More Places to Read My Stuff!

“I think Austin might just be the US city furthest along the missional road.” Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways

If my rantings about TV, Church and growing up aren’t enough for you, don’t worry, there’s other places to find me on the web.

I’ve been given the privilege of helping out the guys over at PlantR.  PlantR is an Austin-Area church planting network, made up of great guys risking everything to create new missional communities.  On the blog, you’ll hear about opportunities to live missionally and show Christ’s love to Austin.

Check out the blog at www.plantr.org, or follow on Twitter @austinplantr.  Keep your eyes peeled for the first ever PlantR podcast later this month.

Tags: Austin, church planting, plantr

Three Inspiring Church Planting Stories (And Two Big Questions)

This past month I read three church planting books.  One of my goals in life is to be involved in planting new churches that reach those who established churches cannot.

Launch by Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas tells the story of the launch of Journey Church of the City in New York.  The book is short, sweet, and aims at being intensely practical.  Searcy comes out of the Purpose Driven world and unashamedly presents a Saddleback-esque style of planting.  It’s all about launching big, or gathering a crowd for Sunday services.  The book gives step by step instructions on everything from finding a meeting place to raising funds.

Exponential is written by Dave and Jon Ferguson, the two brothers who lead Chicago’s Community Christian Church and the New Thing Network.  Two things stand out: 1) They say “anyone can do it!” again and again, and leave you excited about what God can do through you and your friends. 2) It describes the culture of apprenticeship that has allowed CCC to explode into a multi-site and church planting movement.  Every single position within the church is backed up with an apprentice, ready to take the reins at a moments notice.  This is necessary for any church interested in sending out people to plant new churches.

Church in the Making by Ben Arment is a totally different animal.  I often found myself cheering and turning the pages as quickly as I could.  He plays up his own failures and brags about other’s successes. Arment’s goal is to help Church planters really be prepared and understand what makes a church plant succeed.  What I found most important was his deep emphasis on cultivation of relationships before launch.  This encourages me that the time and relationships I am building now can have eternal significance.

As much as I enjoyed all three books, I find myself asking two questions:

1) Could there a simpler way? The financial and leadership burdens needed to plant churches as these books present does not seem reproducible.

2) Who will it really reach? Often, new churches just shift Christians away from existing churches.  When I look at my friends and neighbors, many of who are cynical dechurched types or frankly just don’t care about spirituality, I’m not sure they’d get up on Sunday morning to check it out.

Tags: Ben Arment, Church in the Making, church planting, Dave Ferguson, Exponential, Jon Ferguson, Kerrick Thomas, Launch, Nelson Searcy

Should You Kill Your Church?

Hundreds of churches will be closing there doors this year. I’m not about to call this a good thing, but it is inevitable. The fact is that no big news is coming out of the Jerusalem Church these days, or Corinth or Laodicea.

We like to talk about churches as “bodies” or “plants,” but we forget that all life dies. Some churches die in explosions of controversy. Others fizzle down to a few gray hairs paying exorbitant bills.

Perhaps today we should also talk about churches as stories. Essential elements of stories include Setting, Characters, Conflict, and most importantly the plot–beginning, middle and end.

Leaders could cast a vision the churches whole story: How did your church begin? What God has done through it in the past? What would it look like for the church to end well?

Great stories require great endings. A church might reinvent itself to by handing over the reins to a new generation, or selling the property and giving the money desperate church planters.

A church’s death could actually be the most powerful thing it does for the kingdom.

How do you want things to end?

Tags: Church, church planting, Missional

Verge Thoughts (Day 1)

It’s conference time here in Austin.  About 2,000 people from all over descended on Hill Country Bible Church to learn about “Missional Communities.”

The most exciting thing about Verge to me is that it’s happening at all.  A weird combination of house Church gurus, megachurch leaders and everything in between, trying to sort out what an Acts style church looks like in the 21st Century.  Francis Chan jokingly referred to his way of following Christ as “regurgitation,” reading the book of Acts, and spitting it back out in life.

It’s also really exciting that it’s happening in Austin.  Austin, known for music, decadence, and pagan revelry is becoming a model for a variety of churches learning to work together on planting and justice.

It’ll be a good weekend.

Tags: church planting, Missional, Verge

A Church For Strippers

According to Vince Antonucci, only about 2.2 percent of churches grow by conversion growth.  So your big, comfy megachurch, your cozy little house church or you nice traditional denominational church are either shrinking, or stealing people from other Churches.

In his hilarious I Became A Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt,  Vince tells how he came to Christ in college, having never met a single Christian in his life.  This led him to plant Forefront in Virginia beach, where they have grown a dynamic church, almost totally from non-believers.  Recently, Vince got the crazy idea to move to the Las Vegas strip and do it again.

Verve has an incredible vision and proven experienced leadership.  They have spent the better part of a year researching and reaching out in Vegas, which has led them to lease a property right off the strip, which will be home to a non-profit they’re launching, church services and more.  On Wednesday, Vince announced this on his site:

Shepherd of the Hills church let me know that they will match any donations given in December to our Verve Venture Capitalists campaign!! We are trying to raise $50,000 for the build-out costs of getting the warehouse turned into a space where we can do church services (and more). Our hope has been to have 500 people give $100 each, all in 100 days.

So far we’re about half way there, but with only 29 days left. So Shepherd of the Hills said to help us reach our goal, they will match your donations given in December, all the way up to $25,000! So, if you can PLEASE give, you can know that your gift will be doubled!! You can learn more, and give online, at www.verveventure.org.

Imagine the impact you could have by helping out this phenomenal ministry!  There’s only a few days left for the matching gifts, and only only a few left for those who need to give in 2009.  Please prayerfully consider how you can help the strippers.

Tags: Church, church planting, I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Strip, Vince Antonucci