Tim Keller, senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City, states that we need new churches to reach: new generations new residents new people groups From own experience planting a new church in San Diego (shout out to LifePoint!), I've found that new churches are extremely effective at doing just what Keller describes. As a church grows older, it needs to be planting new churches to reach new people. This keeps the existing church feeling younger while recognizing that new churches are better equipped to reach new people.
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Yesterday I had the privilege of preaching at Elevation Christian Church in Aurora. On the previous weekend, they celebrated their one-year anniversary as a church. Scott Bloyer, Ryan Duncan, and the rest of the team have done a great job of launching a healthy church. Elevation has grown from just a handful of people to nearly 200 in just one year. But that only tells part of the story. Most importantly, lives have been reclaimed for God and people are finding their way back to Him. Over 60 people have been baptized in twelve months. For me, I enjoyed the time in between services. I would ask people how long they had been at Elevation and answers ranged "from day one" to "just last week." Then they would tell me their stories. I left Elevation further convinced that church planting is the best way to expand the Kingdom of God.…
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The Exponential Conference is coming up in a few days (April 26-29) in Orlando, Florida. It's one of the largest gatherings of church planters and church planting networks in the country. I had the privilege of attending when I planted our church in San Diego, working with Stadia: New Church Strategies. Exponential is a great conference for connecting, learning, and dreaming. I remember being surrounded by men and women who had either taken the plunge like me or who wanted to. It's hard to describe the feeling of being in such a great cloud of witnesses. Networking alone was worth the price of admission. Being able to sit in seminars with guys who were doing what you wanted to be doing made the experience priceless. I will be praying next week for those who gather in Orlando. Each current and future church plant holds the potential to change entire communities. …
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The "official" (not that there is an unofficial) website of Church Planters of the Rockies is up and live. I was commissioned to design the site and did a soft launch back in January. In putting it together, I had the following goals: Presenting CPR in a modern and professional way Serving as a conduit of information between partner churches and church planters Recruiting potential church planters Raising awareness of church planting in general Providing resources to new and existing churches For the nerds out there, the site was designed using Joomla 1.5, my bread-and-butter content management system for the last ten years or so (back when it was first Mambo). I had narrowed it down to Joomla or WordPress, but in the end felt that WordPress was a little limited. As a CMS, WordPress has come a long way but still has a few liabilities in terms of being…
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I just read a great article entitled, "What Makes a Great Entrepreneur?" over at Venture Beat. As I usually do, I read business articles through my pastoral lenses. In other words, substitute "church planter" for "entrepreneur" and see what I mean. Here are the highlights: Guts. The entrepreneur world is not for the timid. You have to have the guts to pull the trigger, to quit whatever you’re doing and to jump into the abyss (and believe me, this is easier said than done). Most people just talk; few execute. Guts is quitting Harvard, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg did. (Picture that phone call to their parents: “Hey Mom, Hey Dad, I have some good news, I’m quitting Harvard…”) Desire. How badly do you want success? How much are you willing to sacrifice? Great entrepreneurs make their venture the number one priority in their life; in short, they become…
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