We have had the privilege of spending time with the leaders of several church planting movements over the years. (A church planting movement occurs when there is rapid and spontaneous multiplication of churches, comprised mainly of new believers). We always ask them what principles are behind the growth that they see. They usually point to… Read More
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Passing it on
When you talk to people who are seeing a church planting movement, they all talk about the importance of people passing on what they are learning. Neil Cole says in a recent blog post at http://bit.ly/asqEgw that every church he has started has begun because people become Christians going through the 7 signs of John.… Read More
David Garrison, in his book "Church Planting Movements" (which I thoroughly recommend) talks about the deadly sins of church planting. One of these is sequentialism. So what is this, and why is it so "deadly"? Sequentialism is the idea that things have to be done in order. First we do this, then we do that.… Read More
In the last post I looked at what it means for us to be citizens of a kingdom. We are there to serve the King and do his bidding. But we serve a loving and merciful King! Recently I did an extensive study through the NT to see what the good news of the Kingdom… Read More
Continuing thoughts on the Gospel of the Kingdom: We are blessed to live in a democracy — or to be more specific, here in the States, a constitutional republic. It is "government of the people by the people and for the people" (Abraham Lincoln). The people have the power. As society changes, so do… Read More
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The Santa Claus Gospel
This is a continuation of the series, "Ways to see more harvest." Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom. What do we preach? I often think that we preach a Santa Claus gospel. We portray God to those who don't yet know him as some kind of divine genie who is there to give us… Read More
A couple of posts ago, I talked about the power of story telling and of listening to others' stories. Dan Hubbell emailed me with this wonderful example from one of his trips. Enjoy it! But also learn from it. When we were in China on one of our early missions about seven years ago, we were equipping… Read More
What makes a ripe harvest field? Many of us are living in comfortable suburban homes, and we assume that our neighborhoods will make a great harvest field. But we may be trying to reap a harvest in the wrong places. Jesus gave some indication of what makes a ripe harvest. For example, he said: "The… Read More
A couple of the core competencies that I mentioned in the last post have provoked some comment. So this post will look at the first of these: telling stories. One of my favorite quotes comes from Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich. When asked whether he would change society by revolution or reformation, he answered, "Neither of… Read More
I am no fisherman (in the natural, that is)! On the few occasions when I have tried fishing, I have never caught anything. In fact, I vividly remember one occasion when Tony and I were taken fishing by some friends on a shrimping boat in Canada. It was a spectacular setting, mountains in the background,… Read More