Category Archives: Uncategorized
Finding Leaders vs. Developing Leaders
There is a mindset that hinders growth of people & organizations, especially volunteer organizations like churches. It’s the mindset that says leaders are FOUND. The opposite in a lot of ways is the mindset that leaders are DEVELOPED. Churches that multiply & grow exponentially have found a way to develop leaders instead of just hoping they find some.
Finding Leaders often means:
- Hoping leaders show up.
- Trying to talk leaders from other churches or organizations to come lead in your church or organization.
- Never seeing the potential in the people God actually sends you.
- Limiting the capacity of your church because you don’t see the potential in everyone.
- Always seeing who you don’t have instead of who you do have.
- Staying safe & never taking risks on people that don’t seem “ready.”
- A few leaders filling lots of roles.
- Little trust in people (and ultimately in God).
- Fear of Failure.
- Big back door as people come to understand they’re not needed.
Developing Leaders often means:
- Expecting leaders to show up.
- Seeing potential in every person that walks through your doors.
- Having intentional processes & systems to move people from where they are to where God wants them to be in leadership.
- Embracing tension & releasing people into leadership roles when they may not seem “ready.”
- A lot of trust in God the Holy Spirit to work in & through people.
- Failure as a valuable tool to teach & train.
- Sending people intentionally as their value expands to other organizations & churches.
Are you hoping to find leaders or intentionally developing leaders?
Planting in Unreached Avoyelles, Realistic Church Planting Expectations, and Other Things from this Week
1. Replanting on the Northshore
Last week I reported that there are 18 ongoing Re-Starts or Re-Plants going on in Louisiana. Met this week with leader of one of the latest going on in the Covington area. Derek Kitterlin is replanting Pilgrim’s Rest Baptist Church near Barker’s Corner. FBC Mandeville is providing sponsorship. A Re-Plant is one in which a church dies to become something new. Usually includes a building, but not always. New identity & organization is birthed. Systems are restored that lead to evangelism & discipleship. We’re seeing great success across Louisiana with up to 1,000% turnarounds in attendance on sites that were struggling. Attendance is already doubled at the site of the former Pilgrim’s Rest. Looking forward to seeing how this develops. Another great turnaround in the works!
2. Planting in Unreached Avoyelles
Got to meet this week with church planters in Avoyelles Parish. Avoyelles is one of Louisiana’s poorest parishes. It also had several towns that have NEVER had a SBC church. That is changing now!
- Life Point Church was planted in 2007 in Marksville. They’ve since moved to Mansura & have spawned a mini-church planting movement.
- Point-of-Life Church is being planted by Norris Landry in Plaucheville. So many great stories already coming out of this work. Bro. Norris retired to plant a church. I tell him, he flunked retirement J. Land has been purchased already. Despite some mild persecution by the local Catholic church, the work goes forward.
- Bayou Life Church is being planted by Louis Charrier in Cottonport. Louis has planted 19 churches in Louisiana. Great work going on in one of Louisiana’s largest towns without a SBC Church.
- Grace Point Church is being planted in Simmesport by Jacob Crawford. Simmesport is a key stop between Baton Rouge & Central Louisiana. It also has a ferry into the Angola State Penitentiary. Looking forward to seeing this work develop.
- James Baptist Church is being planted in Bunkie by Reginald Arvie. This is a partnership between one of Louisiana’s oldest churches, St. James Bayou Chicot, started by Joseph Willis in the early 1800’s, & one of Louisiana’s newest churches, Life Point Mansura. Great story!
3. Church Planting FAQ: How Am I Doing Really?
Most weeks I meet with church planters whose works are not meeting expectations. Their own expectation &/or that of the sponsor church(es). We’re establishing some standards for average & median attendance & giving in church plants at certain points in development in Louisiana to help planters & partners manage expectations. And Lifeway has provided a helpful study called The State of Church Planting that gives Average & Median attendance figures among other data. Here’s some of the numbers:
- Average Attendance in Church Plants in Louisiana – 49.8
- Median Attendance in Church Plants in Louisiana – 35.5
- Lifeway’s Average Attendance for Church Plants Year 1 – 51, Year 2 – 74
- Lifeway’s Median Attendance for Church Plants Year 1 – 30, Year 2 – 45
This is usually encouraging to planters who expect to be at 200 by the end of year two. Very seldom happens that way. Probably less than 5% of the time. However, it is important for works to be on a growth trajectory. I wrote two post with these conversations in mind this month:
4. A few reports from the Missions & Ministry Office this week:
- 13 new churches planted so far in 2013. 6 in New Orleans. 7 Non-Anglo. All 13 in South Louisiana. 20 in development for 2016. 137 new churches planted since 2010.
- 76 baptisms, 336 new commitments to Christ reported Jan-Mar 2016 by church plants in Louisiana.
- Since 2010 – 1,804 baptisms & 9,532 new commitments to Christ. Hopefully we’ll pass 2,000 baptisms & 10,000 new commitments to Christ this year.
- New Orleans – Since 2012 when Send New Orleans launched – 27 new churches started, 348 baptisms, 1,352 New Commitments to Christ. $972,508 in Cooperated Funding provided from Louisiana Baptists Missions & Ministry office for Church Planting in New Orleans.
5. Tangible Kingdom Primer Small Group Study
Taking our third tour through the Tangible Kingdom Primer with a Small Group on Thursday nights this Spring. TK always challenges us to develop & create opportunities for sojourners to experience the kingdom. Some of the things that have birthed out of these groups:
- Guy with mad Billiard skills committed to use them for outreach to other billiard lovers.
- Guy with poker skills committed to invite friends over once a month to play poker & talk about life & God.
- Mother with music background felt led to begin singing in the Community Choir.
- Family decided to begin monthly Block Parties for kids in their neighborhood.
- Highly recommend the TK Primer to help get groups postured outward, primer on missional living, & to open eyes to opportunities that God given gifs, abilities, provisions have provide for us.
Check out a few previous posts on the TK Primer:
- Tangible Kingdom Primer
- The Tangible Kingdom: Posturing Toward Others
- What is Community?
- Go…
- Outcome Didn’t Matter, Faithfulness Did
- What Does Missional Look Like?
6. Great Moments
A Father baptizes his daughter at Bridge Church on Sunday. Love these moments. Greg Chester actually baptized three of his kids: Grace (pictured), Joshua, & Caleb. These pics never get old.
7. How Many Sacks is Your Church?
Someone proposed a new way to track the growth of Louisiana church plants: How many sacks of Crawfish does it take to feed the crowd? Bridge Church has grown from 2 to 8 sacks now! How many sacks are you?
On the Blog This Week:
A Few Simple Holiday Outreach Ideas
Yesterday our church kicked off Advent with a number of simple service projects that any church, small group, family, or individual can afford. These make a big impact with a small investment of time & money.
1. Gift cards for ICU Waiting Rooms. At any given time in your community there are people reeling from traumatic events or devastating illness. Their families can be found in waiting rooms at your local hospital. Pick up a handful of Gift Cards to the closest restaurants & coffee shops, drop by & give them out with a “Praying for You” card from your church. Offer to pray for anyone you get to talk with. Simple act of kindness can breathe life into someone that is overwhelmed with bad news. If no one is there, give them to the nurses desk & they’ll pass them out for you. These nurses could also use prayer & encouragement. Call ahead & find out when visiting times are so that you know when people are in the waiting rooms. $100 for 5-10 gift cards.
2. Care packages for the Homeless. If you live in a metro area or near the interstate, you probably get an invitation to serve the homeless everyday at area red lights. Should I give them money? is a constant question. Few of us carry cash anymore. Doing nothing is not desirous for most believers. How about make up some simple care packages with some goodies that that can be passed out the window of a car. Keep 3-5 in your car at all times. $10 per bag.
3. Christmas Decor for Nursing Home Residents. Go to your local nursing home & ask for a list of residents with no local family. The reality for these residents is often few visits if any, few seasonal decorations for their walls, few convenient items like warm socks or lotion. Offer to pray for them. Find out what they want or need & plan a return visit. Spend some time listening to their story. Yesterday, some of our team got to meet a lady who was 105 years old! Incredible story. $25 for a few Christmas decorations & simple cards colored by kids.
4. Fruit baskets for Elderly shut-ins. Local shut-ins are lonely. They often feel trapped. They often have simple to-do’s around their home that can be taken care of in less than an hour. Making up fruit baskets to deliver to them gives you a reason to encourage them with a visit & find out other needs that your faith community can take care of on their behalf. $25 for a bowl or basket & fruit & other goodies to go int them.
All day I’ve been hearing stories from those who delivered these items to people in our community. Simple acts of kindness make a big difference & the holidays offer many opportunities for us to extend kindness & plant seeds in the hearts of people in need.
What other similar outreach ideas have you or your church done at Christmas?
My Friend from Syria
“You Were Different Before!”
I had a friend from Syria in college. We had several classes together & it seemed we ended up sitting next to each other in most of them. He was muslim. He was full of life. He was always smiling. He was always joking. He was very interested in American life. We did set some things on fire in the chemistry lab, but he had no ulterior motives, except getting an education. Religion came up a lot, especially after my second speech in Speech 101. 7-minute informative speech on a particular aspect of a historical persons life. I chose the miracles of Jesus. I talked about the first & last miracles of Jesus, how many miracles are recorded in the New Testament, & then about how John said that if all the works Jesus did had been written down, the world couldn’t hold the books (John 21:25). Then I finished by stating that miracles still happen today even though you may not see one yourself. And then about how the greatest miracle is how God changes human hearts through a relationship with Christ & I gave my personal testimony of that change. I sat back down & my Syrian friend was visibly disturbed. He whispered to me with an angry look – “I want to talk to you after class!” Well, I didn’t know much about muslims at that time, but I’d read a few issues of Voice of Martyrs, so sweaty palms & extreme possibilities filled my mind. When class ended, I tried to shoot out quickly, thinking he may forget about it, but he caught me. Forcibly & loudly, he began putting his finger in my chest & almost shouting over & over again, “You were different before! You were different before! You were different before!” I said, “what are you talking about?” He said, “Your story. You talked about how you were changed on the inside. You were different before you found religion! And that there was something powerful that happened inside your heart!” He went on to tell me how he is pulled back & forth between his religion & the world & how there’s no power in his religion to change his heart. We skipped our next class to talk. I shared the gospel with him & about how Jesus does change us inside out when we confess him as Lord & believe in him & his work. He said it just seemed too simple & that being Muslim was a part of his family identity, like it probably was mine. I asked him to share his faith with me on several occasions, but he would just say, “It isn’t as good a story as you have.” The last few years of college we had fewer & fewer classes together & he moved on to a different campus for our senior year & we lost touch. But I’ll never forget that day in the hallway. It’s been a reminder to me of the power of the Gospel – “You were different before! You were different before! You were different before!” There’s real power in the gospel to change people from the inside out. That’s the hope we see lived out in the lives of other believers around us everyday. That’s the hope that keeps us sharing the gospel with others. That’s the hope that our muslims friends around the world & in our neighborhoods need to know about, & what many of them, like my friend from Syria, may be looking for.
Christian, you were different before! Live it! Share it! Never forget it!
Church Planting Makes a Difference
Since 2010, 124 new churches planted in Louisiana with 8,987 new commitments to Christ reported in the first 36 month of these churches. That’s 72 new commitments to Christ per church plant.
How could 72 new commitments to Christ impact your community?
And that doesn’t account for a now lifetime partner in fighting community issues like addiction & hunger, a new partner in global missions, total evangelism as new believers get involved in new testament relationships & serving. Church Planting makes a difference.
Missiologist Peter Wagner said, “Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven.”
Tim Keller says, “The continual planting of new congregations is the most crucial strategy for the growth of the body of Christ.” (get his great article Why Plant Churches).
Keep exploring the question “Does My Community Need a New Church?” HERE.
Check out these resources to help you get started:
- 10 Biblical & Practical Ways to Get Involved in Church Planting
- Every Church Can Encourage Church Planting and Multiplication
- Every Church Can Be a Church Planting Partner
- Your Church Can Be a Parent to a New Church or Campus
One Christian Life
You say, “What can I do?” You can furnish one Christian life. You can furnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so determined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian Church shall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the world be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor, perplexed phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what Christianity is.
Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Addresses, Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1895, p. 22
Unsplash.com / Dustin Scarpitti
The Need: Healthier and Riskier #ChurchPlanting
Healthier church planting means church planting that is led by churches with a heart to multiply and reproduce themselves for the sake of kingdom expansion. So, what’s needed for healthier church planting is healthy mother churches with a heart to reproduce. As Bob Roberts says in his great book The Multiplying Church, “The future of faith in America (and anywhere in the world, for that matter) is not tied to planting more churches, but in raising up of mother congregations of every tribe, tongue, denomination, and network that are reproducing… The hope is in pregnant mother churches.”
Riskier church planting would be multiplication that targets hard to reach areas and unchurched pockets of our population. Missiologist Alan Hirsch suggests that current church models are reaching out to smaller and smaller segment of the population, with possibly as much as 60% of America untargeted by our evangelistic and outreach efforts. Multi-housing residents would be one potential segment that is underserved. Others may be those in their early 20’s with very little understanding of religion in any form. We need some church plants that go beyond planting a worship service that looks similar to others in the community, but will ask the question “Where is the church not?” and go there with the gospel. We need some church plants that have different scorecards and different expectations, but will faithfully deliver the message of Christ to unchurched people.
Before and After: The Way Church of Denham Springs #ChurchPlanting #MultiplyLA
Congrats to The Way Church of Denham Springs on the grand opening of their new building. The Way is in their 3rd year as a church plant & have already baptized over 100! AND they are already serving as a primary sponsor for a new church in a neighboring community! Grateful for Planters Scott Cheatham & Josh Spinks.
The new location of The Way was formerly Calvary Baptist Church. As the Way grew, Calvary continued to face severe decline. David Brown, Director of Missions for the Eastern LA Baptist Association, led the two to begin to converse about merging. Zoar Baptist Church, North American Mission Board (NAMB) Legacy Church Program, Louisiana Baptists Georgia Barnette State Mission Offering each contributed to the remodeling. Look fwd to seeing what God does through the Way Church in the future!
Church planting is about BEFORE AND AFTER. The after affect should be lives changed & God’s kingdom expanding. And that’s what we see in Denham Springs because of the starting of a new church focused on evangelism & the decision of an existing church facing decline, to die to themselves so the kingdom can grow.
“Gift of Heaven, Our Savior” #worship
From the top of the Playlist…
VERSE 1:
There’s a song in the air, there’s a star in the sky, hear a mother’s deep prayer, and a baby’s loud cry
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles the King
CHORUS:
Gift of Heaven, our Savior, the word in flesh has come
VERSE 2:
There’s a choir of joy and a marvelous birth, for the virgin’s sweet boy is the Lord of all the Earth
BRIDGE:
This baby boy will be our only victory, on the cross, on the cross
Sweet Jesus you will be our only victory, on the cross, on the cross
This baby boy will be our only victory, on the cross, on the cross
TAG:
You’ve come to save the world
Emily Ward, Aaron Ivey, Caleb Price, Kyle Lent, Jimmie Ingram, Jimmy McNeal, Chris Collins, Justin Cofield.
© 2012 Austin Stone Worship (ASCAP) / 2012 Bird And Minion Music (BMI) / 2012 JCO Music Intl (BMI) (adm. by Austin Stone Music)
From the album A Day of Glory by Austin Stone.
KEEP BELIEVING!
“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” Jesus, John 6:29 NIV.
Spiritual leadership requires taking care of a lot of details. Big & small. It’s all demanding. Relationships are hard & messy. Weekends are long. If you’re in vocational ministry, money is tight, vacations are short. But you can make it, if you can KEEP BELIEVING.
The greatest battle in life & leadership often rest in my ability to believe.
- Will I believe that God can use me?
- Will I believe that Jesus is Lord & has “all authority in heaven & earth” Matthew 28:18 & is willing to direct that authority toward me & my church?
- Will I believe that Jesus is with me & desires to work through me?
- Will I believe that life is short & heaven & hell beg us for urgency?
- Will I believe that “with God everything is possible” Matthew 19:26?
- Will I believe that this mission is possible?
And will I keep believing:
- When attendance is low?
- When volunteers don’t show up?
- When criticism comes my way?
- When people don’t respond to my ideas?
- When other ministries grow faster than mine?
- When I’m discouraged?
- When I’m tired?
- When I’m lonely?
- When I’m afraid?
- When circumstances seem to be arrayed against me?
What does God want me to do? Believe Him!
