I have learned a valuable lesson for battling in the trenches: When you discover what works, stick with it. I want to share four things that are biblical, effective and, regardless of your context, will yield success as you battle in the trenches.
As a young planter, I had the passion of William Wallace but the self-awareness of Gomer Pyle. On the battlefield, I learned four things that I will never do again.
A covocational church planter has no other option than to plant with a team. But how do you foster team dynamics to plant a healthy church that is effectively engaging its context?
How do you equip church members to become missional leaders? How to Start a Residency by…
I have struggled with the Asbury revival. I was envious. What about my community, Lord? My envy pointed to a deeper issue.
Your church needs more than you. Making this a bedrock conviction of your church-planting strategy will enable you to plant a church pleasing to God and edifying for His people.
Recruiting and retaining volunteers can be a challenge. These seven tips will help you increase your volunteer force and keep those already serving engaged and committed.
We all battle doubt. Where do we turn for renewed confidence? Here are three doubt-defeating convictions.
Do you hate New Year’s resolutions? Have you planned to change, only to be frustrated by failure? Noah Oldham offers two ways to maintain healthy habits and lead a healthy church.
When our family was beset by suffering and brokenness, our loving Father used it to teach us, and our church plant, six crucial lessons.
Prioritizing your physical health while drowning in pastoral responsibilities can seem impossible. But what if your…
We need to hear about marriage and church planting because a planter’s ministry is only as strong as his marriage – and solid marriages provide the groundwork for the leader’s fruitfulness and longevity in ministry.
Dispense God’s Word to His people with care. The gospel is church planting’s most concentrated weapon. Wave it like a banner before your people.
As we seek to send church planters who will be fruitful, we should consider these five qualities.
New Year’s is a great time to launch or relaunch your church plant’s small group ministry. It will give your people deeper community, deeper connection and a healthier church – that plants other healthy churches!
Ministry to women is non-negotiable, from the beginning stages of our church plants and throughout the life of the church.
The joy of a lost soul coming to Christ often is followed by a challenge: finding a way to baptize them. Here’s a list of 10 unique baptism options, all inspired by planters.
God has birthed your church because He has a heart for the kingdom of God to be expanded all over the world.
Throw passionate leaders together in the high-pressure context of doing ministry in hard places and you’re sure to see sparks fly as iron sharpens iron.
The task of leadership deployment is a vital catalyst in reaching the harvest set before the…
Every church must be equipped to respond well in the initial stages of learning about instances…
A tree puts down roots and bears fruit. The process of growth and life becomes observable…
God’s people have the ability to ask Him for big things. But most Christians, including church…
Would your family be a fruitful addition to your core team or send you toward a Jerry Springer-style family meltdown? Will Klotz offers some pros and cons, along with a few pieces of practical wisdom he picked up as a planter himself.
Digital media have made it easy to hear excellent communicators. That has created high expectations among today’s church attendees. Planning your preaching ought to be a top priority and Rick Duncan offers five steps to get you there.
You don’t want to wait until the last minute decide what you will preach. Mike Godfrey lists seven benefits of planning what you will preach.
Putting the intangibles of culture into words isn’t very easy. We offer our church’s values document with the hope you find it helpful as you work to build Jesus’ church and lead His sheep.
A veteran of 20 years in strategic communications, Christian Pinkston offers a big-picture overview of several key factors in church crisis communications.
Familiarity is the enemy of wonder. Church planters face a danger common to anyone heavily involved in ministry: We get familiar with holy things. Perhaps overly familiar.
It’s not difficult to convince people to join a new venture like a church. But it…
My service in vocational ministry, particularly in church planting, has complicated my daily walk with Christ. The deeper into professional Christianity I got, the more I felt sinfully entitled in four ways.
Your church plant needs membership to become a church. Let me offer five reasons.
These days it seems every church planter has a “side hustle.” The increasingly expensive cities we are working to reach have created a need for a marketable skill or trade that will provide a missiological and financial foothold in the community. So what side hustles are most compatible with church planting?
Buildings too often hinder gospel advancement. The church is a people, not a building. It’s the…
Pressure points in church planting conspire to overwhelm us. We must draw these things up to the surface and examine the sources – healthy and unhealthy – before God.
Among the myriad of ministries to which Charles Spurgeon was committed, one of the most impactful was his commitment to establishing new churches. Let me share with you three of his ethical considerations that church planters 140 years later still would do well to incorporate into their ministry.
Why would Charles Spurgeon, pastor of the massive Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, urge members to leave the congregation to devote themselves to the prosperity of other churches?
The truth about church planting never resembles the architect’s renderings and the slick “plant with us” pamphlets. The realities can leave you confused and disillusioned. Here are five truths that might keep you keep you sane and in the game.
The goal of church planting is to see new people come to faith in Jesus Christ….
Throughout my time as a church planter, I’ve reflected on how the difficulties faced in planting a church are, in many ways, harder than anything I faced in prison.
Trying to plant a church without a prospectus would be like trying to get a job without a resumé. Before you press “Purchase” on that print order for your prospectus, take some time to review these 10 excellent church planting prospectus samples.
When your “need” for love from others is unmet, take that hurt to Jesus in repentance.
What if one church-planting path actually offered distinct advantages over traditional and bivo/covo means?
How can we love people more than we want to be loved by them? At its heart, this is an issue of worship.
I’ve noticed a sort of “postpartum depression” in church planters after the birth of their new…
Who has to deal with the fear of man more? A salesman who is dependent on cold calls every day or a church planter? How do planters get the approval of those around them to win them to a church plant? That’s an issue of the fear of man.
Though God’s grace has been shown in my life and in the church I serve, I wish I’d remembered the old adage: “God gave you two ears and one mouth, so listen twice as much as you talk.”
A new movement is afoot: More church planters are choosing to plant bivocationally because they see it as a more desirable way to plant a new church. Here are three advantages to bivocational church planting.
When I began church planting, I was so zealous to see new churches started and so confident in God’s power…
Today, I had someone introduce me like this “This is Noah. His dad started the church.”…
Before we start this conversation, it’s important to note that church planting isn’t always a full-time…
To get started in church planting, you must confirm that God has called you to this work.
Drew Hyun explains the differences between a networked church, a family of churches, and a multisite church in terms of structure.
Having been around a lot of pastors at our various confabs across the world, I’ve noticed something unhealthy.
A vision is unique to you and will capture your heart and life.
Sam Yoon shares three things that make being the #1 guy different from being the #2 guy.
One of the great and worthy causes of church planting is the desire to influence neighborhoods and cities for the gospel of Jesus.
When you’re casting vision, here are three implications you want to keep reminding your church of, pre- and post-launch.
To be effective in ministry, you need to do these three things well.
How can a church plant be more attractional with such limited resources?
Bivocational ministry means you’re intentionally leveraging all of life into one calling.
To plant a church you need a solid launch team. Get the best practices from Daniel Im on growing your launch team.
To live a good life in bivocational ministry, you must have an aptitude in six key areas.
How much time are you spending hanging out with skeptical, curious and confused not-yet Christ followers?
If you are going to plant a grape vineyard, don’t plant apple seeds.
What do you think would happen if you reimagined your church’s dashboard?
Mark Dance shares the mistakes he made as a church planter to equip you not to repeat them.
A knockoff is an unauthorized copy or cheap imitation of the original. The quality cannot be easily matched or imitated. So, it is with vision.
Learn these qualities that are mentioned less often but are very important to becoming a successful church planter.
Dustin Neeley shares some mistakes he has made as a church planter and the valuable insight he gained because of them.
Dustin Neeley gives five steps to help lead yourself better as a church planter so you can lead your family or church well.
We need as many kinds of churches that we can get in cities.
I don’t know of any church planter who intentionally seeks to grow at the expense of another church, but it happens way too often.
Many times we are tempted to presume upon God to bless our reckless choices.
Too often, we seek to first establish infrastructure (our organization, church, etc.) before actually living on mission in our context.
There has never been a more rapidly growing movement than the post-apostolic church.
Campus pastors don’t need to learn how to lead laterally, but the best ones know how to.
Church planters—if you’re called to a city and you’re married, your whole family ought to feel called.
It’s often said that newspapers in small towns don’t report the news, they confirm the news.
Significant differences exist between small towns and larger cities when it comes to being on mission.
Today, more than ever, we have an abundance of digital resources, webinars, training videos, and templates for church planting.
The natural outflow of the Great Commission is the planting of new churches.
As people steward financially into your church, they will expect that the money is handled well.
Budgeting and fundraising are often two of the most daunting things that church planters face. This doesn’t have to be the case.
Most of the time, church plants don’t know how much space they’ll need.
It is imperative that you get clarity on who you are and what your ministry is called to do.
Churches should not overlook this burgeoning mission opportunity.
What if there isn’t enough “grain to tread,” in the specific way our proverbial ox-hoof was designed by God?
I want to be joyfully ministering for the long haul.
Seminaries are realizing that ministerial training happens best in the context of a local church.
Instead of looking down on pastors for being bivocational, we should lift them up as our heroes.
Together we can accomplish more than we can ever do alone.
We must take time to craft the vision for our church, and the elements of mission and ministry in it.
If Jesus’ sermons didn’t necessarily contain much new content, what made his teaching so attractive?
