RENEW South Florida

Gospel Astonishment

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:42:59 +0000

Scotty Smith, Founding Pastor
Christ Community Church (Nashville)

“There is no commitment we will make as church planters of greater importance than living close to Jesus. For church planting can become an idol factory; a prostitution ring; a cruel taskmaster; a breeding ground for addictions… we need church planters who will love Jesus with abandon, and who cultivate a lifestyle of growing in His grace and knowledge. Until you know yourself to be slow of heart to believe the gospel, you will never cultivate a burning heart for the gospel. Churches planted with the DNA of the gospel will be led by those who live a life of gospel astonishment.”

How to Become a Church-Planting Church

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:42:13 +0000

Jonathan McIntosh, Lead Pastor
Christ City Church (Memphis)

Next month, I get to work with a growing church to help them develop a program for church-planting interns – with the end goal being to start new churches. Granted, what is now a large church was a church plant at some point, so church-planting is a part of who they are.

You don’t have to have church-planting already in your DNA, however, to become a church-planting church. Let’s say that you pastor an established, traditional church & have never planted a new church or supported a church planter. Where do you start?

Meet area planters
If you’ve always been a pastor in an existing, established church situation, get to know church planters in your area. Take a couple out to lunch. Most likely, they’re poor & hungry. Church planters often feel like established church leaders are distrustful of them and their motives. Listen to planters in your area & their heart for reaching new people. Be available for conversation, prayer, and networking. I hear story after story of church planters that are new to an area and can’t get pastors of established churches to even return a phone call.

Do a study
You and your church need to first believe in the importance of planting new churches on local soil. If you expect some of your key leaders to be resistant on this issue – do a short study together on the importance of planting new churches, specifically in Western areas. Tim Keller’s paper, Why Plant Churches or Glenn Smith’s article Does the U.S. Need More New Churches? are both great & simple places to start. The key leaders in the church, especially those who set vision and budgets need to be convinced of Keller’s words: “The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city.”

Budget appropriately
This is where it gets hard, and is the first place that established churches turn back from becoming church-planting churches. If you are going to plant churches, you have to set aside money in your budget for it – and that most likely will mean taking some percentage from money that you already give to foreign missionaries or to your denomination’s missions sending agency.

Vision from the pulpit
Whenever the primary teacher talks about the mission of the church, evangelism, or engaging the world with the gospel, make sure that you tell your people that a key piece of your missional strategy is planting new churches. Putting it out there strong will help hold you accountable to your new vision. “We are not quite sure how we’re going to do it – but a key piece of us reaching the world with the gospel is that we are going to start planting new churches – right here. There are unreached people groups right under our noses - and the best way to reach them is to plant new churches.”

Join a church-planting network
In addition to having access to church-planting resources, when you as an existing church join a church-planting network like The Acts 29 Network or ARC you signify to potential planters around you that you are serious about church-planting. Young potential planters are already watching these networks because of their success in planting. When you join up, potential planters in your area will start to look to you for church-planting support & internship opportunities.

Begin a church-planting internship
The next difficult step is to start an intern program for potential church-planters. Doing an intern program can cost less than you think, but is likely to be more time intensive than you first realize. A few brief thoughts on internships:

Have interns raise their own support
If a potential planter can’t raise support for a part time salary, how will he ever raise money for a new church? If his own grandma doesn’t trust him, why should you? You could consider a stipend for a candidate with a lot of experience, if the candidate has a family (with multiple kids) to support, the cost of living in your area is exceptionally high (like NYC), or if the candidate does not come from a culture with an assumed network of churches, friends & family who can back a pastor financially (generally non-white or non-western.)

Assess potential interns well
Two mistakes here:

You set the bar too low (i.e., you accept anyone who remotely expresses a desire in church planting). If this happens, even a year (or two) of training at your church will not produce of guy that you will want to plant, and you may end up sending out someone who never should have planted in the first place.
You set the bar too high (i.e., you expect him to already be network assessment ready).

This is not your network’s complete, rigorous assessment – this is your own pre-assessment. You’re looking for someone who has the raw DNA to be a church planter but still needs 1-3 years to work on theology, a marital communication issue, or needs to have more teaching & leading experience. They do have to demonstrate character, entrepreneurial skill, and a sense of calling – the three things that I think are impossible to teach.

Mentor interns well
A lot of fast growing churches bring on interns without any sense of what do with them. Sure, the “grab an oar, let’s get to work” mentality is great – and gives you some needed hands on deck – but at some point interns need:

Theological shaping
Real mentoring
Leadership opportunities where they can safely fail.

Also, with potential church-planters, give them opportunities to start something.

Send them out with money & people
If an intern goes through your whole process, has learned from your church & added value to your church, has passed your assessments, and responded & learned from your critiques & coaching, then be prepared to enthusiastically send them out with money and people. If they really do have entrepreneurial & teaching skills, strong character and a good family – then by all means, put your money where your mouth is.

Show your congregation
Celebrate church planters – both those you send out and those you support. Have them preach in your church (if they can handle your pulpit). Lay hands on them and publicly pray for them. As they’re planting, find out the good stories and share those with your people. Regularly show pictures of your church planters just like you might your overseas missionaries. Let your congregation celebrate God’s work among these new churches.

These are initial thoughts on becoming a church-planting church. Much more can and has been said. If you’re interested in joining the conversation, track back to the original article here and leave a comment.

For more from Jonathan, read his blog, or check out Christ City Church.

Chuck DeGroat, “Spiritual Life of a Church-Planter”

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:53:12 +0000

At the City to City North American Network Gathering in Miami, Chuck DeGroat and Tim Keller discuss various issues in the spiritual life of a church-planter

Tim Keller, “Gospel Ecosystems”

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:55:33 +0000

At the City to City North American Network Gathering in Miami, Tim Keller discusses how churches out to seek the creation of Gospel Ecosystems in the city.

Tim Keller, “The Challenge of North American Cities”

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:38:55 +0000

At the City to City North American Network Gathering in Miami, Tim Keller discusses four challenges facing the urban North American church:

Hostility
Culture-making
Justice & Mercy
Apologetics

Effective Ministry in Cities

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:55:15 +0000

Tim Keller, Senior Pastor
Redeemer Presbyterian Church (NYC)

Expect to reach the suburbs from the city, but never to reach the city from the suburbs. Contrary to popular opinion, people will come into the city to church but will not leave it to go to church. And in the city you find “future suburbanites”: the young, students, immigrants, etc.
Have a clear vision for your city’s tomorrow, not just for your church in the city. Have a clearly articulated dream not just for your church but for the whole city itself. Have a positive love relationship with your community. If you have a negative attitude toward urban life you will only attract the same, and they are the most transient, the least useful for ministry.
Establish an attracting quality of corporate worship. Tradition, kinship, and guilt cannot bring people to church in the city as in other settings. Power and majesty and heart-piercing preaching are needed to bring the “Pilgrim” back, though the loyal church member does not require them. Worship excellence is critical.
Assume unimportance of inherited loyalties. People are open to new institutions that address their concerns; denominational loyalties mean less in the city than small towns and suburbs. Don’t talk about distinctives (just do them). No one is interested in them for their own sake.
Plug into existing urban social networks. Get indigenous. Urban churches do not gather disconnected individuals through advertising or visitation. Urban professionals have smaller families and are more tied into vocational, recreational, relational networks. Often they are suspicious of hype and advertising. Find the grapevines, and find people on the grapevines.
Form (especially “same-size”) urban church coalitions. Churches cooperating in cities replace denominational networks, because urban churches (that are truly indigenous) have more in common with each other than their own denominational sister churches. Find ways to do youth groups together, etc.
Offer all sorts of options and choices. Love diversity. City people are used to more choices than anywhere else, and diversity. Be multi-cellular and even multi-congregational from the start.
Manage and expect transience (unless a first generation immigrant church). Accept the coming and going of many parades of people. Think of it as a Campus ministry. Train leaders with that in mind. Most of all, don’t get so disappointed with the turnover. The best way to manage turnover is to grow faster than the turnover.
Become wholistic in ministry, even if you don’t minister to “down and out”. Rediscover the “corporal works of mercy”: feeding, clothing, sheltering the homeless, caring for children, tending the sick, etc. Add “development” to the traditional works of mercy – rebuilding communities, providing employment.
Change and reinvent yourself as fast as the city does. In the city programs and events lose their effectiveness quickly. You should be in a constant “learning mode” and should be changing in response to new realities. Don ‘t get attached to programs. Community social/ethnic make-ups change rapidly, etc.
Assimilate through cell groups, not programs or large groups. It is too expensive to make room for classes and groups. Also, formal follow-up doesn’t work–people change places and jobs and statuses too fast. Thirdly, urban people have so much “restructuring” (theologically, psychologically, etc.) that classes and programs are insufficient. Only group life will do it. Fourth, group life accommodates the diversity of the city better than large group classes and programs.
Expect evangelism to be easier, and discipleship “harder” in the city. People are in more turmoil and are more rootless. People you would never think to consider the gospel (Jewish. gay, etc.) will! But the same lack of loyalty and commitment that enables such people to consider the gospel makes it hard to disciple. They won’t want to join or “dig in” to the faith as quickly.
Localize mission. More missions money is put into “back yard” urban ministries than “overseas” missions. Urban people are highly motivated to help in their awn cities.
Become a center for personal problem-solving. Counseling and support groups are crucial to address broken lives.
Fully use women’s gifts; but strongly emphasize male responsibility. Greater proportions of urban population is female. Be sure to make the fullest possible use of gifts. Yet, emphasize male headship and responsibility, for passive men are common in urban areas.

Why the World is Becoming More Urban

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:59:12 +0000

Felipe Assis, Lead Pastor
Crossbridge Church (Miami)

I remember siting through a sociology class in my high school in Brazil as the teacher presented to us students the rural exodus phenomenon. His negative tone to the presentation connected well to our contextual reality for as many of you know, there are many urban problems in Latin America such as high crime, favelas and, unemployment. All world cities face variations of these issues.

For a long time I saw the urbanization of the world as something inherently bad. After all, God had created the world rural. In my imagination heaven was a place for plants, animals and human beings dressed in long white robes. While those things will probably exist in heaven (except for the white robes, of course), the Bible portrays heaven as an urban place with a main boulevard, streets, buildings and tons of people. Density, diversity and creativity are overtones of this depiction. Don’t believe me? Go read Revelation 21-22.

History does start in the garden but it ends in a city. A city that God is building and that one day he will bring down from heaven. A city that will fuse into our Metropolis (New York, São Paulo, Seoul…), will bring them all together into one mega-mega-mega Metropolis, will eliminate what’s bad in them and enhance to the maximum what’s already beautiful in them.

This changed things for me.

I guess for this reason its not all that bad that more and more people in the world move to cities. Its inevitable that this rural exodus intensifies. The reason why the world is becoming more and more urban is because history is moving us to the biggest and the greatest city of all – The City of God.

In the time being this makes me appreciate more and more where I live (God forbid I move to a farm town in the middle of nowhere!). It makes my adrenaline levels rise with the thought of engaging the mission of beginning this urban-fusion process here and now.

Why Plant Churches, Anyway?

admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:27:51 +0000

Tim Keller, Senior Pastor
Redeemer Presbyterian Church

The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for the 1) numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and the 2) continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else – not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes – will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting.

Jesus’ Essential call was to plant churches: Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith. The “Great Commission” (Matt 28: 18-20) is not just a call to “make disciples”, but to “baptize.” In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshipping community with accountability and boundaries.

Bible’s premise: The only way to truly be sure you are creating permanent new Christians is to plant new churches. Why? Much traditional evangelism aims to get a “decision” for Christ. Experience, however, shows us that many of these decisions disappear and never result in changed lives.

admin — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:26:31 +0000

RENEW is a network of churches and partner organizations committed to establishing gospel-centered churches throughout Metropolitan Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. We will do this by bringing churches together to work and partnering with one another in order to identify, raise up, and train emerging leaders to plant churches in different communities within South Florida.