from the somebody in leadership of a large Anglican church in the area earlier this week and said “I keep hearing many good things about what’s going on at The Crowded House” and it’s continuing to influence. Another minister of a very large church sent me an email basically saying the same thing. Another large independent church is using the gospel community model now. And that’s just happening increasingly.

Scott: You’ve done a lot of work on pastoral care, and some training and equipping of leaders. How important is that in your model?

Timmis: It’s absolutely crucial to what we do. Effectively our pastoral care is gospeling one another. We’re committed to biblical counseling – so our commitment to ‘every issue is a heart issue,’ we try to get the sin underneath the sin, showing how we’re made to love and worship God, but in our fallenness we love and worship ourselves, and all sin emanates from that broken spring and polluted water, and then trying to get people back to love and worship God. And that really is absolutely crucial to what we do.

So we can’t just focus on mission as something that we do outside – mission begins in our own heart. As we bring the gospel to bear in our own lives, we bring the gospel to bear in one another’s lives. And every expression of mission is where we bring the gospel to bear in others’ lives – is a continuation of that [gospel in our lives]. If people want to adopt some of the principles from our model or example, they would really need to see how crucial this is – pastoring one another.

As an illustration, we’ve had somebody recently who is a child psychologist – she’s one of those who wanted to leave the church she is now to join us, and she’s had to go through the torturous process to do that – but one of the things that I did was I gave her a paper that I gave awhile ago to a group of medics on depression.  And I said ‘look you’ve really got to read that and get a clear sense of where we’re coming from, because particularly with your profession, if you don’t understand where we’re coming from and you don’t buy into it, then you’re really not going to be happy here. Because this way of understanding issues of mental illness, depression, etc., permeates everything we do, is how we teach the Bible, is how we bring it to bear on people, and is the spring from which mission flows.

Seattle Boot Camp, The Call of a Church Planter

Speakers: Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, PJ Smyth, Scott Thomas, Dave Bruskas

______

Read Part One...

Read Part Two...

PTP Member: How big do the gospel communities get? How is replication structured?

Timmis: Ours is too big. We’ve got 26. We will divide as soon as we can get some of our younger men really geared up to take responsibility. I like to see a gospel community starting with as few as 8 people – and then growing to about 20 and replicating again. The issue is rapid replication, that’s us. And saturation church planting is our church model.

PTP Member: How do you determine who teaches when the gospel communities gather on Sunday? Is there ever any conflict between leaders or people – ‘we like this teacher,’ etc?

Timmis: No, we don’t. We just plan the program among us. I used to do most of the teaching but some of the leaders were concerned that I was becoming a little too crucial to the whole thing, and people were too dependent upon me, so I cut my teaching down significantly. I haven’t taught since November, for example, and I won’t teach until February. But there’s no conflict, and if there was, then people would be gospeled and basically told “that’s not what it’s about, it’s about the Word of God is being taught well.” My task now is to help train up the other guys who are teaching – that’s what I invest my time in.

PTP Member: Are there elders in the smaller groups?

Timmis: Yeah, there are elders. They either lead a gospel community or they oversee the gospel community with a trainee elder.

PTP Member: What about growth? I know the model is that growth would happen incarnationally in these independent gospel communities, but do you find that really happens? Or is still a large amount of growth happening in the corporate gatherings as more of an attractional model?

Timmis: It’s both and really. We do see growth happening in the central gathering, because it’s an open door to the street we get people turning up. Since the beginning of The Crowded House, we’ve always discouraged people coming from other churches in the city and we continue to do that. Sometimes it does happen, but it’s quite a tortured process because we want to make sure they’re leaving their existing church well and for the right reasons.

Non-Christians turn up, and they get assimilated and a gospel community takes responsibility for them. But it’s primarily peer evangelism – so our people in these gospel communities invest in the lives of their friends – so growth is there as well.

Scott: This sounds similar to what Mars Hill and our Acts 29 churches are doing in that we gather for the corporate, central teaching and worship and then disperse into what we would regard as community groups doing a lot of the same – being on mission, reaching, shepherding, caring, doing life together. Do you see any difference?

Timmis: I’m not in a position to be able to say it is different, because I haven’t seen Mars Hill up close to that degree. All that I can say is that in terms of the principles that govern us (by way of clarification – we are not setting ourselves up as being ‘different.’ We are simply setting ourselves up as ‘this is what our mission model is – our ecclesial model.). The key issue, and I’m using this word (advisedly) is where the power lies. For us it lies in the gospel communities. They’re the ones who make decisions about central teaching in the sense that all the gospel communities decide what we’re going to be teaching on, who teaches, and we’re committed to that. So our Sunday morning is an expression of the collective will of the gospel communities. It’s not an expression of the center determining what the gospel communities do. I don’t know if that’s what you do or the Acts 29 churches do. All I’m saying is that’s what we do. It’s a fully devolved model.

Part Four (final) tomorrow…

Seattle Boot Camp, The Call of a Church Planter

Speakers: Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, PJ Smyth, Scott Thomas, Dave Bruskas

Read Part One...

PTP Member: Can you talk about the difficulty of reprogramming people to think in this new paradigm of Total Church, and how long that takes, and what you do to get people to walk that path?

Timmis: Basically it depends on how long they’ve been programmed within the other paradigm. Everything is a heart issue, a gospel issue. Every question has a gospel answer. What we need to do is gospel one another all the time – we really try to do that, not only in our formal teaching, but within our life-on-life, speaking the gospel to one another, in bringing the gospel to bear together.

We have a saying “the devil’s in the detail.” I know that I’ve made mistakes in my past in terms of understanding people and where they’re coming from by not appreciating the small things in life. Not keeping their word, always being late, things that seem fairly trivial or irrelevant, and yet seeing those as bits in which their heart issues that are exposed so bringing the gospel gently, graciously to bear upon those. To the extent that we are doing that we are seeing people effectively change their programming; their hearts are softer, they get a heart for God, his glory, the lost… but it’s a heart issue and we have to pastor them. That can take anything from people snapping it up instantaneously, and for some people it just takes a long time to seem to interact. But they’ve got to be loved, cared for and challenged anywhere from 6-months, a year, 18 months.

PTP Member: How is that different than a house-church model?

Timmis: It’s not fundamentally different; but because we have more of a shared leadership – we’ve always said we have to have two elders before we can plant. We never plant without recognized leadership in place.

With this model we are not so much leader-hungry because we do have a shared leadership, so all the leaders of the gospel communities come together every week and spend a couple hours together and talk about issues, pray together, etc. And so it’s in the integration of the gospel communities together that’s different than the house model which we’ve been pursuing today – which is more distant.

PTP Member: You said you meet in large groups from time to time – what does that look like? And how frequently is that?

Timmis: Our gospel communities meet every week for a teaching meeting; it happens every Sunday morning and honestly it looks pretty much like other church meetings in regular churches. We teach the bible, we sing together, we drink coffee together – we just enjoy being together – but the primary issue is teaching.

Scott: And then the gospel communities meet during the week?

Timmis: The gospel communities disperse, meet during the week, share life together, and do whatever they want to do during the week. That’s where the church goes on – in those gospel communities.

PTP Member: Regarding to social involvement, when you’re gathering together is there any kind of corporate mandate for a particular project to have everyone get involved in, or do you just encourage involvement on a community level and let them to be involved in making a difference for the gospel?

Timmis: Yes to both. We sort of have a shared commitment to social justice – we basically say we’re going to work hard together and make sure that is integral to each of the gospel communities.

Within our context and a few other communities, we are working with refugees and asylum seekers. So all the gospel communities – we try to encourage them to have some involvement with that in terms of housing, teaching English, getting involved in terms of representing them when their appeals come up, and all those issues. We want to make sure all the gospel communities have some involvement with that. But then they can get involved anything and everything else that they want to get involved with. My gospel community has been looking at the issue of prostitutes and drug addiction – but that’s only for us, not for all of the gospel communities as a whole.

Social justice is very important to us – and we work hard to bless the city and that is what we want to do. We don’t do that just for the marginalized, though that is a significant part. We’ve planted a gospel community in an area that’s notorious in the city – but we also run a live music café on a regular basis and a load of other things that people get involved with.

Part Three tomorrow…

Seattle Boot Camp, The Call of a Church Planter

Speakers: Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, PJ Smyth, Scott Thomas, Dave Bruskas

Scott: Tell us your history with Porterbrook and the Crowded House

Timmis: About four years ago we closed down a church meeting in a house that I was leading and we moved into a small church that was dying. And we attempted to replant it. It was sinking pretty much outside the box as far as Crowded House was concerned – we were really trying to expand, litter the city, with “Communities of Light,” which were our gospel communities.

We planted a few times out of it because it grew, and we currently have gone with the model where we are comprising of a number of gospel communities. We come together Sunday morning for a teaching session, but the rest of the week life-on-life living in the sense of discipling one another  - that’s where we do breaking bread together, discipleship, discipline, evangelism – the whole work is done in the gospel communities. So Sunday is just the central gathering where we get 120 together and in which we teach one another.

Porterbrook is something that we started to train people in a whole range of church situations – large churches and smaller churches to equip people theologically and at a missiological level for church-planting or missional church. It’s a two year course and for one aspect of it we do a degree level course and another aspect is the Northern Training institute. All the while we are equipping leaders to be able to plant and transition to theology as a principle as opposed to being simply pragmatic.

Scott: What is your definition of being a “gospel community”?

Timmis: A gospel community is a group of people who are effectively a group of 10-30 people sharing their lives together. It’s about life-on-life, it’s about doing evangelism corporately. We share our lives together, we make friends with each other’s friends so we can show the gospel in action, we can tell them the gospel verbally, we disciple one another – just everything that the church is about we do in those communities. They are intentional communities.

Scott: How is that different from a small group?

Timmis: Gospel communities see themselves effectively as a church, so they take upon themselves the privileges and responsibilities of a big church. A small group in a centralized structure basically just sees itself as part of the bigger church in the sense that a lot of the other stuff goes on centrally. These gospel communities have a very extensive expression of the church – so basically, if it’s church stuff, they do it. They teach the Bible to one another, disciple, they break bread together, they baptize in those contexts.

Scott: Do you have any trouble with leadership in that respect? How do you control what takes place in these communities?

Timmis: We control that as far as we can. One thing you have to always appreciate with any form of church-planting is that you can never ultimately control. But as far as we are able, we put a lot of effort into recognizing the biblical criteria for leadership – which is primarily character. So because we are intentionally discipling one another and looking at younger guys to see what kind of character they’ve got, what kind of gift set they’ve got – we are trying to take them under our wings and expose them to godly leadership, give them responsibility within a safer environment. All the leaders of these gospel communities are either elders or under the watchful eye of elders. So there’s always some kind of control that is put in place there – but we do give them a lot of responsibility.

Scott: How does that lead to church planting?

Timmis: It’s an issue of how you define church. I think we need to make sure our definition of church really resonates with a biblical understanding of church. So everything we do that is church, we do in these communities – so these are effectively, to all intents and purposes, churches. And because our strategy is not so much to have one big central “lighthouse” that emanates light all around the city at kind of roof-top level, what we are trying to do is “litter” the city with these communities of light (churches). That will get us street-level into the communities around the city – so where the big lighthouse wouldn’t distribute it, we are trying to distribute by littering the city. This is essentially what church-planting is; our gospel communities are our churches that we plant.

What we then effectively do is plant networks. When these gospel communities get too big, we’ll split and form a new network. We have shared leadership, shared resources – but we always do this littering model.

Part Two tomorrow…

Seattle Boot Camp, The Call of a Church Planter
Speakers: Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, PJ Smyth, Scott Thomas, Dave Bruskas

For several years, I served as the Executive Pastor of Mars Hill Church. These days that role belongs to Tim Beltz. When Mark Driscoll shifted from Lead Pastor to Preaching Pastor a couple years ago, I stepped into the lead role.

This experience has given me an interesting perspective on the unique relationship between lead and executive pastors. At the upcoming Acts 29 Bootcamp in Raleigh, NC, I plan on speaking to a group of church planters about the role of executive pastor, and how he can work effectively with the lead pastor. In preparation for that discussion, I’ve come up with these six guidelines for executive pastors:
 
1.    Know your calling – First and foremost, you’re called to be a Christian who worships Jesus. Second, you’re called to lead your wife and kids. After that, comes your broader ministry. If for you that means “executive pastor,” then you need to ask yourself: Am I content with being a behind the scenes guy? This is critical, because if your motivation is to be the lead pastor yourself, then you’re in the wrong position. You’ll be perennially frustrated and working out of the wrong motives, and ultimately the lead pastor, the church, your family, and you will not be well served. Know your calling and be content with that calling. Being an executive pastor doesn’t mean you’ll never expand your influence for the gospel beyond Excel spreadsheets. And it doesn’t mean you’ll never be a lead pastor or church planter down the road someday. But as you serve in the executive pastor capacity, you must be faithful to the role God’s given you.

2.    Fear and respect – You must fear God and respect the Lead Pastor. Don’t mix that up, and if you do, repent. 1 Timothy 5 and 6 lay out a very concrete explanation of the distinction between who is to be feared and who is to be respected. We fear God out of holy reverence for his power, grace, mercy, justice, and compassion. We can do this in part by respecting those in authority over us. We mustn’t elevate the lead pastor to a place of idolatry and worship him above God, but we also mustn’t belittle and abuse the lead pastor in the name of “brotherhood.” 

3.    Mutual understanding – There is no cookiecutter job description for either role; it depends on the gifts and talents of each man. You have to know one another’s strengths and weaknesses—what you’re good at, and what he’s good at. This understanding requires a real friendship, mutual respect, trial and error, and good communication. Over time, you will understand and clarify your specific roles, how you work together, and where your giftings overlap or differ. As you learn these things, write them down, ask questions, discuss and pray often. If you don’t, the enemy will drive a wedge between you in an effort to create a lack of trust and unity. If you don’t pursue clarity, you’ll be continually frustrated in second-guessing your every move. 

4.    Key relationships – All too often, the lead pastor is the relational glue between lots of people. The elders, board, staff, deacons, community leaders, and key donors all depend on their relationship with the lead pastor to move things forward, design new ministry, solve problems, make decisions and stay committed 100% to the ministry of the church. That is a lot of pressure and responsibility, and the lead pastor needs help. Not just administrative help, but leadership help. The executive pastor must provide relational leadership so that the lead pastor is not the sole hub to which every spoke is connected. Otherwise, the lead pastor will die and so will the church, especially if the church is growing fast. The executive pastor must run point on certain relationships, and the lead pastor needs to affirm the executive pastor’s leadership when groves of people try to revert back to the old paradigm when the buddy relationship with the lead pastor was acceptable. This transition is probably one of the hardest growing pains in the life of a church, but it must be done for the good of everyone.

5.    Project management – This varies from man to man, but most lead pastors I know hate project management and administration. They like communication, they like knowledge of what’s going on, but the 'ins and outs' of every detail suck the life out of them. To make project management successful, you must take on and capture every detail you can, and build a team around you to help. Once you have a presentable summary, work out the right communication channel to engage the lead pastor for his necessary input, feedback, and vision. If you work out the right information, the right timing, and the right way to keep him informed, this builds trust and relationship in the process, allowing both men to do their jobs more effectively. 

6.    Different hats – The relationship between the lead pastor and executive pastor is complicated and muddy, but also life-giving, if properly understood. The relationship is mult-dimensional, and understanding what hat to wear and when is vital. And the hats are numerous: boss, subordinate, friend, peer, confidant, encourager, body guard, fullback, sounding board, realist, advocate, gatekeeper, bad cop, good cop ... to name a few. Only through a shared theology, mission, and genuine care for one another can these murky waters be navigated. If the the foundation of your relationship is firm, then you can cycle through the hats as needed.

You can connect with Pastor Jamie by twitter or facebook.

Seattle Boot Camp March 9-10:

Seattle - March 2009

By Pastor Scott Thomas
Acts 29 Director and Mars Hill Church Executive Elder

Read Part One

Read Part Two

After planting, replanting, coaching church planters and directing a network, I have gained some valuable insight that I would apply if I was planting a church today. I am as committed to my role as director, but I reflected on ways I could have made my church plant better.

Here are my thoughts:

1.    I would expose the gospel to the fullest extent as possible in every context, relationship, conflict and teaching.

See part one


2.    I would connect with God as I connected culture.

See part one

3.    I would focus on developing missional communities as expressions of the gospel in as many contexts as possible.

See Part Two

4.    I would focus on developing young men for the mission of Jesus.

See Part Two

5.    I would train leaders relentlessly

Once you have identified a man who can be a leader, what do we do? My friend, PJ Smyth, a church planter in South Africa showed me the progression of Titus as Paul mentored him into leadership.

I would not do much of anything else except to train leaders. I will let others do administration. Identifying, equipping and sending leaders are the jobs of the pastor who is committed to train leaders relentlessly. I would train leaders to lead and not to hold an office. We should not appoint leaders too quickly before they have earned the right to lead and are qualified.

At every sermon, we must call men to mission, to lead, to repent of their idols. We have to equip men to be good fathers, good husbands, and good men. Those men who are addicted to alcohol or pornography or have anger issues are involved in a redemption group (a recovery group, of sorts) focused on getting back to the image of God.

Of the people who are involved in community groups, 70% should be in a normal rhythm of community life where they receive their shepherding, encouragement, learning, serving and missional living. 10% are involved in one to one counseling as a tow truck to move them down the road, but with the design to get them back on the highway of community group. Another 20% are pulled off the highway for maintenance. These are redemption groups whose goal is to return to the main highway.

6.    I would get a coach

According to a study by Leadership Network, only 68% of all church plants are still alive after four years. The odds of survivability increase 250% (2.5 times) when the planter receives some leadership development training. They reported that survival rate has doubled since implementing important systems such as assessment, training, and coaching.

Coaching is essential to empower others in the journey as they discover what God wants them to do and then doing it (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12). It gives them a prayer partner, accountability, feedback, perspective, encouragement, resources (ideas, content) and help with strategic planning.

7.    I would enjoy the journey of church planting

We image the gospel as we display the grace of God in our lives and as we display grace toward others—even (especially) when they mess up. The gospel includes receiving the grace of God. We must apply this with our family, our “followers”, those in our churches who are our workers and especially the drama-queen worship team (kidding).

I often overlooked the evidences of grace in my life as a planter. I expected the best effort. That bled into my family. One evening when I was stressed and overly-complained about something, my oldest son asked me, “Dad, do you have a trip coming up soon?” My wife erupted with a contagious laugh and we appreciated the candidness of a son whose father was not displaying the evidences of grace.

As we exercise grace to others, we need to exercise toward ourselves as well. Our righteousness is not established through numbers of butts in a seat. We need to see the lives transformed and not the nickels and noses as necessary for our righteousness.

Full Article Here

Three upcoming boot camps:

Raleigh - February 2009

Seattle - March 2009

San Diego - May 2009

By Pastor Scott Thomas
Acts 29 Director and Mars Hill Church Executive Elder

Read Part One

After planting, replanting, coaching church planters and directing a network, I have gained some valuable insight that I would apply if I was planting a church today. I am as committed to my role as director, but I reflected on ways I could have made my church plant better.

Here are my thoughts:

1.    I would expose the gospel to the fullest extent as possible in every context, relationship, conflict and teaching.

See part one


2.    I would connect with God as I connected culture.

See part one

3.    I would focus on developing missional communities as expressions of the gospel in as many contexts as possible.

A missional community is a committed core of believers who live out the mission together in a specific area or to a particular people group by demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms and declaring the gospel to others—both those who believe it and those who are being exposed to it. This community is led by a team to shepherd, equip and organize a community on mission.
This group is the church throughout the week. They identify, equip and send out new men to lead missional communities. Missional Communities operate unlike a Bible study and more like a family, a missionary team, a band of servants and eager learners.

I was attending a small group years ago and one of the participants mentioned that she was struggling with honoring her father the way the commandments stated because her father had raped her as a child. This was a real issue, a hurdle for her to clear. She felt dirty still after years of abuse and she refused to honor her Dad who abused her as a child. The group leader said, “Okay, we better get through this lesson.” He completely missed the point of the community. He thought it was an academic process and not a family issue. No man would just ignore that statement made by his daughter or wife so he could continue his conversation.

These missional communities may come together to form a church. For instance, one group meets that replicates and those two groups replicate into four groups. A leader is identified among the communities and this person builds into the formation of the leaders. These groups may come together to grow into a church in the future.

As a normal method, these groups come together, they enjoy food together, they pray together, and they learn together. They discuss their mission and the ways they are serving the community.

4.    I would focus on developing young men for the mission of Jesus.

Emasculated men are the norm. Most young men have brokenness with their fathers. Macho men are typically posers. They are hiding behind their toughness so others will not see their frailty. They hide behind their academia, their success, their busy-ness, their sexual prowess, etc. Emasculated men are not necessarily effeminate, but they are hiding from their own weaknesses.

The problem is that only men can build men and too many pastors are broken as well and have their own father issues. That’s usually why some go into ministry—to get validated.

Anthony Bradley said at an Acts 29 event,  “Your church will suck if you do not have strong men.”
The typical church is made up of 39% men and 61% of women. Most boys raised in church will abandon it as a young man. If a mother comes to faith, the rest of her family follows 17% of the time. 93% of the time it is true with the father coming to faith. (Barna Research).

We prefer the men in our church to be mules. A mule does not act like a jackass and they are able to carry larger loads and endure longer than a horse. They are tamer than a jackass but do not seem to want to run like a stallion. I think many pastors prefer a mule to a stallion. Stallions are designed to run and not be penned up in a stable. We are generally afraid of stallions because we are afraid of our own masculinity, our leadership, and our “importance” to the Christian community.  We are afraid that the stallion will steal our oats and our affirmation by “our” people. Since our own fathers did not affirm us, this is seen as a threat. We value Steady Eddie instead of Daring Dan. Christianity is a radical following of Jesus. The problem with being a mule is that it is almost always sterile.

The Heavenly Father delights in us as His sons and expressing this fact advances the gospel. We are accepted in spite of our sin through the person of Jesus and thus, we are reconciled to our Father. Jesus came to men and called them to follow; to leave their nets and to follow Him. Men are looking for others to lead them into a radical adventure of the gospel. They are attracted to the crazy ideas, not the boring. Most churches invite men to pass out bulletins and mow the grass as the great adventure. That’s why they prefer staying home on Sundays watching masculine sports on TV or doing masculine things at home.

Look for Part Three tomorrow...final installment.

Three upcoming boot camps:

Raleigh - February 2009

Seattle - March 2009

San Diego - May 2009

By Pastor Scott Thomas
Acts 29 Director and Mars Hill Church Executive Elder

I have served as a replanting pastor, church planter and church-planting director. It has given me insight from three different perspectives. It has been less than three years since I was the lead pastor of a church plant, but I have gained some valuable insight through extensive study, interaction with church planters, network directors, assessors, and by coaching church planters.

I reflected the other day on what I would do differently if I were to plant again. I came up with seven ideas that may help other church planters to avoid some mistakes.

1. I would expose the gospel to the fullest extent as possible in every context, relationship, conflict and teaching.

I think very few people in the church truly understand the gospel, especially those who are religious. I think that few pastors truly understand the gospel. Galatians 2:14 suggest that there is a way of living that is contrary to the gospel.  The centrality of the gospel drives all ministry and mission of the church.

Tim Keller’s resource on Gospel Christianity is a good curriculum to teach this to your elders, your wife and perhaps yourself.

Steve Timmis mentioned that he “gospels” his people when they are out of step or in sin. I love this way of communicating. Even as we confront others, it must be done in a grace-filled way to image the gospel.

Every action step of the church is filtered through the gospel—it must bear image to the gospel or it is eliminated.

2. I would connect with God as I connected with culture.

In our quest to be missionally engaged, hip and cool, I think we have lost the “edge” for a radical, passionate engagement with God. Connecting with culture is overrated; connecting with God is underrated.

My son asked me if I thought John Piper would be effective as a pastor in Seattle. I told him that I thought he would because his passionate connection with God overshadowed his lack of cultural connectivity. He does not have a TV in his home and he still wears tweed jackets bought at the penny saver store.

James 4:6-10 calls us to draw near to God. We have to make this the primary point of our church plant and then we connect to culture in a way that is understood by them. We don’t want to be too hip and too cool that we overshadow the person and work of Jesus.

Part Two Here

Three upcoming boot camps:

Raleigh - February 2009

Seattle - March 2009

San Diego - May 2009

Seven Reasons to Attend Raleigh NC Boot Camp

Wednesday February 4 - Thursday February 5

By Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Director

Register Today!

        1. Four Horseman of Christendom are Speaking:

        2. Vintage 21 is an ubercool place in downtown Raleigh.

        3. A track for wives is available and taught by experienced church planter's wives.

        4. Great Church Planting Communicators sharing all NEW material. You have not already downloaded this material. It is brand new.

        5. Practical Break-out Sessions (funding, leadership development, systems & structures, etc).

        6. Brand New - Two track option. Track one is the main track for new or upcoming church planters or those trying to discern God's will. Track two is for planters in years 1-4.

        7. Interaction with Church Planters around meals, worship, teaching, community.

Sign Up Here Today

See Full Schedule Here

It seems that the Book of Acts was left open-ended in Acts 28. It's as if Luke believed that they were just finishing the end of the first phase of the expansion of the church. Then it was up to us. We were given just enough within the Book of Acts to give us the principles or philosophy that we would need to undergird our strategies from generation to generation to keep them consistent with God's agenda and at the same time to allow all the flexibility that we would need to adapt to each culture.

Acts 29 Network seeks to perpetuate the church planting passion from the canonical record found in chapters 1 through 28. Acts 29 is not an attempt to write our own addition, but to carry out the mission of Jesus to the best of our ability, through the power of the Spirit and for the glory of God.

There are 28 chapters in the book of Acts and our belief that God is at work today continuing the building of His church and expansion of His kingdom through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are simply seeking to follow in the pattern of Spirit-led and Scripture-directed church planting and evangelistic ministry that began in Acts and has continued in every age since through God’s faithful servants.

What is Acts 29?

Acts 29 is a trans-denominational peer to peer network of missional church planting churches.

What does Acts 29 do?

Acts 29 churches assist called and qualified pastors as they pursue their church planting dreams through assessment, coaching, training, funding, and friendship by connecting them with like minded people.

What are the distinctives of Acts 29?

Our men: We believe local churches should be governed by godly husbands and fathers who are biblically qualified elders serving under the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Head of the church.
Our mission: We believe Lord Jesus desires the planting of church planting churches.
Our message: We believe the reformed gospel about Jesus Christ is the central message of the Bible.

Three upcoming boot camps:

Raleigh - February 2009

Seattle - March 2009

San Diego - May 2009

by Pastor Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Director

I received an email from an unmarried young man under the age of 22 wishing to plant a church. In an attempt to address a whole crowd of young men with "church planting fever," I wrote a letter back to him with 10 suggestions. In this post are suggestions #6-10.

Previous suggestions are here & here.

6. Be patient. The Apostle Paul was sent to the Arabian Desert for three years before preaching (probably around 33 years old). Jesus waited until he was 30 years old to start his public ministry. Abraham waited. Jacob waited. Joseph waited. Noah waited. Daniel waited. Isaiah waited. Young men hate to wait. They are ready to charge Hell with a squirt gun. Abraham Lincoln said, “I will get ready and then, perhaps my chance will come.” Do everything you can to get ready to plant a church. Study, pray, obey, find a mentor, engage in a servant ministry, share your faith humbly, connect missionally with unbelievers, minister to children who are fatherless, serve widows in their affliction, and keep yourself unspotted from the world. Then wait for the Holy Spirit to lead you.

7. Start a missional community in your home. Live the gospel together, pray together, serve the neighborhood together, share your faith together, learn the Bible together, be on mission together, and replicate other groups from your smaller community. If you can’t start and sustain a smaller community of faith, you will never have a biblical template for a church plant.

8. Read other authors. Don’t limit your intake to a few popular speakers and authors. Read from and listen to pastors from multiple theological backgrounds.

9. Research church planting. Know what it entails and count the cost before you start building (Luke 14). Consider doing a one or two year internship with a church planting training center.

10. Get a job, secure a place to live, get married, have children, practice the gospel in your own home, and then plant a church. Being married is not a biblical requirement for a pastor or church planter, but it is advised.

You may not understand now, but I believe you will be best served if you at least considered these thoughts from a pastor who has ministered full-time for 27 years. 

In the love of the gospel,

Scott

Full Letter found here in pdf
------------------------- 

How do I know if I am called to plant a church?  Seattle Boot Camp - March 9-10, 2009

by Pastor Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Director

I received an email from an unmarried young man under the age of 22 wishing to plant a church. In an attempt to address a whole crowd of young men with "church planting fever," I wrote a letter back with 10 suggestions. In this post are suggestions #2-5.
 

Parts 1 and 3 can be found here and here.

2. Get into a church that is a church plant and serve for a few years. Find a pastor under whom you can learn, be mentored, challenged spiritually and later be commended for the ministry. Even if you do not fully agree with how the pastor does ministry (and you probably won't), serve Jesus, the body and in submission to spiritual authority as an example of the gospel working in and through your life.
 

3. Start engaging people, living people (not dead puritans), who are not Christians. If you want to influence people, combine your studies with the interaction of unbelievers. They will help you to know the questions they are asking. Without that, your studies are skeletons without flesh. The puritans wrote their sermons by answering the objections of their hearers. That is why they were so lengthy. The only way your studying will have an impact in people’s life is to share truth with them on their turf—in their homes, places of work, neighborhoods and cultural events. Jesus went away to pray, but was often found eating and drinking with sinners.

4. Be humble. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Young men with limited experience and a lot of academic knowledge are often puffed up with pride. This man is rarely usable until the gospel has taken root in his heart and he recognizes the honor of serving the King of kings with gifts bestowed by the King for His own glory.

5. Focus on the biblical requirements of an elder and seek to be the man he wants you to become and not just focused on the information you think you may need. A man’s character—above reproach—is the foundation for all other gospel ministry. Too often, a man desires the office of an elder and equips his mind with knowledge and neglects the weightier matters of prayer, intimacy with God, silence, solitude, obedience, repentance, confession, kindness and obtaining a missionary heart. Make sure you are called to eldership and follow Him passionately.

Seattle Boot Camp - March 9-10, 2009

Full Letter found here in pdf

by Pastor Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Director

I received the following email yesterday and felt as though I needed to address this issue globally as we receive a fair number of inquiries from young men with "church planting fever." Unfortunately, the prognosis for this disease, if left unchecked, is a catastrophic ministry experience. The only cure is the gospel. It is administered only to the humble.

Please note: I changed the names and locations and dates of the email to protect the author's identity.

Scott,

I am under 22 years old; been in ministry for 3 years; Jesus, Piper, Driscoll, and Chandler are my heroes; I'm now at a seminary with about 3 years left on my degree and I've become accustomed to (and enjoy) studying 6-8 hours a day; I feel God has possibly been leading me in the direction of church planting for 2 years now since I started podcasting all of Mark's stuff, and that desire has grown exponentially lately.

This all said, I don't intend to purposefully stay unmarried for my life, but I do not know God's will for whether or not I marry. I probably will end up getting married.

1) The thought of the amount of time sacrificed to have a strong, healthy marriage scares me. When I think of sex, I think of the amount of hours I will lose per week that I could have used to read some John Owen. But I also love kids, would love to have a family, and know the benefits of being married as far as ministry is concerned - Paul's words of marrying just haunt me, because I've heard Mark's schedule, and so much of it is family time - but perhaps he needs that to revitalize him after working such a long week?

2) I have the deepest and utmost respect for the marriage covenant and want to be sure that I, nor she, *ever* seriously considers divorce. I probably would not propose to a girl before having a relationship with her for at least 1.5-2 years.  That being the case, I graduate in less than 3 years with my seminary degree, so I probably will not be married when I graduate.  If I feel God still leading me to Acts 29, then I would like to plant right after graduation, when I will most likely still be single. If I'm going to marry, I would *much* prefer to do it before pastoring in any capacity, but I can't really control that.

I sent him the following email:

Dear Church Planter,

Here are my random thoughts to your reply. I was stricken in my spirit with your response. I humbly offer these ten suggestions in an attempt to help you understand the will of the Lord.

Look for Scott’s suggestions #2-5 tomorrow and #6-10 on Thursday. 

Parts 2 and 3 found: here and here.

Full Letter found here in pdf

I have been anticipating this book more than any other book written by my pastor and friend, Mark Driscoll. It is not because the other books have been sub-par. I think Death by Love is brilliant. So does Christianity Today. It is because I love the church (Big C and little C). I love discussions about the church and how we can best express the gospel through a community of believers striving together on the mission of Jesus. And I love planting new churches.

So, what is regarded as a church? Is it where two or three are gathered together in His name? Is it a large cathedral full of somber people? Is it a darkened warehouse-like building with loud music, long sermons, big projection screens and strong coffee? Is it a group of people in a house praying together and living life together?

Driscoll offers eight characteristics (marks?) of a true church.

1) Regenerated church membership

2) Qualified leadership

3) Preaching and worship

4) Rightly administered sacraments

5) Spirit unity

6) Holiness

7) The Great Commandment to love

8) The Great Commission to evangelize and make disciples

Finally, Driscoll suggests in his familiar contrasting style what the church is not.

1) The church is not a building.

2) The church is not any one denomination.

3) The church is not a eucharistic society, or a vending machine.

4) The church is not a business.

Driscoll concludes the chapter on What is a Christian Church by saying, "[The church will be protected] from these dangers [Emergent church]...by a return to confessing the biblical Jesus as Immanuel, God with us, in word and deed by the fresh preaching of the Word and by Spirit-empowered community on mission to the world for God's glory and their joy, led by godly pastors who passionately follow Jesus."

Get a copy today.

Three upcoming boot camps:

Raleigh - February 2009

Seattle - March 2009

San Diego - May 2009

By Pastor Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Director

I have spent the last six years seeking to understand all I can about planting a missional church. I have seen some great expressions of missional church planting and I have seen what I regarded as abuses of missionality or sinful syncretism in the name of cultural contextualization.

Christianity Today article stated,

"The terms missional and missional church are barely 10 years old, but already they bring up more than half a million hits on a Google search. Churches are inundated with missional books, missional websites, missional consultation groups, and missional speakers. Yet the meaning of the term remains unclear.

"Some use missional to describe a church that rejects treating the gospel like a commodity for spiritual consumers; others frame it as a strategy for marketing the church and stimulating church growth. Some see the missional church as a refocusing on God's action in the world rather than obsessing over individuals' needs; others see it as an opportunity to "meet people where they are" and reinvent the church for postmodern culture."

Apparently, the confusion continues.

I appreciated the recent article by my friend Ed Stetzer entitled Transforming Culture in the Jan/Feb 2009 edition of Outreach Magazine (not yet published online). Ed said, "Preaching against culture--as we often do--is like preaching against someone's house. It's just where they live. There is good in it, and there is bad in it--preach discernement, not culture condemnation."

It prompted some thoughts I have about missional church planting. I am not opposed to one aspect over the other. I am simply illustrating how we are prone to over-emphasis and am calling us to follow God's mission instead of our own notion of cultural contextualization or missional living.

The argument is often over whether a church is either relating to its culture or rejecting its culture (missional or non-missional). I think there is a third way. A missional church connects with culture and connects with God. It builds the Kingdom while building the local church. It serves the community where it resides while its congregants are served. Its focus is on engaging evangelism personally and in community with others and it fervently follows the Holy Spirit as it makes plans for the glory of God.

Raleigh NC Boot Camp

February 4-5 2009

at Vintage 21 Church

117 S. West St.

Raleigh, NC 27601

Register today

February 4-5 2009

at Vintage 21 Church

117 S. West St.

Raleigh, NC 27601

Register today

Track 1 - For all potential A29 church planters 
 

Mark Driscoll

Wayne Grudem - Gospel Centered Reformed Theology

Danny Akin - Preaching the Gospel

Scott Thomas - The Biblical Mandate on the Man

Andreas Kostenberger - The Effects of Planting on Family & Self

Mark Driscoll & Wayne Grudem - Q & A

Tyler Jones - Mission Rises out of Community

Ed Marcelle - Mission Rises out of Discipleship

Daniel Montgomery - Our Mission

Mark Driscoll

Track 2 - For planters in years 1-4
 

Jason Roberts and Chris Atwell - Coaching Introduction

Elliot Grudem - Leadership Development: Elders, Deacons, Volunteers

Mark Driscoll - Q & A

Jamie Munson & Nate Williams - Systems & Structures

TBA - Strategic Planning

Jamie Munson, et al. - Q & A

TBA - Small Groups

Chris Atwell - Assimilation to Membership 

Wayne Grudem - Q & A

TBA - Children's Ministry / Funding / Holistic Justice

Jason Roberts - Debriefing: Long Term Implementation 

Mark Driscoll

Breakout Sessions

Wives' Track

Fundraising

Parachuting

Leadership 1

Systems & Structures

Leading the Mission

Leadership 2 

Register now

Detailed Schedule

I asked people on Facebook and Twitter to respond to the question above. These are the comments they made after consolidating concepts. Do you have any more ideas? If so, email me or twitter me and I will post the results and give you an opportunity to vote. Once I get the voting results, I will post them for you to see what others think are the key characteristics of a church planter.

email me or twitter me with your ideas. You can also comment below.

Thanks for your help.

The sessions included the following:

•    The Mission and Vision of Acts 29 Network by Mark Driscoll
•    Cultivating a Culture of Repentance by Darrin Patrick
•    Vivification & Mortification: A Process to Holiness by Matt Chandler
•    Going Deep With Sabbath Rest by JR Vassar
•    The Role of Social Justice & Poverty in Discipleship by Matt Carter
•    Spirit-Led Ecclesiology: Following the Spirit Through Church-Planting by Jonathan Dodson
•    Pitfalls of Church Planting by Barry Keldie

Upcoming Acts 29 Boot Camps:

Feb. 4-5: Raleigh, North Carolina

March 9-10: Seattle WA

May 5-6 : San Diego, CA

With the current phenomenon of Facebook where people update their status daily and Twitter members who update their status event by event with their phone, I wondered what some of the Bible character's status updates would have looked like. Here's my attempt:

"Like a swallow, like a crane, so I twitter; I moan like a dove; My eyes look wistfully to the heights; O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security." (Isaiah 38:14 NASB)

By the way, you can find me twittering as acts29

The gospel has been described as a pool in which a toddler can wade and yet an elephant can swim. It is both simple enough to tell to a child and profound enough for the greatest minds to explore. Indeed, even angels never tire of looking into it (1 Peter 1:12). Humans are by no means angels, however, so rather than contemplating it, we argue about it.

 
A generation ago evangelicals agreed on "the simple gospel": (1) God made you and wants to have a relationship with you, (2) but your sin separates you from God. (3) Jesus took the punishment your sins deserved, (4) so if you repent from sins and trust in him for your salvation, you will be forgiven, justified, and accepted freely by grace, and indwelt with his Spirit until you die and go to heaven.

There are today at least two major criticisms of this simple formulation. Many say that it is too individualistic, that Christ's salvation is not so much to bring individual happiness as to bring peace, justice, and a new creation. A second criticism is that there is no one "simple gospel" because "everything is contextual" and the Bible itself contains many gospel presentations that exist in tension with each other.

No single gospel message?

Let's take the second criticism first. The belief that there is no single basic gospel outline in the Bible goes back at least to the Tubingen school of biblical scholarship, which insisted Paul's gospel of justification was sharply different from Jesus' gospel of the kingdom. In the 20th century, British professor C.H. Dodd countered that there was one consensus gospel message in the Bible. Then, in turn, James Dunn argued in Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (1977) that the gospel formulations in the Bible are so different that we can't come up with a single outline.

Now hundreds of websites of young Christian leaders complain that the older evangelical church spent too much time reading Romans rather than Jesus' declaration that "the kingdom of God is at hand." But to be true to first-century Christians' own understanding of the gospel, I believe we must side with Dodd over Dunn. Paul is emphatic that the gospel he presents is the same as the one preached by the Jerusalem apostles. "Whether it was I or they," Paul says, referring to Peter and the others, "so we preached and so you believed" (1 Cor. 15:10-11). This statement assumes a single body of gospel content.

One gospel, many forms

So yes, there must be one gospel, yet there are clearly different forms in which that one gospel can be expressed. This is the Bible's own way of speaking of the gospel, and we should stick with it. Paul is an example. After insisting there is only one gospel (Gal. 1:8), he then speaks of being entrusted with "the gospel of the uncircumcised" as opposed to the "gospel of the circumcised" (Gal. 2:7).
When Paul spoke to Greeks, he confronted their culture's idol of speculation and philosophy with the "foolishness" of the cross, and then presented Christ's salvation as true wisdom. When he spoke to Jews, he confronted their culture's idol of power and accomplishment with the "weakness" of the cross, and then presented the gospel as true power (1 Cor. 1:22-25).

One of Paul's gospel forms was tailored to Bible-believing people who thought they would be justified by works on judgment day, and the other to pagans. These two approaches can be discerned in Paul's speeches in the book of Acts, some to Jews and some to pagans.

There are other forms of the gospel. Readers have always noticed that the kingdom language of the Synoptic Gospels is virtually missing in the Gospel of John, which usually talks instead about receiving eternal life. However, when we compare Mark 10:17, 23-34 , Matthew 25:34, 46, and John 3:5, 6 and 17, we see that "entering the kingdom of God" and "receiving eternal life" are virtually the same thing. Reading Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15 and John 3:3, 5 together reveal that conversion, the new birth, and receiving the kingdom of God "as a child" are the same move.

Why, then, the difference in vocabulary between the Synoptics and John? As many scholars have pointed out, John emphasizes the individual and inward spiritual aspects of being in the kingdom of God. He is at pains to show that it is not basically an earthly social-political order (John 18:36). On the other hand, when the Synoptics talk of the kingdom, they lay out the real social and behavioral changes that the gospel brings. We see in John and the Synoptics two more forms of the gospel-one that stresses the individual and the other the corporate aspect to our salvation.

What, then, is the one simple gospel?

Simon Gathercole distills a three-point outline that both Paul and the Synoptic writers held in common. (See "The Gospel of Paul and the Gospel of the Kingdom" in God's Power to Save, ed. Chris Green Apollos/Inter-Varsity Press, UK, 2006.) He writes that Paul's good news was, first, that Jesus was the promised Messianic King and Son of God come to earth as a servant, in human form. (Rom. 1:3-4; Phil. 2:4ff.)

Second, by his death and resurrection, Jesus atoned for our sin and secured our justification by grace, not by our works (1 Cor. 15:3ff.) Third, on the cross Jesus broke the dominion of sin and evil over us (Col. 2:13-15) and at his return he will complete what he began by the renewal of the entire material creation and the resurrection of our bodies (Rom 8:18ff.)

Gathercole then traces these same three aspects in the Synoptics' teaching that Jesus, the Messiah, is the divine Son of God (Mark 1:1) who died as a substitutionary ransom for the many (Mark 10:45), who has conquered the demonic present age with its sin and evil (Mark 1:14-2:10) and will return to regenerate the material world (Matt. 19:28.)

If I had to put this outline in a single statement, I might do it like this: Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever.

One of these elements was at the heart of the older gospel messages, namely, salvation is by grace not works. It was the last element that was usually missing, namely that grace restores nature, as the Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck put it. When the third, "eschatological" element is left out, Christians get the impression that nothing much about this world matters. Theoretically, grasping the full outline should make Christians interested in both evangelistic conversions as well as service to our neighbor and working for peace and justice in the world.

Feeling the tension

My experience is that these individual and corporate aspects of the gospel do not live in easy harmony with one another in our preaching and church bodies. In fact, many communicators today deliberately pit them against each other.

Those pushing the kingdom-corporate versions of the gospel define sin in almost exclusively corporate terms, such as racism, materialism, and militarism, as violations of God's shalom or peace. This often obscures how offensive sin is to God himself, and it usually mutes any emphasis on God's wrath. Also, the impression can be given that the gospel is "God is working for justice and peace in the world, and you can too."

While it is true that the coming new social order is "good news" to all sufferers, to speak about the gospel in terms of doing justice blurs the fact of salvation being all of grace, not works. And that is not the way the word gospel is used in the New Testament.

Recently I studied all the places in the Greek Bible where forms of the word gospel were used, and I was overwhelmed at how often it is used to denote not a way of life-not what we do-but a verbal proclamation of what Jesus has done and how an individual gets right with God. Often people who talk about the good news as mainly doing peace and justice refer to it as "the gospel of the kingdom." But to receive the kingdom as a little child (Mt. 18:3) and to believe in Christ's name and be born of God (Jn. 1:12-13) is the same thing-it's the way one becomes a Christian (Jn. 3:3, 5).

Having said this, I must admit that so many of us who revel in the classic gospel of "grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone" largely ignore the eschatological implications of the gospel.
Texts like Luke 4:18 and Luke 6:20-35 show the implication of the gospel that the broken-hearted, unrecognized, and oppressed now have a central place in the economy of the Christian community, while the powerful and successful are humbled. Paul tells Peter that attitudes of racial and cultural superiority are "not in line" with the gospel of grace (Gal 2:14). Generosity to the poor will flow from those who are holding fast to the gospel as their profession (2 Cor. 9:13).

In Romans 2:16 Paul says that Christ's return to judge the earth was part of his gospel, and if you read Psalm 96:10ff you'll know why. The earth will be renewed and even the trees will be singing for joy. And if the trees will be able to dance and sing under the cosmos-renewing power of his Kingship-what will we be able to do?

If this final renewal of the material world was part of Paul's good news, we should not be surprised to see that Jesus healed and fed while preaching the gospel as signs and foretastes of this coming kingdom (Mt. 9:35).

When we realize that Jesus is going to someday destroy hunger, disease, poverty, injustice, and death itself, it makes Christianity what C. S. Lewis called a "fighting religion" when we are confronted with a city slum or a cancer ward. This full version of the gospel reminds us that God created both the material and the spiritual, and is going to redeem both the material and the spiritual.

The things that are now wrong with the material world he wants put right. Some avoid the importance of working for justice and peace by pointing to 2 Peter 3:10-12, which seems to say that this material world is going to be completely burned up at the final resurrection. But that is not what happened to Jesus' body, which retained its nail prints, and Doug Moo makes a case for the world's transformation, not replacement, in his essay on "Nature and the New Creation: NT Eschatology and the Environment" available on line .

Preaching the forms

You would expect me at this point now to explain how we can perfectly integrate the various aspects of the gospel in our preaching. I can't because I haven't. But here's how I try.

1. I don't put all the gospel points into any one gospel presentation. I find it instructive that the New Testament writers themselves seldom, if ever, pack all of the aspects of the gospel equally in any one gospel address. When studying Paul's gospel speeches in the book of Acts, it is striking how much is always left out.

He always leads with some points rather than others in an effort to connect with the baseline cultural narratives of his listeners. It is almost impossible to cover all the bases of the gospel with a non-believing listener without that person's eyes glazing over.

Some parts simply engage her more than others, and, to begin with, a communicator should go with those. Eventually, of course, you have to get to all the aspects of the full gospel in any process of evangelism and discipleship. But you don't have to say everything every time.

2. I use both a gospel for the "circumcised" and for the "uncircumcised." Just as Paul spoke about a gospel for the more religious (the "circumcised") and for the pagan, so I've found that my audience in Manhattan contains both those with moralist, religious backgrounds as well as those with postmodern, pluralistic worldviews.

There are people from other religions (Judaism, Islam), people with strong Catholic backgrounds, as well as those raised in conservative Protestant churches. People with a religious upbringing can grasp the idea of sin as the violation of God's moral law. That law can be explained in such a way that they realize they fall short of it. In that context, Christ and his salvation can be presented as the only hope of pardon for guilt. This, the traditional evangelical gospel of the last generation, is a "gospel for the circumcised."

However, Manhattan is also filled with postmodern listeners who consider all moral statements to be culturally relative and socially constructed. If you try to convict them of guilt for sexual lust, they will simply say, "You have your standards, and I have mine." If you respond with a diatribe on the dangers of relativism, your listeners will simply feel scolded and distanced. Of course, postmodern people must at some point be challenged about their mushy views of truth, but there is a way to make a credible and convicting gospel presentation to them even before you get into such apologetic issues.

I take a page from Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death and define sin as building your identity-your self-worth and happiness-on anything other than God. That is, I use the biblical definition of sin as idolatry. That puts the emphasis not as much on "doing bad things" but on "making good things into ultimate things."

Instead of telling them they are sinning because they are sleeping with their girlfriends or boyfriends, I tell them that they are sinning because they are looking to their romances to give their lives meaning, to justify and save them, to give them what they should be looking for from God. This idolatry leads to anxiety, obsessiveness, envy, and resentment. I have found that when you describe their lives in terms of idolatry, postmodern people do not give much resistance. Then Christ and his salvation can be presented not (at this point) so much as their only hope for forgiveness, but as their only hope for freedom. This is my "gospel for the uncircumcised."

3. I use both a "kingdom" and an "eternal life" gospel. I find that many of my younger listeners are struggling to make choices in a world of endless consumer options and are confused about their own identities in a culture of self-creation and self-promotion. These are the people who are engaged well by the more individually-focused presentation of the gospel as free grace not works. This is a lot like the "eternal life gospel" of John. However, I have found many highly secular people over the age of 40 are not reached very well with any emphasis on personal problems. Many of them think they are doing very well, thank you. They are much more concerned about the problems of the world-war, racism, poverty, and injustice. And they respond well to a synoptic-like "kingdom gospel."

Instead of going into, say, one of the epistles and speaking of the gospel in terms of God, sin, Christ, and faith, I point out the story-arc of the Bible and speak of the gospel in terms of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. We once had the world we all wanted-a world of peace and justice, without death, disease, or conflict. But by turning from God we lost that world. Our sin unleashed forces of evil and destruction so that now "things fall apart" and everything is characterized by physical, social, and personal disintegration. Jesus Christ, however, came into the world, died as a victim of injustice and as our substitute, bearing the penalty of our evil and sin on himself. This will enable him to some day judge the world and destroy all death and evil without destroying us.

 4. I use them all and let each group overhear me preaching to the others. No one form of the gospel gives all the various aspects of the full gospel the same emphasis. If, then, you only preach one form, you are in great danger of giving your people an unbalanced diet of gospel-truth. What is the alternative? Don't preach just one gospel form. That's not true to the various texts of the Bible anyway. If you are preaching expositionally, different passages will convey different forms of the one gospel. Preach different texts and your people will hear all the points.

Won't this confuse people? No, it stretches them. When one group-say, the postmodern-hears a penetrating presentation of sin as idolatry, it opens them up to the concept of sin as grieving and offending God. Sin as a personal affront to a perfect, holy God begins to make more sense, and when they hear this presented in another gospel form, it has credibility.

When more traditional people with a developed understanding of moral guilt learn about the substitutionary atonement and forensic justification, they are comforted. But these classic doctrines have profound implications for race relations and love for the poor, since they destroy all pride and self-justification.

When more liberal people hear about the kingdom of God for the restoration of the world, it opens them up to Christ's kingship demanding obedience from them in their personal lives. In short, every gospel form, once it hits home, opens a person to the other points of the gospel made more vividly in other forms.

Today there are many who doubt that there is just one gospel. That gives them the warrant to ignore the gospel of atonement and justification. There are others who don't like to admit that there are different forms to that one gospel. That smacks too much of "contextualization," a term they dislike. They cling to a single presentation that is often one-dimensional. Neither of these approaches is as true to the biblical material, nor as effective in actual ministry, as that which understands that the Bible presents one gospel in several forms.

Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York.
Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.

Church planters are some of God's most amazing servants. They are, generally speaking, young men who love Jesus, love their wives and children, love the church, and love lost people. With their wives and children they step out in faith to plant a church that shares the love and truth of Jesus with lost people. Their family does so at great cost to their finances and health.

One of these risk-taking, hard-working church planters in our Acts 29 Network is Brad Hovis, who is planting High View Church in Denver. Every year the church planters and their wives from Acts 29 gather for a few-day retreat so that we can invest in them. At our retreat last summer, Brad informed me of a very difficult situation he and his lovely wife were facing. She was pregnant with their second child, a baby girl. Sadly, the baby was diagnosed with some severe medical troubles in the womb. Still, rather than aborting her, they rightly chose to pray for God's healing, accept God's will, and love their child for as many days as God would allow them if she were to die.

Molly was born with severe problems in her digestive system. Her daddy reports:

The only hope for survival was for Molly to receive a transplant of major organs in her digestive system. . . . We got put on a transplant list, and . . . got the call that a donor was available. They flew us up to Omaha where the transplant was to be done. However, there was a complication during the surgery and Molly did not make it. Haley has made a blog of her life, the address is www.littlemissmollyann.blogspot.com if you are interested. We are so incredibly blessed to have had almost 3 months with our little girl. God's grace has been clear to us and we are joyful for all His work in her life.

Brad and I spoke on the phone shortly after his daughter Molly died. He impressed me with his faith in God, love for his family, devotion to the gospel, and desire to lead others through this incredibly difficult loss. Our conversation took place shortly after I had dropped my kids off at school following our weekly daddy breakfast, and I choked back tears considering what it would be like to preach the funeral of one of my children.

With great love and courage, Brad preached the funeral of his beautiful daughter, Molly. Painfully, it was the first funeral he has ever preached. He was gracious enough to post the audio file of that funeral sermon online. I am honored to share it with you and ask that you pray for him, his family, and those young church planters like him who, with their families, show the depth of their devotion to Jesus when it counts most.

Also, the Colorado Baptist General Convention has set up a fund for Molly to help with funeral and medical costs. If you want to help the family, please make checks payable to the Colorado Baptist General Convention and note that they are for the Molly Hovis Fund. You can send checks to 7393 South Alton Way, Centennial, CO 80112-2302. They have also made giving available online. Just go to www.saturatecolorado.com and click on the e-giving button on the right side of the page.

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1.   Our first mandate is the Great Commission

Our vision is to have 1000 churches with an average of 250 people each. That would be a quarter of a million people worshipping Jesus in A29 affiliated churches. This could be accomplished in under 7 years.

2.   Church: what is it?

(from Vintage Church) "The local church is a community of regenerated believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. In obedience to scripture, they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, observe the biblical sacraments of baptism & communion, are unified by the Spirit, are disciplined for holiness, scattered to fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission as missionaries to the world for God's glory and their joy."

8 Marks of a Church:

1.     Regenerated church membership. Church planting is popular right now, but ironically
        regeneration is not. The point of every church plant is that people meet Jesus.

2.     Qualified leadership. Elders and deacons must meet the biblical criteria for leaders as
        outlined in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.

3.     Gather for preaching and worship. Bible teaching is central and the Acts 29 churches
        generally have strong preaching.

4.     Communion/Baptism rightly administered. We regard baptism/communion adherence as
        close-handed. How a local church performs them is open-handed (we have Presbyterians
        and Baptists in the Acts 29 Network).

5.     Unified by the Holy Spirit. People work together for the cause of the gospel.

6.     Disciplined for holiness. Acts 29 churches practice discipline with their members. This is
        unusual in today's churches - where people get to say and do all kinds of unbiblical things
        with no one to discipline them. The church should look differently from the world in
        behavior. Satan sends heretics/false teachers to break up church plants and without church
        discipline they'll tear the church apart.

7.     Obey the great commandment to love. Biblical, Trinitarian community - the previous 6
       marks enable this loving community to take place.

8.     Obey the Great Commission to make disciples. Acts 29 wants to plant churches that
        introduce unbelievers to Jesus.

Acts 29 as a Network

1.   We are churches that plant churches.

2.   We are not a denomination. We work together interdenominationally:

        a.     For relationships (we like each other)

        b.     For mission (we want people to meet Jesus)

        c.      For theological cause (we have certain beliefs we hold dear)

        d.     We believe we are stronger together than by ourselves so we work together.

3.   We invest in other churches financially to help new plants get started. Each of our local
      churches determine how much and to whom the finances are invested.

4.   We are not trying to build a centralized organization - we want church planting to be the
      responsibility of the local church.

Three distinctive characteristics of Acts 29:

1.       The Men

Church planters have the gifts of an apostle (small a) - not just pastoral capacity. Additionally, he is a growing Christian, good husband and good father. Men who cannot love their wives first should not plant churches.

2.       The Mission

Jesus was a missionary to the world. We both contend for the faith (Jude 3) and contextualize by becoming all things for all people (1 Cor. 9). We do this "for the sake of the gospel."

3.       The Message

Acts 29 is a Christian, Evangelical (original form), Missional and Reformed church planting network. These are in order of importance. Our theology is a home, not a prison. We read and listen outside of our theological leanings to humbly learn. We employ discernment when we do this. We can employ partnerships without compromising beliefs.

Characteristics of Movements:

1.    Young people are often at the center of the movement

2.    High conversion rate comes with a movement

3.    Church planting is at the forefront of a true movement of God. God loves the church;
       Jesus died for the church.

4.    Movements tend to be unaware of their external influence because they are busy doing
       what God's given them to do.

5.    Supporting organizations come up - records made, books published, counseling
       ministries, etc.

6.    Movements often come with a transition in technology (Gutenberg press; Reformation).
       Today = internet.

7.    Visible movement leaders rise up. God puts his hand on certain people to lead.

Cycle of a movement

1.    Movement of God

2.    Institution

3.    Museum (what God used to do)

Final encouragements

1.    Make Jesus look good because he is. Your job is not to make yourself look good.

2.    Walk in the light. Come under the influence of a small group of older, wiser guys who can
       ask the hard questions.

3.    Pursue humility. Pride is the primary motivator for a guy to plant a church (I can do it
       better)

4.    Repent well. If you don't model repentance, your church won't repent.

5.    Turn your critics into coaches. Most criticism has some modicum of truth. Ignore garbage;
       receive truth.

6.    Choose to believe that God is both sovereign and good.

Upcoming Acts 29 Boot Camps:

Feb. 4-5: Raleigh, North Carolina

March 9-10: Seattle WA

May 5-6 : San Diego, CA

by Pastor Scott Thomas, Director of Acts 29

Romans 8:5-11

Romans 8:5-8 tells us about an ultimate choice: Life or death; hostility or peace. "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God..." (Rom. 8:6-7a.).

In 1681, one of the foremost Puritan theologians John Owen had a book published entitled, Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded. In 1989 it was first published in London in an easier-to-read and shortened format under the title, Thinking Spiritually.

Two States of Mankind

Carnally Minded or Spiritually Minded?

These two opposing forces are seen as the only two states of mankind. John Owen said, "When a man...is not spiritually minded, he is carnally minded." Each one results in contrastingly different modes. Carnally minded people have death and hostility while spiritually minded people experience life and peace.

The Greek word for mind in verse 5 and its noun form in verse 6 is phroneo -- the action of the mind, will, and affections; to give attention, regard, pursuit. One translation (NASB) accurately says, "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace." It means to fix our thoughts upon. One has to decide if one's mind is fixed upon the spiritual or upon the things of this world. The Geneva Bible published in 1599 (the Bible of the Puritans) says, "For they that are after the flesh savor the things of the flesh: but they that are [savoring] after the things of the spirit, the things of the spirit." Toward what do you savor: heavenward or earth-bound?

Carnally minded

To be carnally minded is the characteristic state of the unregenerate man. He cannot help but mind the flesh; he cannot do differently. Romans 3:10-12, "As it is written: 'There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.'" Minding the things of the flesh brings death: spiritual and physical. The Apostle Paul says that this carnal mind is a hostile enemy of God. The carnal mind is to be avoided like it is our worst enemy, as it is God's enemy. Rom. 8:7, "The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." Although this context describes the carnally minded as unsaved, Owen acknowledges that Christians can display the same characteristics of an earthly-minded person. He says that this grace attached to being spiritually minded can never thrive or flourish or advance to any honorable degree when we are thinking carnally.

Spiritually minded

To be spiritually minded, which gives us life and peace, means that our mind is focused and set on the spiritual things of God. We are savoring after God. Just as the unregenerate man is unable to submit to God's law or to do good, neither is the Christian able to maintain a mind set on spiritual things without the Helper, the Holy Spirit dwelling within him (Rom. 8:9-11).

Three Distinguishing Marks of the Spiritually Minded

1. I have made a noticeable commitment to progressively think more spiritually.

What are you pouring into your minds? What are you reading? What are you watching? Is it spiritual or is it carnal in nature? How are you applying the gospel to your sinful thoughts?

2. I have a contented satisfaction in spiritual things.

Owen said in the preface to this book, "Men walk and talk as if the world were all, when comparatively it is nothing." The average Christian is oblivious to the joys that come from a life of abandonment to the carnal things in exchange for a spiritual pursuit. Matthew 6:33, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Romans 8:8, "So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
 

3. I display a life of peace.

The result of being spiritually minded based on our text is life and peace. Because of our spiritual-mindedness we are promised peace, rest, and quietness in our souls. John 14:27, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." John 16:33, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Eph. 2:14-17, "For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near."

Owen said, "To be spiritually minded is the great distinguishing characteristic of true believers. We have to be tenacious about our pursuit of holiness and strive for a humble heart and a teachable spirit. We must regularly repent, pray fervently, remain in community with other strong believers and depend on the Spirit to uphold us when we are weak.

This is your last chance to sign up for the Church Planting Boot Camp in Dallas. Read over the information and sign up to attend Depth Church Planting Conference at The Village Church (Matt Chandler is the pastor) Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 10:00 AM - Thursday, November 20, 2008, 5:00 PM.

Whether you are interested to explore the exciting journey of planting a church, to discern a call to plant or to hear the great lineup of speakers, we present this Boot Camp for a couple of days to challenge you to go deep into the heart and mission of the gospel.
   
To go deep means that we look honestly into our hearts and examine the sins that may deter our passion for Jesus Christ. It means that we apply the gospel of redemption by confessing, repenting and reconciling those sins deeply, fully and relentlessly. To go deep also means that we passionately follow the mission of Jesus as He has commissioned us to be sent ones (missionaries) into the cities, neighborhoods and relationships where He has sovereignly placed us (Acts 17:26). 

Church Planters and Pastors have been pressured toward shallowness over the last decade. If we are not careful, we assume that we can chart our way to success by our ingenuity and creativity. Without Spirit-leading, we are influenced greatly by what humans do in missions rather than on what God is doing.  We may see the missional task as setting goals, developing appropriate methodologies, and evaluating what does or does not work rather than seeking God's will based upon biblical and theological reflection.  This pragmatic thinking has segmented the gospel and practice into two compartmentalized worlds, and practice is developed on the basis of “what works” rather than the will and essence of God. 

Undiscerning Christian leaders have placed more emphasis on developing effective strategy than forming communities shaped in the image of God.  Although some may advocate faithfulness to God, the system they propose is based on human intelligence and ingenuity.  Its focus is upon making the church grow instead of the gospel. It is using Scripture as propositional truth, that is, reducing the Bible to a set of cultural notions instead of presenting the Bible as a narrative of God’s redemptive story with His creation.

We pray that through this Boot Camp we will be challenged to go deeper than we have ever gone and that God is glorified in our response.

My only addition would be to daily apply the gospel by confessing sins, repenting and empowerment through the Holy Spirit and not through our own efforts. This is implied, but not stated.

By Dean Carlson, Church Leader in Africa, Jan 01, 1998. Used by permission of Church Leader in Africa. All rights to this material are reserved.

Few leaders finish a lifetime of ministry well. The hazards encountered by Christian leaders in Africa are many. Along the way, many become discouraged by hardships. A large number cease to grow spiritually and stagnate in their ministry. Others tragically fall into sin bringing the Gospel into disrepute.

It is the rare leader who runs faithfully to the end, developed by God toward maximum potential in life and ministry. Only a handful earns the right to echo Paul's words, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Tim. 4:7)

Dr. J. Robert Clinton, professor of leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, has spent the past 15 years conducting extensive research on the lifelong development of Christian leaders. In an exhaustive search of the Bible, he identified approximately 1000 leaders. Most were mentioned only by name. These included everything from Old Testament patriarchs, priests and military leaders to New Testament apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors. Sufficient information was available on only 49 prominent leaders to analyze how they finished.

The results are shocking. Only 30% of leaders in the Bible finished well. This means that 70% fell short of God's plan for their lives. This fact should jolt any present day leader who desires to count for God. These leaders are categorized below according to how they finished their ministry.

Ways They Finished

1. Running Leaders like Abraham, Joshua, Daniel, Paul and Peter enjoyed deepening intimacy with God throughout life. They never stopped learning and growing, even as mature leaders. They led with spiritual authority, for their followers recognized God's hand on their lives. Fully submitted to the Lord, they were developed toward full potential and used significantly to advance His purposes. They completed what God gave them to do.

2. Walking Other leaders were slowed down in their ministry because of sin. They fell short of what God intended for their lives. The ramifications of disobedience to God at some point in their leadership continued to plague them, even though they may have been walking with God at the end. Such persons may include David, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah.

3. Limping These leaders finished the race in poor shape. They were on a decline in the latter phase of their ministry. This may have been reflected in their inner life with God or in their ministry effectiveness. Leaders in this category include Gideon, Eli and Solomon.

4. Disqualified Some leaders were taken out of the race prematurely. They were removed from leadership by assassination, killed in battle, denounced or overthrown. We are not referring here to an honorable end like that of Stephen. Rather, God removed leaders such as Samson, Absalom and Ahab because He was not pleased with them. It is a tragic thing when God regrets placing someone in leadership. The price is great: personal shame for the 1eaderd and damage to God's Kingdom.

While the interpretation of the date may be open for debate, the overall conclusion is abundantly clear. Few leaders finish well! Only one in three biblical leaders fully cooperated with God over the long haul and experienced the corresponding results in ministry. Do you think the ratio has improved over the past 2,000 years? A quick survey of scandals in involving Christian leaders today would indicate that the situation hasn't improved at all.

Dr. Clinton and his associates have scrutinized detailed analysis on the lives of over 1,200 contemporary and historical Christian leaders. When compared with the study of Biblical leaders, it is clear that there are certain barriers that commonly prevent leaders from finishing well.

Six Barriers to a Good Finish

1. The Misuse of Money Many leaders are careless in the handling of finances. Greed can sway sound judgment, leading to sin and eventual downfall. Too often God's resources have been diverted to personal use. Clothes donated to the poor have been taken by those handling them. Pastor's salaries have been supplemented from funds for evangelism.

2. The Abuse of Power There is a tendency for leaders to wield power over followers beyond its intended use and to view special privileges as their personal right. Their leadership style is more reflective of a "chief" than a "shepherd." Rather than empowering followers for service, they lead for their own personal benefit. Usually these leaders have no accountability system. They stand at great risk.

3. Pride Success in ministry can pave the way for inappropriate pride to develop within a leader. Self-centeredness can set in, leading to poor decisions and ungodly behavior. We do well to heed James' counsel, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." (Jas. 4:l0)

4. Sexual Misconduct Illicit sexual relationships have been a powerful tool in the enemy's hands against God's leaders. David's sin with Bathsheba has been repeated countless times in our generation, with no less devastating effects.

5. Family Dissention Unresolved conflicts between husband and wife or between parents and children can have repercussions on leadership effectiveness. Leaders such as Eli and David, paid a dear price in leadership due to family problems.

6. Complacency As a leader becomes complacent in ministry there is often a tendency to relax and rely on the successes of the past. Johannes Mazibuko, pastor with the Alliance Church in Swaziland, comments, "There are many repercussions when a leader ceases to grow also. One is that the followers do not grow also. You cannot lead people father than you have gone yourself. Also vision is no longer there. Instead fights begin. When people are no longer developing, they start to quarrel."

It is important to note that each barrier is deeply rooted in character issues, rather than in lack of ministry skills. Personal integrity lies at the heart of the matter. A Zimbabwean leadership trainer observes, "Some leaders look strong publically, and yet they are finished in their private life. When there is a crack in your character, one day it will be opened. Many have long fallen down inwardly only to have it surface later. A good leader is a good leader in his own personal life with God."

Moss Ntlha, General Secretary of The Evangelical Alliance of Sooth Africa makes the following assessment, "I find that there is a tendency for Christian leaders to want to want to be served rather than serve, to be out for glory rather than sacrifice. It's very clear that without providing a leadership that has integrity, where what we preach and what we do is one, it's going to be very difficult to convince anyone that we mean business."

In light of these barriers, what can be done to ensure a good finish? The Apostle Paul realized that there is much that can be learned by studying the lives of other leaders. He wrote in Romans 15:4, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of Scriptures we might have hope." Referring to the stories of God's people in the Old testament, he says, "Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did." The wise leader will 1earn from the mistakes of others and train himself to avoid them. In the words of an African proverb, "The person who is ever ready for war is never defeated."

Factors For Success

Several common ingredients can be found in the lives of godly, effective leaders.

1. Lifelong Perspective and Learning Attitude Effective leaders realize that God's development agenda spans their entire lifetime. They continue to grow, right to the very end of their lives. Such new learning leads to expanded vision. The author of Hebrews writes, "Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever." (13:7,8)

Throughout history, God has enabled men and women to finish well. What He has done for them, He can also do for each of us. The growing leader will carefully observe how other spiritual leaders have overcome and will then equip himself to run in a similar fashion. Insights may be gained through studying Biblical leaders, by reading Christian biographies or by drawing near to godly leaders around them.

The basic processes by which God develops inner character and deep spirituality are similar for all leaders. Character is developed as men and women are tested in areas of integrity, obedience to the Word, and sensitivity to guidance from God. Difficult experiences, crises, and conflict are God's productive training ground. Successful passing of these God-initiated tests often result in an increase of Cod's blessing upon the leader and an expansion of leadership influence. Failure leads to remedial learning and a slowing down of the development process.

2. Spiritual Renewal and Disciplines Jesus modeled the importance of pulling away from ministry activity in order to seek fresh intimacy and direction from the Father. In order to finish well, leaders need repeated times of inner renewal. The alternative is a drift toward complacency and a plateauing of growth This is especially true for leaders in the middle phase of their ministry, from the mid-thirties to the mid-forties.

Caesar Molebatsi, a highly accomplished South African leader, comments on the challenge of fast-paced ministry: "You begin to drown in your own success. You do so many things and because God has gifted you, people demand that you do more. As you attempt to respond to those demands, you end up drowning in them. The antidote to this is to learn afresh God's presence so you stay connected."

Leaders must "go up the mountain" to seek renewal for their lives and ministry. Swazi Pastor Dumisani Dlamini has made a habit of spending three weeks each January for prayer, fasting personal study and seeking God for direction in ministry for the new year. Retreat centres or the homes of friends away from his ministry situation in Mbabane have served this purpose well. His church encourages this time away, realizing the spiritual vitality that their renewed pastor will bring back to the congregation.

Leaders who finish well have learned the value of the spiritual disciplines. The basic disciplines involving the devotional life and the study of the Bible, along with such practices as solitude and fasting can deeply shape character and increase the probability of a good finish.

After he had been in ministry for about 21 years, Paul wrote, "I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." (1 Cor. 9:27) Some 15 years later, when he was probably between 65 and 70, Paul shared time-tested advice with Pastor Timothy, "Train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." Lifelong spiritual training made it possible for Paul to finish strongly.

3. Mentoring The issue of mentoring is critically important in Africa. Xolisani Dlamini comments, "The reason that some young leaders are not walking upright is because the people who they consider as 'fathers' are not fathering them. Their fathers have clumped them. Fathers should not give up when we are leaders. They need to continuously mentor us."

Philip Dungulu, a pastor in Soweto, has gathered together a co-mentoring group of eight pastors from churches in nearby townships. He states emphatically. "No one can survive all by himself. We need one another. If I'm going to overcome moral problems, there has to be a group of people that I confide in. A group that I can be open. We all face our own struggles. These struggles are overcome, not only because we read our Bibles and talk to God, but also because we talk to other Christians about our problems. And we know that they will minister to us in these areas."

A top Zimbabwean church planter reflects, "When God called me to ministry, the first thing I needed was to surround myself with godly men. I gave them permission to counsel and rebuke me. These are my mentors. As busy as I am, I try to get time with these men to pray with them and share my problems and successes. They are the secret to my effectiveness. Wherever there is a successful man, there are good mentors behind him."

Clinton's research has revealed that most leaders who have finished well have had ten to 15 significant people who came alongside to help them at various stages in life. Dr. Richard Clinton advises, "Simply put, if you are serious about finishing well, you need to find mentors who can hold you accountable in every area of your life and ministry and who will help you avoid the pitfalls that will arise as you move through life. An effective mentor will ensure that you continue to grow and develop." (R. Clinton, p.24)

God's Desire

How do you want to finish your ministry? Are you encouraged by the trends in your life or are crucial changes needed? What practices and safeguards are being built into your leadership now that will make for a good finish later?

Take heart! God wants you to finish well! He is earnestly committed to develop you toward maximum potential as a godly leader. And if you fully cooperate with His shaping wok, you will join those who run successfully to the finish. May Paul's passion as a leader burn within our hearts, "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."

REFERENCES

Clinton, J. Robert, THE MAKING OF A LEADER, Colorado Springs, CO, NavPress. 1988
Clinton, J. Robert, "The Mantle of the Mentor", Barnabas Publishers. 1993
Clinton, Richard and Paul Leavenworth, STARTING WELL: BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION FOR A LIFETIME OF MINISTRY, Altadena, CA, Barnabas Publishers. 1994

Dean Carlson is Director of Africa Ministry Resources, Southern Africa Region. He lives in Johannesburg with his wife Kathie and three children.

Tuesday, Nov. 11, my wife Jeannie and I completed a 10K Run. This run is not really what you would expect, but it has been a race nonetheless. We have been married 10,000 days! (not that I am counting.) It has been 27 years, 4 months, 16 days. She knew nothing of the 10,000 day anniversary, so I surprised her with a new wedding ring since her original one expired and started losing diamonds. When I gave it to her, it took her breath away and then she asked cautiously, "Is it real?" Apparently my giving expensive or thoughtful or unexpected gifts to her has not been the norm.

Now, in case you are trying to figure out how old my wife is, you have to realize that she was 7 when we got married. It was awkward because I had to drive her to elementary school although she was the only girl in 2nd grade with a wedding ring for Show-and-Tell!

Jeannie and I grew up in the same city; in fact, the same neighborhood. Our parents still live within 4 blocks of each other. I didn't have a car, so I had to date girls within walking distance. I dated (sorry, Josh Harris) seven girls in the neighborhood before I found the best one to marry. She graduated from high school in May and we were married in June. That was 1,428 weeks ago (I'm really not counting). Then I moved this only child away from her parents in August to go back to college. I don't think they have forgiven me to this day. I don't blame them now that I have a son who just moved out to go to college. Pause for my brief therapy session...

I am not writing this to be a proverbial slideshow of my life, but rather to talk about the qualities of a good pastor's wife. I have lived with a good one for over 14 million minutes (that sounds like a long time) Jeannie struggled in our first few years as a pastor's wife because of unrealistic expectations imposed on her typically by other pastors' wives who were "walking wounded."

I think pastor's wives have an identity crisis. Every person in the church expects something unique (and often unrealistic). They don't put her on a pedestal, but they do often expect her to be almost perfect. They expect her to be their best friend, associate pastor, piano player, nursery coordinator, women's ministry leader, secretary, hostess, fellowship planner, counselor, confidant, babysitter, cook and first lady (whatever that means). Unrealistic. 

If a pastor's wife tries to fulfill all or many of these preconceived roles, she will fail. So, what does a pastor's wife do? I offer a few qualities below with apologies that I am offering these through the example of my wife, who has been my bride for over 240,000 hours (I know it seems like I'm counting).

Qualities of a Good Pastor's Wife

1. She is a faithful Christian 

This is the expectation of all church members and whatever that looks like in your context, that is all that is expected, not Super Christian or Virgin Mary-esque. She must have a personal devotion to Jesus that is growing, vibrant and exercising the gospel in every area of her life.

2. She is a faithful wife

Titus 2:4 talks about the younger wives' primary role are to love her husband. That is the greatest, first and sometimes only ministry for the pastor's wife. Being the wife and lover of the pastor is a role that cannot be delegated to others. If a snooty woman asks you in a condescending tone what ministry you serve in the church, tell her that you help the pastor field test the Song of Solomon.

3. She is homeward-focused

The Titus 2 woman's attention is to care for the needs of her home (c.f. Proverbs 31). Her first ministry is the well-being of her home and if she has time and energy, secondarily the church. If she has children, she is to love them, adore them, invest in them spiritually, emotionally, physically, socially, and educationally with the joy that comes with fulfilling an honorable calling. She should desire to be with her family more than in any other relationship. "Working at home" does not preclude a wife from working outside of the home, but her desire and responsibility should be to serve her family as an expression of her love in the manner that the church (bride) serves Jesus (the bridegroom).

4. She is caring for the lives of others

Just as any Christian is expected to care for one another, encourage one another, pray for one another, etc., so the pastor's wife should be demonstrating those traits as she ministers to the body. Her care should not be expected because she is a pastor's wife, but rather, because she is a fellow believer. 

5. She is adaptable

It's not listed in Proverbs 31, but it should be: A pastor's wife is adaptable to the unexpected twists and turns of her husband's weird schedules, working on the weekends, late night and early morning meetings and trips out of town. And, if she is doubly blessed with adaptability, she will possess the grace to move to a new city in response to a call. 

6. She is hospitable

A pastor's wife is a gracious host to those who need a place to rest, a home to enjoy, a location to laugh and an opportunity to pray. An elder's characteristic is to be hospitable to strangers. A pastor's wife who serves the mission with a hospitable spirit is a blessing to others. My wife loves to have people in our home -- teenage boys and pastors alike. We have different people sleeping in our basement about 6 months out of the year. We usually have teenage boys in our house playing ping-pong, playing Wii and eating mass amounts of food. And my wife loves every minute of it.

7. She is trustworthy

A pastor's wife must be a safe place for information to be shared by her husband and others. She is privy to a lot of information and must be a trustworthy, safe place for the pastor to vent his frustration.

8. She is fun-loving

Lastly, a pastor's wife must learn to laugh. She can't take things too personally and she needs to learn that people will sin against her. Jeannie's laugh can change the entire mood of the room. It is innocent and expressive.

I am blessed to have spent the last 10,000 days with Jeannie as my wife, the wife of a pastor. I pray I have another 10,000 days with her. I'll be counting.

Tim is the senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City and is actively involved in missional church planting in the major urban areas of the world. We co-hosted a conference on urban church planting with Redeemer last April. Tim is respected as a missiologist among young church planters, particularly the young, reformed, theologically astute planters in the city.

Tim succinctly addressed the problems of the contemporary church in his newest book.

"Jesus' teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders [that] Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers [irreligious], they must be more full of elder brothers [religious] than we'd like to think."

I love the phrase, "If the preaching of our ministers... [does] not have the same effect on people that Jesus had [they wanted to kill him], then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did."

The issue that our contemporary churches face is a strong gravitational pull toward religion and morality and away from the mission of the lost, irreligious people that we are called to proclaim the gospel. Sermons are typically full of Christianese and religious platitudes. Have you ever heard someone try to explain the sport of Cricket to an American? It all sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher, "Whaa, whaa wicket, whaa." Our sermons have the same lack of comprehension to the irreligious attendees in our church when we preach only to the conservative, buttoned down, moralistic people that make our churches a safe, peaceful place.

If our preaching does not offend the religious people, we may need to recognize that we do not really want irreligious people in our church by the way we are preaching to the safe crowd that is more likely to give an offering each week.

Mark Driscoll often says that in our sermons we need to ask the irreligious to repent of their sin and we need to ask the religious to repent of their religion. It all starts with the message of Jesus-the one that makes religious people angry.

But tomorrow (Tuesday) for those of us who didn't get to "meet me in St. Louie, Louie" and are moping at home, there is consolation.

You are invited to join the nationwide, mid-week, no-need-to-shave-or-actually-get-out-of-bed party. Tune in to the conference LIVE via our streaming channel here. Both Tuesday and Wednesday The Journey Church will broadcast sessions for the masses.

Who really needs to see that big white arch thing anyway?

Broadcast Schedule for LEAD streaming:

(all times listed are Central)

Tuesday, October 21
9:15 am - Session #1: Gospel-Centered Repentance - Darrin Patrick
10:30am - Session #2: Hybrid Leaders - Eric Mason
1:45pm - Session #3: Christ-Centered Preaching - Dr. Bryan Chapell
4:00pm - Session #4: Building Gospel DNA - Daniel Montgomery

Wednesday, October 22
9:15am - Session #4: City Leaders - Randy Nabors
1:45pm - Session #5: Broken Leaders - Matt Carter
4:45pm - Session #6: Reluctant Leaders - Darrin Patrick

As a church planter, I received more arguments over our position of Reformed Theology than I did everything else combined. It angered the most faithful of Christians and confused others. Only a handful, I believed, truly understood the doctrine of salvation as described in the Bible. It was a point of contention that got people off mission--even though it was not presented in a polarizing manner.

Recently I read The Five Points of Calvinism co-authored by David Steele, Curtis Thomas and Lance Quinn (P&R Publishing). I felt it was a shepherdly treatise on the doctrines of grace that can help the layman to understanding the centrality of God in the salvation of man. The book quotes JI Packer, whom I had the pleasure of spending the day with recently. I think his explanation of Calvinism as "one point" is brilliant.

Packer said, "The very act of setting out Calvinistic soteriology [the doctrine of salvation] in the form of five distinct points (a number due, as we saw, merely to the fact that there were five Arminian points for the Synod of Dort to answer) tends to obscure the organic character of Calvinistic thought on this subject. For the five points, though separately stated, are inseparable. They hang together; you cannot reject one without rejecting them all, at least in the sense in which the Synod meant them. For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.

"God – the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing.

"Saves – does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies.

"Sinners – men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners – and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedalling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the “five points” are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen."

J.I. Packer, “Introductory Essage,” in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen (London: Banner of Truth, 1959) 4-5.

John Piper said, "I am my biggest danger. When I go up, God goes down." At an Acts 29 Boot Camp in Seattle, in conjunction with the Annual Resurgence Conference, Mark Driscoll asked Matt Chandler and John Piper about the number one danger facing pastors today. The answers are insightful.

The question in this excerpt is, "What is the number one danger facing pastors today?" The audio is only 3min:23sec long and is worth every second of your time.

Matt Chandler, Lead Pastor of the fast-growing Village Church in Dallas and Denton responded first by warning young pastors to beware of trying to reach their culture in the name of "missional engagement" by watering down of the message; by staying away from certain parts of the gospel to be palatable to a pagan world. Matt said it has a negative effect when we stray away from the deitiy of Christ in favor of only the humanity of Christ.

John Piper responded in a Piperian manner by saying that the greatest danger would be to first identify the number one priority: God. So, the greatest danger, according to John, is to neglect God, belittle God, and ignore God. He went on to answer the question in the way most of us "theological mortals" think by recognizing that the root of all other dangers is "pride." He said the original sin was "do it our own way." Pride is the biggest problem every day, not just for today's culture.

John said, "I am my biggest danger. My own ego is my biggest danger. When I go up, God goes down." If we have some measure of success in our ministries, we sometime feel good for all the wrong reasons. Piper exhorted us to be on our face constantly to delight in God, rather than in our prospering works.

(Feet above of Mark Driscoll and JI Packer in a meeting together. I will let you decide which is whose feet)

Every young man that considers church planting asks the question, Am I a Church Planter? It is the question I asked myself before planting a church. It is the question we ask every man who submits himself to our Acts 29 assessment process to be a lead planter in our network. Many times he is depending on our assessment process to confirm his calling.

Not all churches have a vision for church planting and few have insight into what a church planter looks like. Our church leaders should be able to spot a church planter and then send him to plant as soon as he is ready.

I did a survey of pastors associated with a church planting movement in 52 countries of the world and asked them to describe the characteristics of a church planter. In order, they said 1) Leader/Visionary, 2) Missionary heart, 3) Preacher, 4) Generalist (can do many things as the lone pastor) and 5) Family Man (NewFrontiers July 2008 non-scientific survey conducted by Scott Thomas).

We believe strongly that the Bible teaches that this office of an elder and pastor is reserved for males. God is a God of order and balance. He has established order within the family (Gen. 3:16; 1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 5:22-33; Col. 3:18-21) and the church (1 Tim. 2:11-14; 1 Cor. 11:8-9). Even within the Trinity there is an order; a hierarchy. The Father sent the Son (John 6:38) and both the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 15:26). Jesus said, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me," (John 6:38). It is clear that God is a God of order and structure.

In creation, God made Adam first and then Eve to be his helper. This is the order of creation. It is this order that Paul mentions in 1 Tim. 2:11-14 when speaking of authority within the church. Being a pastor or an elder is to be in the place of authority. Therefore, within the church, for a woman to be a pastor or elder, she would be in authority over men in the church which contradicts what Paul says in 1 Tim. 2:11-14.

Although it seems a little reductionist and arrogant to list the characteristics of a church planter, I offer twenty characteristics based on evidence in the Acts 29 Network and a plethora of books and articles associated with church planting. After reading this list, some men may be more discouraged from church planting than drawn to it. But the fact is that church planting is tough for the most qualified men. If a man does not have the needed characteristics, he will frustrate himself and everyone around him.

There are lots of other ways a man can serve God in an established church or a church plant apart from being the lead planter. Some very good pastors would probably make bad church plant leaders. That call from God to do church planting might be a call to go join a team led by another man to help plant a church, or it might actually be a call to financially support so others can go. Please pray as you work through this list that God will either confirm a call or reveal if one is to lead a church plant.

I have summarized the 20 characteristics because of the length of the article and discussed them after the summary. Please see the link at the bottom for the complete article including elder qualification charts.

Summarized: 20 Characteristics of a Church Planter

1.    Am I a Christian? (John 3:16)

2.    Am I passionately in love with Jesus and is He the Lord of every area of my life? (Personal spiritual dynamics is the second most important area)

3.    Do I believe His word and does it affect my life deeply?

4.    Am I Spirit-filled, Spirit-directed, Spirit-led and Spirit-controlled? (Acts 1:8)

5.    Am I qualified as an Elder? (1 Timothy, Titus)

6.    Do I love the local church as the expression of a gospel community on mission? (Matthew 28:18-20)

7.    Am I a missionary to the city? Am I sent for the advancement of the gospel in the city (John 20:21)?

8.    Do I have a clear vision for this new work? (Nehemiah 1:3, 4; 2:11-18)

9.    Am I willing to pour myself out in obedience to the vision? (Phil. 2; Romans 6)

10.    Am I healthy? Physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually, relationally, maritally

11.    Am I the kind of leader many people will follow? Have I served as a church leader successfully? (1 Tim. 5:22; 3:6)

12.    Can I preach effectively?

13.    Can I guard the doctrinal door with Biblical clarity and tenacious confidence?

14.    Can I architect a new work with entrepreneurial skill?

15.    Am I called to plant a church at this time and in this place? (Acts 17:26; 1 Peter 5:2)

16.    Have my church leaders commended me for this calling? (Acts 11:22-26; 13:1-4; 16:1-2)

17.    Am I a hard worker? Am I persevering? (2 Thes. 3:10; 1 Tim. 5:17-18; 2 Tim. 2:3-4; 2:5; 2:6)

18.    Am I adaptable to new people, places and concepts?

19.    Can I raise the funds needed for my family’s needs? (1 Tim. 5:8)

20.    Am I humble enough to learn from others—particularly from those who have gone ahead of me in different areas?

Acts 20:28 says that we must "Pay careful attention to ourselves" before we care for the flock of God. We must be prepared as God's man before heading into battle.

This seems like an obvious characteristic. However, some men grow up in churches and are led to believe that they placed their faith in Jesus for salvation while they lack a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus said that we must be born again or regenerated by the Spirit of God (John 3:16). It is possible that a man could build a church and not be a Christian, but it is not advised.

The gospel must be evidently at work in every area of a church planter's life: personally, maritally, domestically, sexually, financially, physically, relationally and ministerially. We are sinners who need forgiveness through repentance and confession. We have to practice this daily as examples of the gospel.

It's not enough to just have good sermon material; it has to flow from your heart. The Word needs to speak to you, and you need to preach out of the abundance of his Word.

We are eager to be witnesses, but we have tendencies to lean on our own ideas and abilities apart from the Spirit of God. The church planter needs to be an empowered man. The Spirit needs to be working in and through him and be consuming him. Jesus accomplished work on this earth through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descended upon Jesus and rested or remained on Him (Matt. 3:16). Luke 4 said that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, was led by the Spirit, and began His ministry in Galilee in the power of the Spirit and preached with the Spirit of the Lord upon Him. He rejoiced in the Spirit (Luke 10:21) and promised the Spirit to those who asked the father (Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit longs to empower us to do our work as a missionary-church planter to the ends of the earth.

Timothy and Titus talk about the qualifications. Study them carefully and assess yourself. Both lists say that to be above reproach is the overarching, summarizing characteristic. You will find a similar (but not identical) list in First Timothy. Being above reproach is the first requirement in both lists and Titus repeats it. The other items on the list explain what above reproach means. There isn't an exhaustive list of characteristics. They overlap, but the key is to be above reproach. The lists are some "for instances" of how to be above reproach: the husband of one wife with no one else in your hands, your head, your heart, your eyes, or on that screen-none. A church pastor must be totally focused and satisfied in that one woman God has brought to him. Marriage will be a struggle at times. But you cannot stray, even an inch. Practicing the gospel is required for a good marriage. Children should be in submission and pastors need to pastor their wife and kids first. If we peruse the two lists, as well as First Peter, we find 17 qualities of an elder who is above reproach.

Jesus loved the Church - enough to die for her (Eph. 5:25). A planter therefore is a Church lover. He may die for her, but if he doesn't love her, he is nothing (1 Cor. 13). Josh Harris exhorts the pew sitters to stop dating the church. The pastor may need to stop having a junior high affair with the church and make a lifelong commitment.

If you are a church planter, you have to be a missionary. Every pastor needs to see himself as a missionary for the glory of God and the good of the city. Don't be someone who wants to start something because of self-centeredness and pride and my desire to be recognized. It's not about the church planter or personal success. It's about exalting the grace of Jesus.

Lacking a vision was the second most obvious void among aspiring church planters submitting to the Acts 29 assessment process. Nehemiah had to have a vision of a complete wall. Not take a survey. The city is in ruins; it's time to build. You know you have a vision when people around you say, "Let's do that." People need to be following your compelling, life-transforming vision.

A planter if he is to follow Jesus, must manifest the death of Jesus. He must become less for Christ to become greater. A planter, like Jesus, is one who "aims low" in that sense. Philippians 2 is instructive in general of this pattern. We are to "Have this mind" -the mind of a Christ who emptied Himself out for the gospel. He, being God, humbled himself to the point of death - then he was exalted. Romans Chapter 6 describes the union with Christ in His death that precedes union with Christ in life.

Physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually, relationally, maritally
Most church planters get fatter, fussier, angrier, lonelier, poorer and at odds more with their mate and their Lord during the first two years of a church plant. Don't think that having a church baby will solve your deficiencies any more than a baby will solve the problems of a troubled marriage.

Occasionally a man will aspire to be a church planter who has no experience as a church leader or an elder in another local church. Paul warns the church not to be hasty in the laying on of hands (1 Timothy 5:22) or appointing a pastor who is a recent convert who is prone to pride (1 Timothy 3:6). A church planter will be more effective with a few years of experience involved with the local church in a leadership capacity. The best church planters are those men who have led in multiple venues and people followed over a sustained period of time.

Even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals that when God wants to get something done He starts by selecting a man to lead that change. Examples include sparing humanity (Noah), founding a nation (Abraham), liberating a nation (Moses), establishing a throne (David), building a Temple (Solomon), preparing hearts (John the Baptizer), and redeeming all of creation (Jesus).

Church planting is no different. Simply, before God can build a church plant He must build a church planter who can lead others to follow the mission of Jesus.

You don't have to hit it out of the ballpark every time. But you do have to hit singles pretty regularly. The pulpit is the rudder that steers the church. We cannot make our preaching an idol. The key thing to remember in preaching, according to Mark Driscoll is to avoid freezing up at the pressure. Relax, connect with the Spirit and with your audience and the effectiveness will take care of itself.

When you start a church, you'll have new people with new ideas-some for which they got kicked out of their old church! You have to be able to guard the doctrinal door, refute doctrinal error-not arrogantly, but being sure of what the Word of God says and being able to articulate that in a winsome way with authority.

What have you started successfully? Some men can't see the vision of what is to come, and some-even if they see the vision-can't find the steps toward accomplishing their vision. If you can't be the architect, then you are in trouble. As an example, some very pastoral people are NOT the best people to start a church, or at least not as the main team leader. Be clear about who you are. If you're a shepherd, counselor, caregiver, and you could be a success doing those things in an established church or as part of a team, then that is where you should be. Someone who is called to plant a church is frustrated if they don't do it. Number two leaders rarely make good number one leaders.

Acts 17:26 says that God appoints the time and the place of our ministry. Titus was the apostolic leader over the churches in Crete. Before Paul appointed him to do that, he went through a progression of calling:

• 2 Cor. 7:6, Titus was a friend who encouraged Paul
• 2 Cor 7:13, Titus was overwhelmed by the ministry of the Macedonians
• 2 Cor. 8:6, Titus was a faithful worker carrying out the wishes of Paul
• 2 Cor. 8:16-17, Titus developed a heart for the ministry and initiated ministry on his own.
• 2 Cor. 8:23 and 12:17, Titus was a proven minister
• Titus 1:4-5, Titus was the senior overseer to appoint elders throughout the island of Crete. His proven faithfulness and calling allowed him to pioneer works in a hostile environment.

In 1 Peter 5:2, Peter exhorts the elders to "Shepherd the flock of God...not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you." A calling is necessary in a church plant to face the tough times because a hireling leaves when the wolf arrives. But a called shepherd stays with his flock through adversity (John 10:12ff.).

The Book of Acts lacks any reference to asking for volunteers. In Acts 11:22 the believers sent Barnabas. It was the congregation in Jerusalem that selected and sent one of its own gifted members. In all of the subsequent sending of missionaries in the Book of Acts, the emphasis is never upon an individual volunteering or upon his own subjective sense of call, but always upon the initiative of others.

Saul goes to Antioch because Barnabas takes him there (Acts 11:25-26). It is the whole group of prophets and teachers in Antioch to whom the Holy Spirit says "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them" (Acts 13:1-4). Barnabas and Paul parted company and we are told that Barnabas took Mark (Acts 15:39) and Paul chose Silas (Acts 15:40). Both "departed being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord." Subsequently Paul wanted Timothy to go with him (Acts 16:3). We are reminded that Timothy "was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium" (Acts 16:1-2) implying that the congregations were consulted and involved in his going out with Paul.

While western culture promotes and encourages the personal call and entrepreneurial spirit of the planter, the New Testament by contrast stresses the corporate initiatives of congregations in selecting suitable people for Gospel ministry. It cannot be justified from the New Testament and the best one can scrape up from the Old Testament is the call of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:8). The call of an Old Testament prophet should be not regarded as normative for a New Testament church missionary. The prophet was sent TO the people of God while the New Testament planter is sent BY the people of God.

When the church in Jerusalem heard of the need in Antioch, together as a congregation they expressed their sense of responsibility and they sent Barnabas (Acts 11:23, 14:22). We should select our best men (Acts 11:24) and send them. Instead of the initiative being left to the individual, churches should deliberately approach their best, most gifted Christian leaders to send them to places of greater need. The individual is still responsible to respond positively to the congregation's approach.

The individual's subjective sense of call is confirmed by the objective call of the church body, recognizing his gifts and qualifications. This reinforces the assurance of the Holy Spirit's call upon a man. Typically a man feels called and informs his church and the lead pastor terminates that man from employment rather than recognizing him as a man called and to be sent by that church.

The missionaries sent out from the New Testament churches were ministering in their local congregations already. We typically want to receive resumes when we should be examining the men in our own congregations. If no one in our congregation is qualified, it is a sad statement upon the leaders of that congregation for not preparing men to be sent into other fields. The chief work of church planting is the birthing, building and blossoming of congregations. Who will do this better than those who are already have considerable local church experience?

As members of the church, we should be going or training others to go at all times. This is an indication of a church with an enthusiastic and fruitful mission that is passionate about following the mission of Jesus.

Church planting is hard work with no easy solutions or shortcuts. The verse, "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" (2 Thes. 3:10) is especially true in church planting. A man must be disciplined, organized, courageous, dependable, patient, well read, hard working, discerning, a man who gets things done in an effective and timely manner, which also means that he's passionate and self-motivated.

The Bible calls a pastor an ox (1 Tim. 5:17-18), a soldier (2 Tim. 2:3-4), an athlete (2 Tim. 2:5) and a farmer (2 Tim. 2:6). Those are laborious jobs and the Holy Spirit used them to describe the kind of man who is qualified to pastor a church.

To plant a church that honors God a man must preach and teach the Bible with all of the strength and fortitude of an ox that can pull a multitude of people in his wake (1 Timothy 5:17-18). Satan routinely sends heretics, nut jobs, and false teachers of all kinds into a church plant because it's systems are yet fluid, its leadership is yet settled, and it's relationships are yet cultivated.

To plant a church that honors God a man must fight like a dependable soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2:3-4). Throughout his letters, Paul continually admonishes Timothy to fight a good fight. With the world, the flesh, and the devil conspiring to thwart the new work a church planter must continually fight. Weak men who are prone to avoid conflict or crumble under pressure will end up quitting prematurely.

To plant a church that honors God, a man must train and compete with the precision of a skilled athlete (2 Timothy 2:5). Lazy men who adore their comfort, food, and hobbies rarely plant an effective church because they end up wasting time, energy and creativity.

To plant a church that honors God a man must sweat at his labor like a farmer (2 Timothy 2:6). Many young men are attracted to ministry because, as one pastor said, it's an indoor job that does not require any heavy lifting. When done honorably, ministry in general and church planting in particular is extremely difficult work. Like the farmer who depends on the labor of his hands without a boss, a set schedule or a predictable paycheck, the planter must be self-disciplined, get up every morning and work hard gathering people, studying, teaching, raising money, locating facilities, building systems, training men and repeating that routine day after day.

If you don't like change, you don't like church planting! If you are the kind of person who goes into the fetal position with new challenges, you're probably not a church planter.

A church planter who won't provide for the needs of his family is worse than an unbeliever and has denied the faith (1 Tim. 5:8). Church planters often hide behind the cloak of "faith" and "calling" to shield them from taking responsibility with their family regarding finances. A church planter's own children need a father more than the city needs a new church. Money is not the key to success but a lack of money is a huge detriment. It is unbiblical to place our family on the altar of our idol of success.

This is one of the issues we call "stallers" and "stoppers" in our assessments. A church planter needs to be coachable, teachable. If he is not teachable, his church will stay stunted in its growth. He needs to identify areas where he has weaknesses and blind spots and then seek the advisement of those around him that can help him to continually grow and learn.

Conclusion
Mark Dever has said the local church, in all its glory, makes the audible gospel visible (A Display of God's Glory (9marks: Washington, D.C., 2001). The gospel is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Jesus Christ died and rose again and ascended - people do not see Him. The Church is His Body here on earth. The place where Jesus Christ is made visible is His Body, not just by one individual. When one meets a congregation that is "displaying God's glory" faithfully, one encounters Jesus in one sense. So planting a church is an exercise in making visible the audible gospel of the Blessed God.

What if I am called? What if I am not sure? What do I do?
"Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Tim 4:12-16).

For the complete document, click here.

If you ever want to feel like you have the intelligence of a NASCAR fan that just finished off a six-pack (I think it's a Red Neck law), then listen to D.A. Carson talk about, well, anything. Don is fluent in something like 7 languages and has written over 45 books. He is the esteemed Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago. For instance, Carson said in his talk to us, "To be a non-perspectivalist is to be omniscient." Nobody in the room was smart enough to argue with him over that.

Don spoke at a luncheon at Bethlehem Baptist Church (John Piper) on Friday September 26, 2008 just before the Desiring God Conference. I attended this lunch with about 40 other church leaders. Don spoke for an hour about five trends in the American church that are troubling to him.
 

Five Trends in the Church Today

By D A Carson, September 26, 2008

1. It is important to observe contradictory trends.

Interestingly, Don encouraged us to recognize the good things in our current culture. He said we have a lot more good commentaries available to us than we did fifty years ago. Yet, mainline churches have fewer conversions than ever before. This is a contradictory trend, according to Carson.

I understand this to mean that we know more and have access to more information, but it is not resulting in more conversions. We apparently know more about God, but less about His mission to seek and to save those who are lost. Our mainline churches are focusing on the minutia difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, for example, but are ignoring the call to both know God and to follow his sending us to our neighbor's house. There should be a constant tension between group Bible studies and sharing of one's faith. Otherwise we end up in a holy huddle somewhere arguing about non-essentials.

2. Current evangelical fragments are moving into a new phase -- into polarized "clumps."

Don said evangelicals are identifying themselves in clump-like expressions of evangelicalism (Health/Wealth clump, Openness clump, Arminian clump, etc.). Carson said the National Pastor's Conference (NPC) is as inclusive as possible -- some speakers are stellar while others are simply heretical -- but they include as many unique tribal representatives as possible.  "Even Reformed circles are clumping," said Carson, "and the center is emptying out in favor of vague, dilute evangelicalism."

Carson astutely said that old-time gospel would be around until Jesus comes while he believes (as Don humorously put it, "not as a prophet or the son of a prophet, but one who works for a non-profit") that in 25 years nobody will be calling themselves "emergent" but many will still be centralized in the gospel.

I wonder what will replace the center as the varied subcultures of evangelicalism move to the fringes. For orthodox confessionalists, the center is the perfect place for the gospel. We need pastors who call their people "back" to the inner city of the gospel without relenting to the flight to the suburbs of dilute evangelicalism, as Carson put it.

3. The most dangerous trends in any age are the trends that most people do not see.

Orthodoxy is always focused on the past but the new expressions of evangelicalism are the most dangerous. Carson recalled the once Christian colleges like Princeton and Yale that were led by pastor/theologians but became so big that they hired administrators who were not as discerning of current trends; only of past. A formally orthodox leader will head into trouble if he is not astute toward current trends in evangelicalism.

Carson made the case that 1920's liberalism is no longer the issue-even though some churches are still fighting that shadow. Today's issues like justification, inerrancy, primacy of family, gender roles, sexuality, pornography, modesty, race relations (very few race-integrated churches), tolerance, consumerism and human flourishing are the current issues at hand.

I think most church planters are men who grew tired of fighting for bygone issues in their churches while people are losing the wars against the current issues of today. In my opinion, mainline churches will continue to lose their best men who want to be warriors in a real war, not in the reenactments of the religious wars of the last forty years. As long as we continue to address these modernist battles, Satan and his demonic force will rule the ground in our churches with diversion tactics that consume our energy.

4. There is a trend in our churches to be consumed by social concern.

In the most intriguing point of his talk, Don said that the Gospel plus caring for the poor was an inseparable couplet. He cautioned that if the gospel was merely assumed (and not clearly articulated), our passion for social justice would overshadow the gospel. While we are not intentionally exalting social concern over the gospel, people learn what we are excited about (gospel over caring for the poor). Carson warned, "Our passion must first be the gospel and not assume it to be understood." He continued, "We must be careful to keep the gospel central and not turn our responses to the gospel as the main target."

Furthermore, Carson exhorted these Christian leaders to spend our time on prayer and the ministry of the Word and allow our people to begin and maintain efforts in social concern. He said we must distinguish between what the church as church must do and what the community of believers in the church must do (I did not personally see the difference but it seemed to suggest that the pastor was exempt from exemplifying an outpouring of the gospel into the community through social efforts).

Our calling, Carson said is to do good in the city (Jer. 29), because the person has an eternal destiny and we care for them. We are all poor beggars telling other poor beggars where they can find bread. Don concluded this section by warning us not to make the issues of gospel and social concern antithetical.

5. There is a trend in our churches to emphasize discipleship over the gospel.

Carson emphasized teaching the whole council of God centering on Christ crucified as the power of the gospel and salvation. If we see the gospel as what "saves" us and if we see discipleship as the actual place where real transformation takes place, it is not a biblical approach. Carson said this trend has a tendency to lead us to see discipleship as legalism; as what pleases God.

It is disturbing to me that some churches see discipleship as a formulaic course of study instead of a lifelong journey as a sinner saved by grace. Following Jesus is not accomplished by completing 8 classes in the basement of a church. It is a complete abandonment of our self in favor of the person, work and mission of Jesus.

We need to be aware of the current trends in the church today and pastor our church with an emphasis on the gospel. Anything less leads to narcissistic religion and away from Jesus.

The one qualification of a pastor found in the Bible that has an explanation is his responsibility with his family. If a man does not know how to shepherd his own house well, how can he take care of the house of God? (1 Timothy 3:5). A regular source of conflict in a pastor's home can be his children. A house of unruly children can take the joy out of serving Jesus and can create a wedge between the man and his once beautiful bride before she walked around the house with a stressful scowl on her face.

The Biblical Parenting Conference is a gift to the pastor's home. Take advantage of this opportunity to attend this conference.

Presenter: Tedd Tripp

Author of Shepherding a Child's Heart and Instructing a Child’s Heart

September 19th – 20th, 2008

Friday 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM

Saturday 8:30 AM - 1:00 PM

This event will be held at five Mars Hill Campuses simultaneously.

Sign up for the campus closest to you. Ballard has no more childcare available, and costs $35/couple or $25/single. Other campuses cost $25/couple or $15/single

Ballard (live)

Bellevue

Shoreline

Lake City

West Seattle

Everyone wants to be a great parent—the biggest responsibility of parenthood is teaching your children to love Jesus with all of their heart, soul, and strength. For parents with children of any age, Dr. Tripp's insightful, biblical teaching provides perspectives and procedures for shepherding your child's heart into the paths of life.

In writing Instructing A Child's Heart, Dr. Tripp drew on his 30+ years of experience as a pastor, counselor, school administrator, father and grandfather. Dr. Tripp is the pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Hazleton, PA.

Tedd says, "Parents tend to focus on the externals of behavior rather than the internal overflow of the heart. We tend to worry more about the "what" of behavior than the "why." Accordingly, most of us spend an enormous amount of energy in controlling and constraining behavior. To the degree and extent to which our focus is on behavior, we miss the heart."

The content will be identical at all campuses, with Pastor Ted Tripp teaching the following five sessions.

Friday Evening

6:30 p.m.- 7:00 p.m. Registration

7:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m. The Call to Formative Instruction- Deuteronomy 6

8:15 p.m.- 9:15 p.m. Giving Children a Vision for the Glory of God - Psalm 145

Saturday

9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Giving Children an Understanding of Authority - Ephesians 6

10:10 a.m.- 11:10 a.m. Giving Children an Understanding of the Heart- Proverbs 4:23

11:20 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. Overview of Corrective Discipline

Scott Thomas, Director of Acts 29, says, “Raising my children has been the delight of my life, especially as my wife and I agreed to follow the principles laid out in both Shepherding a Child’s Heart and Instructing a Child’s Heart. Our teenagers are living their lives consistent with the gospel.”

Check out the preview video of the teaching

Doing ministry in the new global cities is not an easy task. Sure, rural and suburban areas present their own unique challenges, but often it's the city leader who feels alone in the most influential centers of our world. You are called to stay: to reach non-traditional people and to connect with the new artistic and economic elite, most of whom care nothing for the church. You are faced with corruption in the local political system; you see decay around you every day. In the middle of this, you are called to actually make a dent for good in the larger social fabric... certainly no easy feat.

What does it mean to love your city? What does it mean to "reach" your city in truly transformational ways? If you're a minority leader, how do you navigate between the two worlds of your local tribe and the larger evangelical culture that you often feel torn between? How do you find resources - the leaders and money - to do what needs to be done? How can you plant a new church in an area where a church a day either dies because of its refusal to adapt or sells out in the name of relevancy? How do you preach truth in a culture that is increasingly resistant to it? How can you work for Shalom in a place rife with racial and socioeconomic division?

We're gathered some of the best teachers and leaders in these areas, men we consider to be good friends and mentors. Dr. Bryan Chapell, Matt Carter, Randy Nabors, Eric Mason, and Daniel Montgomery will show you what it looks like to preach the Gospel, lead change, work for justice, cultivate the arts and build missional churches all in an urban context. We've worked hard to make sure this is not a traditional conference experience where you leave with a book full of notes that you'll never look at again. With three breakout tracks geared towards church planting, the arts, and mercy ministries, the days will be filled with interactive discussion with other urban leaders with the evenings open for concerts and other immersion experiences.

If you are a city leader, pastor or church planter, join us on October 20th-22nd and make this investment in your own leadership and the other leaders on your team. After all, you've been called to offer hope. To repair the brokenness. To plant churches. To engage culture. To lead... in the church, for the city.

For more info, visit: LeadfortheCity.com

Mark Driscoll spent a week of speaking and preaching in the United Kingdom in July.  All the audio from his talks and other new audio are now available for download.  Complete list below:

Other Audio recently posted:

Am I a Church Planter? | Scott Thomas

The Way of the Cross - Part 1 | Daniel Montgomery

The Way of the Cross - Part 2 | Daniel Montgomery

Triperspectival Leadership | David Fairchild

Prophet, Priest, and King | David Fairchild

Church Tech | Drew Goodmanson

Mark's UK Tour:

Gospel of Grace vs. Religion of Works | Mark Driscoll

Preaching Jesus | Mark Driscoll

Driscoll Unleashed in the UK! | Mark Driscoll

The Missional Church | London 2008 | Mark Driscoll

Movements are Messy: Getting and Staying on Mission | Mark Driscoll

Spirit Led Missions: Following the Luke-Acts Paradigm | Mark Driscoll

Be Radical & Plant Radical Churches! | Church Planter  | Mark Driscoll

Be Radical & Plant Radical Churches! | Church Leadership | Mark Driscoll

Be Radical & Plant Radical Churches! | Final Thoughts and Q&A | Mark Driscoll

All of the London Audio, click here

I received the greatest letter this week from a seven-year-old boy along with 5 one-dollar bills. In his own handwriting he said,

“Dear Acts 29,

My name is Ravi [deleted last name for privacy].

I am 7 years old.

I want to help plant a church.

God Bless You,

Ravi”

This thrills me because of his heart for Jesus and His work through faithful church planters and those with child-like faith.

I don’t want to make this a gimmick, but for anyone who wants to match Ravi’s $5 donation to help plant a church, send $5 to

Acts 29 Network | Ravi Matching Fund

3524 NE 95th St | Seattle, WA | 98115

Can we receive a boy’s five loaves and two fish and feed five thousand? Any funds received will be sent to a church plant in Dallas, Georgia that is launching in September.

Thank you Ravi, for your gift and inspiration!

Mark Driscoll and I are heading to England this morning. Mark is speaking to NewFrontiers a group of 3,000+ pastors gathered together just south of London. Their leader, Terry Virgo (one of the largest churches in the UK) is a Calvinist charismatic. Mark will have a great influence on the UK as he speaks about The Ox, Religion vs. the Gospel, Movements are Messy, Spirit-led Missions, Male and Female and the Trinity, Death by Ministry, Planting Radical Churches and Leadership Lessons.

On Friday night, Mark is speaking in Central London at an event we arranged entitled, "Driscoll Unleashed on the UK." It is a free event at St James Church, Clerkenwell Close, London, EC1R 0EA  Worship will precede.

On Saturday, Mark, Steve Timmis and I will be speaking at a church planting conference that we arranged, Dwell London - Grace for the City. David Fairchild, our Acts 29 International European Representative will be accompanying Steve Timmis after spending a few days with Steve to discuss Radstock plans.

On Sunday Mark is speaking at two influential churches- Jubilee just north of London and in the evening at Church of Christ the King in Brighton where Terry Virgo and his son Joel (lead pastor) serve.

My friend, Adrian Warnock has a nice interview with Terry Virgo on his blogsite. Adrian has talked about Mark Driscoll and Terry Virgo in one blog. He had several great and unique interviews with our friend Ed Stetzer.

Here is what Terry said about Mark in Adrian’s blog, “I’ve been listening to Mark Driscoll over the last year or so, I guess. I’m deeply impressed with his biblical stance. I think he’s an unusually powerful preacher. He is also bitingly relevant to our generation and aware of the culture in which we live. I think he’s very unusual. He’s not only fighting for the truth in some sort of static way of just defining the doctrine. He reminds me of a kind of latter day Spurgeon. He’s very clear on doctrine. He’s very evangelistic, building a great church, it sounds, helping to plant churches in Acts 29—again like Spurgeon, who helped to get churches started all around London. You hear about people in Australia who were reading his sermons a week or so after he preached them in London as they printed them and sent them round the world. And now Driscoll’s been downloaded all over the world. He’s an unusual guy, very robust, like Spurgeon was, out of step somewhat, even with his group. But I love what I hear. I’ve yet to meet him, but I love what I hear.”

And we can’t wait to meet Terry!

Pray for us that men would join Jesus in His mission to plant churches in the UK.

Now, our friends at Crossway have outdone themselves with the forthcoming ESV Study Bible. There is not a Bible like it in the market today. I have seen a copy of one book of the Bible and it is like the iPhone of Bibles. I have already ordered 16 genuine leather copies to give away to our pastors in training and am looking forward to its October 15 publication date.

For a limited time, you can pre-order your ESV study Bible with a special website that will give you the best discount possible (35% off) and Crossway will donate 5% back to Acts 29 for ESVSB’s bought through the weblink below. We are investing this 5% directly into our Acts 29 Foundation Fund that helps urban church planters in low-income cities to plant churches.

You can make a difference in places like Philadelphia, Oakland, South LA, and South San Diego and get the best study Bible available in an accurate, word-for-word translation. But the offer is only good through July 31, 2008. Go to our special website and order your copy of a first edition ESV Study Bible. The second printing will not be available before Christmas. This deal does not apply to any other Crossway product.

Thanks to our partners at Crossway who share so many of their resources with church planting and thank you for investing in urban church planting by purchasing your ESV Study Bible through our website.

- Scott Thomas

from the Blog of Drew Goodmanson, co-founder of Kaleo Church (A29 church) in San Diego:

Be the Church

Total church is a way of thinking about church and mission in the 21st century which sees the local Christian community as integral to Christian living and Christian mission. The Christian life is 'total church' - our identity is communal.

Why Attend?

- Create a community centered on the gospel, equipped to do the work of the ministry.
- Make your community a community of church planters.
- See what it means to be the church on mission through ordinary life with gospel intentionality.
- Dialog with missional church leaders from across the world.
- Learn from seasoned practitioners how to form missional communities and transition traditional churches toward mission.
- Did we mention its in San Diego?

Dates: August 12-14, 2008

Location: San Diego, CA

Main Sesssion Speakers: Steve Timmis and Tim Chester are the authors of Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community (Crossway). They lead The Crowded House, a family of church planting networks that started in Sheffield, England. They have also started The Porterbrook Network to train people for mission and church planting in the context of ministry.

Break-out Sessions will be led by church planters/practitioners from The Crowded House, Kaleo Church, Soma Community & Providence Community.  Break-out sessions will be added but will include:

Stay-tuned as more break-out sessions are added.  There will be several tracks for people being introduced to a missional mindset all the way to those who have formed missional communities to learn from others around the world leading missional movements.

REGISTER EARLY BENEFITS!

1 Timothy 4:16: "Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers."

My friend C.J. Mahaney led off the Dwell Conference to cleanse the room of sin, pride, self-sufficiency and spiritual arrogance-all things C. J. admits he has struggled over his many years of ministry. When he finished, I told him it was perfectly executed. (Listen to the audio here)

The Apostle Paul spoke to Timothy in a fatherly fashion in 1 Timothy 4:6 and he summarized it with an exhortation to persistently watch his life and doctrine because it had great ramifications on his soul and the souls of others.

C.J. had three main points.
1.    Watch Your Life...
2.    Because the War Within Never Ends...
3.    And We Cannot Watch Ourselves by Ourselves

Watch Your Life
C.J. said it is easier to study Scripture than it is to study our own life. Yet, this godly character is mandatory to teach and pastor. CH Spurgeon said, "Our character must be more persuasive than our speech." Sound doctrine, while extremely important, is not sufficient by itself without a messenger who preaches and practices that truth.

Because the War Within Never Ends
If we don't watch our own lives, we will weaken. It must be a priority of a pastor's life to persistently enter into battle for the purity of our souls. The minute we fail to go to battle, we will find ourselves like King David, peering over at the beautiful Bathsheba and succumbing.

And We Cannot Watch Ourselves by Ourselves
We need others to watch our lives and be invited to speak into our lives when they observe us walking contrary to the gospel we preach. We must ask our wife how we can more effectively shepherd her and the children. We must specifically and consistently confess our sins in a way that puts to death the sins that we struggle.

Conclusion
After serving as a pastor for 28 years, I can say that the struggles men have in advancing the gospel are found in this highly concentrated verse that C.J. highlighted for us. We must persistently watch our lives for character flaws. We must persistently fight the war within and we must persistently seek out those who can detect the subtle (or not so subtle) sins in our life. As C.J. admonished, we need some friends, family and co-workers who are not afraid to tell us when there is some cream cheese on our face. We are not fit to pastor if we do not persist in these things. The battle against God's man is strong and relentless. Your life and the lives of those you minister need you to persist in the power of God.

Follow-Up Questions:

1.    Godly character is unquestionably the preeminent qualification for a pastor or church planter, although its cultivation is usually more difficult than learning doctrine, setting strategy, etc. How does a pastor identify and put to death his sinful desires, motives, and patterns?

2.    What are the Scripture's clear teaching on the deceptiveness of sin and our need for others in the process of sanctification (Heb. 3:12-13; 10:24-25; James 5:16)?  What practices in our life reflect that conviction?  What concrete steps can a pastor take to involve others in his pursuit of godliness, making them aware of temptations, and inviting their observations?

C.J. Mahaney leads Sovereign Grace Ministries in its mission to establish and support local churches. After 27 years of pastoring Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, C.J. handed the senior pastor role to Joshua Harris, allowing C.J. to devote his full attention to Sovereign Grace. C.J.'s books include Humility: True Greatness; Living the Cross-Centered Life; and Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know. C.J. and his wife, Carolyn, have three married daughters and one son. They make their home in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The Dwell Conference is going to London July 12.

Sign Up Today. £20.00

All Audio from the NYC Dwell Conference can be found here.

Thank you, Nathan Troester, Video Production Lead at Redeemer, for these amazing pictures.

The inaugural Dwell Conference in New York City this past April was a sold-out urban church-planting conference attended by men from 12 different countries. The largest contingency was from the UK.  So, we are heading to London in July for a one-day conference with Mark Driscoll, founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Steve Timmis, founder of The Crowded House and the Porterbrook Network in Sheffield England and Scott Thomas, Director of Acts 29 Church Planting Network and the Mars Hill Church Leadership Center.

Church Planting is not about a method that is only practical in a specific place and time. It is a passion for the gospel of Jesus and rooted in the Scriptures that tell the story of His redeeming grace.

JOIN US TO GET EQUIPPED AND MOTIVATED FOR A CHURCH PLANTING STRATEGY THAT SPRINGS 
FROM A PASSION FOR THE GOSPEL OF GRACE, NOT FROM MECHANICAL METHODS.

Saturday, 12, July 2008    â€¨9:30 am - 4:45 pm

Session 1:    Gospel of Grace vs Religion of Works - Mark Driscoll
Session 2:    The Church Planter as a Minister of Grace - Steve Timmis
Session 3
:    Am I a Church Planter? - Scott Thomas
Session 4:    Planting Communities of Grace - Steve Timmis
Session 5:    Preaching Jesus - Mark Driscoll

Only £20.00 Book Here Today

Conference Website

CONFERENCE SPONSORS:

Acts 29 Network is a network of pastors from the United States and the world whose dream is to help qualified leaders called by God plant new churches and replant declining churches.

The Porterbrook Network is a developing initiative aimed at contributing to a wider church planting movement by equipping individuals and churches to rediscover mission as their DNA through training, resourcing and consultancy.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit (and a few Dr. Peppers), he spoke of seeing God's grace in the work of the church and it was an amazingly refreshing message to hear. It is so easy to focus on the sin in our lives and the lives of our people that we forget to thank and praise God for the work He is doing through His amazing grace.

We appreciated greatly C.J.'s willingness to speak and share his heart but most of all praise God for ‘the grace given in Christ Jesus'.

Listen to C.J.'s message here.

At the recent Dwell Conference in NYC, we were able to put a brand new book into the hands of 300 church leaders.  Compelled by Love, subtitled The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living is the new book by our friend Ed Stetzer and Acts 29 church planter Philip Nation.  As we expected from Ed and Philip, it is funny, conversational, and has solid biblical content.  It begins with God’s nature, gives an overview of the church’s mission, and then addresses the heart of the individual believer.  And all of it seeks to push missional from just a church paradigm to a fleshed out Gospel-driven life.

All of us in the ranks of pastors, elders, and planters have a fairly good handle on what it means to be missional.  Most of us hope that the average person attending our church does as well.  But sometimes they just do not seem to get it. Ed and Philip wrote this book to help bridge the gap for your people.  It is an easy read and can be used as a group study as well; even if you are in the core group stage.

We thank New Hope Publishers for providing the books free of charge to the first 300 registrants at the conference. We also thank Ed and Philip for providing the church with this resource that emphasizes the love of Christ as the source of passion for His mission.

On Saturday, Grace and I, along with my parents, were in Portland. By God's grace, the help of Dr. Gerry Breshears, and the flexibility of Western Seminary, I graduated with an MA in Exegetical Theology. I hope to go on in the future to work on a PhD, but likely after my kids get a bit older. On Sunday, I preached at Mars Hill Church. On Monday, Grace and I caught an early flight to New York to participate in the Dwell Conference for urban church planters, sponsored by the Acts 29 Church Planting Network and the Redeemer Church Planting Network. I had the honor of speaking along with Tim Keller, C. J. Mahaney, Ed Stetzer, Eric Mason, and Darrin Patrick. When the conference sessions are posted online, we'll let you know in case you want to catch any of them.

I was scheduled to have dinner with Keller and some other pastors on Monday night, but our flight was delayed a few hours. There was an enormously long line for cabs, so we found a bootleg Town Car driver who was willing to rush us into the city in a harrowing drive that felt more like a carnival ride than a commute. We pulled into the small Italian restaurant with luggage in hand just in time to enjoy the company of Keller and some great pastors who are dear friends with wonderful wives.

The conference went very well and in my opinion was a gathering of pastors who are reformed by conviction and missional by contextualization. It seems to me that this tribe is growing as more and more young pastors in general, and church planters in particular, want to be both faithful to the text of Scripture and fruitful in the context of culture. Sadly, there are some more fundamental and sectarian reformed folks who are resistant to the idea that a church should adapt its practice (though not doctrine) to best fit its cultural context. Yet, I do believe that, with love and patience, more bridges of understanding and partnership are being built, which only benefits the cause of Jesus, especially through church planting. 


One thing that reinforced this fact was the surge of interest we saw for the Dwell Conference. We had a difficult time finding a large enough facility to house us in New York, and the four hundred seats we had sold out very quickly and the room was packed out for all sessions. Furthermore, the international presence at the event was encouraging. I spent considerable time speaking with movement leaders from England, Australia, Germany, and India. Thanks to the Internet, missional ministries are connecting and networking with great collegiality. I am looking forward to a week of preaching this July with the Newfrontiers network and really enjoyed getting some time in New York with some of their pastors, including Joel Virgo. I also met a number of great pastors from Australia and look forward to seeing their country when I am there preaching in August. God is raising up young, reformed, missional church planters with deep affection for major cities all around the world and it is humbling and exciting to be involved. 


In Philadelphia we are meeting with some of the church planters from the Acts 29 Church Planting Network and are connecting with our friends at the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, who have been incredibly helpful in training the leaders at Mars Hill Church in biblical counseling.

It's been a busy but fruitful week. I am learning a lot that will help us continue to improve Mars Hill Church and I look forward to huddling with the Executive Elders when I get back. In the meantime, it's been great traveling with Grace. Most of the time I travel with a male assistant, so having my lovely wife sitting next to me is much, much, much, much, much, much better. So, I'll stop typing now and hang out with her some more . . .

"You may be raising up your own assassin." Acts 20:30 tells us that wolves will arise from your own number. Patrick spoke of how it is crucial to understand the gospel and have it identifying you so as to be better able to warn off wolves and lead your self and others.

This session is a great encouragement and learning tool for church planters and pastors seeking to guard and grow their flock by growing in their own leadership ability and the leaders around them.

Listen to this session: Developing and Equipping Leaders.

At the recent Raleigh Regional Event, Tyler spoke from 1 Kings 18-19 about placing God at the centre of a church plant.

In 1 Kings 18 Elisha calls on God and he answers and comes down in a great fire. The response of the people watching this great event was not to bow down and worship Elisha but to cry ‘The Lord -He is God!' How often is it the case that when God works powerfully in the world we praise men instead of the one from whom all good things come.

Tyler unpacked this issue with specific focus on leading a church. He posed a number of probing questions:

Not delegating can be and often is disguised arrogance. Church planting is hard and tiresome work and Tyler recounted that it was not drugs he needs but Jesus.

Sharing some startling statistics about pastors' non-vocation bible reading tendencies and a bunch of stories, Tyler generously shared from his own experiences, both positive and negative, of planting a church.

Listen to the full audio here:

Acts 29 Regional events exist to:

Find all other regional events and other multimedia here. 

"Your church is going to [suffer] if you do not have strong men."

Bradley speaks honestly from his own experience as a high school teacher, college professor and now a seminary professor and provides a great amount of practical advice on how we can love, lead, and enliven men to God's great and radical mission.

Listen to the audio here.

By Pastor Scott Thomas
Director of Acts 29 Network
Executive Elder of Mars Hill Church

A church planter is a uniquely gifted pastor with a passion to proclaim the gospel to those who are unchurched with the goal of establishing a new community of believers on mission in their community for the glory of God.

But just because a man is called to plant does not mean it is easy to do without some help from those who are actively involved in birthing new churches. Acts 29 and Mars Hill Church want to humbly offer to help.

We are launching a Pastor Training Center to help equip potential church planters. The vision is to prepare men to effectively pastor new gospel-centered works through the Acts 29 Network.

Our valued outcome at the end of 12 months is to prepare men who 1) clearly articulate a gospel-centered theology, 2) shepherd well in the complexities of the church, 3) are competent in many practical skills and 4) are above reproach in personal and family life.

The training being used for the PTP is personalized for every man and can be applied for seminary credit. The goal is transformation, not just information. Each of the components will serve the participant as he prepares to plant a church. The work will be very practical and integrated into his personal church-planting prospectus.

Two Options
A participant can either stay in his community where he will plant the church and travel to the training events (expenses paid) or he can move to Seattle area and participate intimately with the area Acts 29 churches and with Mars Hill Church while he is training (stipend to assist).

Qualifiers
If you desire to apply for this program you must be able to attend training intensives on the following dates in Seattle (there will be funding for travel and training if accepted into this program):

July 25-28, 2008
Sept. 19-22, 2008
Nov. 7-10, 2008
Jan. 16-19, 2009
March, 6-9, 2009
April 21-24, 2009*
May, 22-24, 2009 (w/ wives)

Elective Date for personal interaction

*Training in Chicago in conjunction with Gospel Coalition

To diagnose your readiness to apply by the April 30th deadline, you must answer yes to the following questions:

Pastor Gary Shavey (PhD student) and I are facilitating this training that will integrate several Mars Hill Pastors as well as consultation and participation with Dr. Gerry Breshears, Dr. Bob Logan, Dr. J. Allen Thompson and Mark Driscoll. We are in collaboration on our materials with Redeemer Church Planting Center, Global Church Advancement (GCA), Glocalnet, Radstock, Dr Ed Stetzer and our Acts 29 member churches.

The deadline for this program is April 30 and we have limited number of spots remaining _ apply here.

Additionally, other Acts 29 churches are launching these types of training centers. If interested, contact them directly. Soma in Tacoma WA, Kaleo in San Diego, Journey in St Louis, Crosspointe in Orlando, and The Village in Dallas.

Missional is quickly becoming, if it has not already become, a buzz term in many Christian circles. The concept of mission(al) that is now so well publicized has roots from 1983 explains Stetzer.

‘The church is a mess but it is the bride of Christ - The church is God's instrument to reach the world'. Stetzer spends most of his time dealing with issues surrounding the concept of being missional and how it is to be supported biblically and concludes with a brief discussion about syncretism and obscurantism (or sectarianism).

How we deal with a quickly changing culture will define the evangelical world for years to come. In this session, Stetzer gives his views on the current state of Christianity and the need for missiology to be understood and implemented.  Check out the full audio here.

Part 4 - This fourth clip is made up of two questions: how do you balance bringing culture in and blocking it out of your house and what are some guidelines about spending time outside your home?

In the final question, Mark was asked: Where has your wife come alive in your planting, especially considering the messiness of ministry? Part 5

Mark again spoke honestly and forthrightly from his own life. Full time ministry is a difficult and stressful role and it is so important that a marriage and the home are a place of rest and refuge. Mark explains in this clip that a husband and a wife both need to have a lightening rod and a release valve.

In this audio from the Raleigh, NC regional event Daniel Montgomery, lead pastor of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY, presents "The Gospel and Urban Culture" addressing what is involved in creating a holistic mission in our church and our lives personally.

Since we started doing multi-site we have been asked innumerable questions from Christian leaders either curious about trying multi-site, or already doing it and seeking to network with others to learn in community. In response to this kind of growing interest, Leadership Network is hosting a conference dedicated to multi-site. Anyone interested in joining us at the conference should visit http://www.multisiteexposed.com./.

The conference will be on Monday and Tuesday, April 14 and 15, at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

Pastors John Bishop, Dave Browing, and myself will be available live to answer questions and serve you as best we can with this growing trend. My friends at Leadership Network, who have been helping us learn since our church started, have said in books such as The Multi-Site Church Revolution that:

The good news is that each of our churches does multi-site differently, which will expose those who attend the webinar and/or conference to multiple models and help them decide what is best for their cultural context, rather than simply promoting one method. Research by Leadership Network shows no less than five types of multi-site churches in America today:

Lastly, members of the three churches’ leadership teams will be on hand at the conference to teach breakout sessions and connect with folks who want to learn about specific aspects of multi-site ministry. In short, our hope is it to make this a practical time for ministry leaders and ministry teams to save themselves a lot of the mistakes and troubles we have experienced in improving how we do multi-site at our various churches. We would love to have you join us so that we can help serve you and learn from you as together we explore one of the leading-edge innovations in church ministry.

Church planters often speak about casting a compelling vision as the main tool by which we lead the mission. While casting vision is important, Patrick instead took us to Paul's books to Timothy and drew out seven principles by which to lead the mission. We lead the mission by: 

1.  Understanding the gospel
2.  Being qualified as an elder
3.  Being coached and mentored
4.  Sacrificing and Suffering
5.  Humbly controlling heresy
6.  Personally being on mission
7.  Using the gospel on yourself

Patrick constantly focused on humility and teachability of the planter and his message was filled with practical tips to lead with strength, devotion and faithfulness. His encouragement to cling to the cross was a refreshing reminder of the goodness of the God who has called church planters to such a calling.

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus - 2 Timothy  2:1

To hear the whole session and download the notes, click here.

Giving a few warnings about guarding and protecting wives, Driscoll encouraged planters to be careful and wise in the way you balance keeping your children safe and having an open and hospitable home.

Part 3 - The question was ask of Mark, "How do you love and train your children well?"

With a reminder about the fact that children don't blog, Driscoll shared about how his children are a great gift to a pastor and his wife. In this 10-minute answer, he shares very frankly about how he structures his days, separates his office and study, has structured and repeated family times and how he "plans" to deal with the high school boys who want to date his daughters.

First, Vintage Jesus, the book I wrote with my dear friend Dr. Gerry Breshears, was released by my friends at Crossway. The pre-sales alone far exceeded our expectations and we are very excited about the book. We are also grateful to those people who have helped us get the word out.

Second, last week the Text and Context conference was held at the Ballard campus of Mars Hill Church in conjunction with TheResurgence.com. The attendance was over the 1,300-seat capacity of the building so sadly we had to turn away many people who wanted to join us. In all sincerity, it was some of the most helpful teaching I have ever seen and everyone who spoke did a phenomenal job. That includes John Piper, C. J. Mahaney, James Gilmore, and Matt Chandler, plus sessions from the concurrent boot camp for the Acts 29 Church Planting Network by Darrin Patrick and Jeff Vanderstelt. It was an honor to welcome Christian leaders from 46 states and 11 nations. The highlights for me included a session on interpreting culture by James Gilmore, how pastoral ministry influences pulpit ministry by John Piper, and C. J. Mahaney’s message on seeing evidences of God’s grace in our church, which devastated me and is one every Christian leader needs to hear. The staff at TheResurgence.com is working hard to get all of the sessions online for free in audio and video as soon as possible and when they’re all up I will let you know.

At the conference I also had the honor of spending some personal time with John Piper and C. J. Mahaney. They were kind enough to give me some very helpful pastoral counsel that I am grateful for so that I can mature in my service of Jesus and the people I pastor alongside the other elders at Mars Hill Church. Lastly, we set up a video studio and got interviews with Reach Records hip hop artist Lecrae, John Piper, James Gilmore, Matt Chandler, and Eric Mason (of Epiphany Fellowship in Philly). Those interviews were great and will also be given away online at TheResurgence.com.

Third, I got a call from Pastor Rick Warren last week. He called simply to see if there was anything he could do to help. His kindness was humbling and helpful. I asked him how he handled his critics and he had a great insight that in our day criticism has changed. He explained that there was a day when a critic would have to sit down and write a letter and then mail it into a newspaper. With limited space, the paper would then be able to only print a fraction of the letters they received. The printed letters were often not read and quickly became dated. However, Warren said, in our day criticism is marked by the following four factors:

Warren then went on to explain that, as Jesus experienced, the strongest criticism for any Christian leader comes from rigid religious people. When I asked him what someone should do when facing criticism, he gave the following insightful points:

I want to publicly thank Warren for giving me some good advice and taking time out of his busy schedule to speak into my life and ministry. I also pass his wisdom along to other Christian leaders.Fourth, on Thursday of this week I have the privilege of opening the Washington State legislature in prayer and then meeting with some political leaders who love Jesus and want to meet and chat, which will be a great honor.

Lately the pace of work has been great but so has the encouragement and wise counsel from godly Christian leaders who have been gracious enough to pour into my life, which is very welcome and helpful.