If the Lord shows you that you are to make the transition from legacy to a network of simple/organic churches, there are a number of obstacles to overcome. (This post assumes you are in a position of church leadership.) Many people in your church do not share your vision for the transition. It’s not what… Read More
Tag: church planting
Simple things multiply; complex things are much harder to reproduce. Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks (Creative Commons) One of my favorite quotes from a Filipino church planter is this: Never do anything in church that a one week old Christian would be unable to duplicate. Only model what you want to see reproduced and what will lead… Read More
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Multiplication tools: the story
Ying Kai in the book, T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution, shares how he taught a group of 30 impoverished farmers how to tell their stories, and then encouraged them to share their stories with at least 5 people during the coming week. The next week they shared reports of what had gone on. Eleven people had shared… Read More
Photo credit: Gravitywave (Creative Commons) Over the past few months, we have had several people from a more traditional church background and who are in the process of leaving for the mission field visit the church that meets in our home. The exchange has been valuable. Our “Jesus family” has rubbed shoulders with people sold out… Read More
"The dirty little secret of missions is that we are sending missionaries all over the world who have not demonstrate the ability to make disciples who can make disciples. Most have not seen or participated in effective models of church-planting or discipleship at home, but we send them out in the hope that going cross-culturally… Read More
John King trains church planters in the use of inductive Bible studies called Discovery Bible Studies. This is proving to be an extremely effective church planting tool in many different cultures. I read his blog regularly. The first part of this post, the story about how a group trained in this pattern has been able… Read More
John King trains indigenous church planters to teach others to do simple inductive Bible studies. This approach has been used throughout sub-Saharan Africa and has contributed to the planting of thousands of new churches there. His blog can be found at: http://johnkking.wordpress.com/ I asked John to write this guest post to help people to understand Discovery… Read More
For those of you who are not aware of the extraordinary story of Jose and his mother, Rosaura, you can read it here. Jose has been in hospital for two weeks now and he and Rosaura miss church–so last night we took church to them. It was a precious time. We ate and shared and… Read More
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Unlikely candidates?
Jesus chose the most unlikely candidates to promote his message. Photo credit: More Good Foundation (Creative Commons) Think of the woman at the well in John 4. She is certainly a person of reputation–five husbands, and now living with yet another man–worthy of a modern soap opera. She has other factors working against her too.… Read More
In Luke 10, Jesus tells his disciples to find a person of peace (verse 5) and to bless their oikos (home, or circle of influence). What is a person of peace? A person of peace is someone who has reputation (good or bad), influence, and is open to receive us. We can recognize them because… Read More