Finished up our first Basic Training for Church Multiplication event yesterday in Louisiana. Two more events coming up this year. Basic Training serves as a workshop overview of systems that need to be in place for a church to get off the ground & sustain flight toward evangelizing a community for Christ. A study of recent church plants in Louisiana shows that planters that take advantage of some kind of workshop training experience 45% higher attendance & 61% more baptisms in their first three years. Our trainings in Louisiana are free & include overnight accommodations & three meals. And feel free to bring your team. If you can’t make it to these & are in the midst of planting a church, find a boot camp, school of church planting, or significant training event to plug into.

A few highlights:

• Understanding the soil in which you are planting – spiritually, socially, and culturally – is crucial to the effectiveness of your church plant.
• Just like farming, there are two activities for church planters: cultivating and planting. If you do the right thing in the wrong season, you get zero results.
• Vision is nothing if it’s not rooted in human problem and growing toward God’s glory. ~ Will Mancini
• You won’t do ministry that really matters until you define what really matters ~ Aubrey Malphurs
• Three keys to church planting: Gather, Gather, Gather.
• Healthy churches have a healthy culture that is created and facilitated by healthy systems.
• Most new members in church plants don’t go from 0% to 10% in giving right away. That’s a path we must lead them down.
• Church Multiplication is a spiritual decision of a local church to put the needs of a desperate world before self-preservation. ~ Stephen Gray

Pray for Great Kingdom Church – Hammond, Crossroads Church – Kenner, Stillwater Church – New Orleans, Downtown Church – New Orleans, Life Point Church – Plaucheville, Life Point Church – Simmesport, Hope Church – Chauvin, Bridge Church – Covington, & three yet to be named projects.