Current Church Planting Bibliography
More than occasionally I’m asked by people interested in Church planting, “Hey, what should I be reading?” Here’s my current top ten list of favorites in no particular order. Most of these are in the category of “I wish I’d read that before I planted a church.”
- Church in the Making: What Makes or Breaks a New Church Before It Starts by Ben Arment. Honest book about the difficulty of planting a church. Discussion questions after each section would be great for Core Group Training.
- Deliberate Simplicity: How the Church Does More by Doing Less by Dave Browing. Great book to help with focus and vision. Here’s a brief review I wrote a few years back.
- Planting Missional Churches by Ed Stetzer. The textbook.
- Viral Churches: Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers by Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird. Great book for churches wanting to sponsor churches or plant multiple churches and campuses. Research based. Great reference guide to what’s up out there in Church Planting.
- The Multiplying Church by Bob Roberts. From an experienced sender. The chapter on Starting a Church Planting Training Center at Your Church would be worth reading for every sponsor church pastor. My thoughts here.
- Church 3.0: Upgrades for the Future of the Church by Neil Cole. Challenging questions and answers for the church going forward into the future. Can’t get this book off my desk right now.
- Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community by Ed Stetzer and David Putman. “Don’t plant the church in your head. Plant it in the community.” One of my fav Ed Stetzer quotes. This book helps us do that.
- It’s Not Personal: Surviving and Thriving on the Journey of Church Planting by Brian & Amy Bloye. Reading right now. Incredibly honest look at the life of the church planter.
- Exponential: How You and Your Friends Can Start a Missional Movement by Dave & Jon Ferguson. Great text book for starting at every level. Includes great chapters on multisite and sending out church planters, which is a core competency of the Ferguson’s church.
- Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church by Reggie McNeal. Is it going to be about how many, how much, how often? I hope not. This book will help you get the right scorecard.
Other books that have been foundational for our current church plant: The Externally Focused Church by Eric Swanson and Rick Rusaw, The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community by Steve Timmis.
What would be your recommendations?
The Tangible Kingdom: Posturing Toward Others
Summer is here and for Bridge Church that means seven or eight mission teams, a Zephyrs game or two, renting out the largest water slide in southeast Louisiana, Worship Gatherings at the YMCA, building a few handicap ramps and other crazy compassion/service projects. And one of the most exciting things for me is that in Community Groups we’ll be working through the Tangible Kingdom Primer: An Eight Week Guide to Incarnational Community. It’s a simple study designed to challenge us to intuitively live life on mission for others. Looking forward to leaning in on what it means to be the presence of Christ in my neighborhood and community. One of the basic concepts in the study is the idea of posture, which is defined as “the way a person or community expresses itself toward others.” My personal posture and that of churches in which I’ve been a part of, has often been self-centered, inward focused, and closed off to nonconformists and anyone on the outside. What would it look like for us to posture ourselves and be present with those in the world? What honestly is the posture of your life? Toward the needs of others first or personal safety and satisfaction? Looking forward to tracking with Bridge Church through the TK primer. Contact me for more info.
Here are a few resources for those doing the TK:
- The Tangible Kingdom book.
- The Tangible Kingdom video.
- Tanglible Kingdom Primer Introduction. 17 minute description and training session led by the Author.
- Order the TK Primer and check out other Tangible Kingdom resources here.
- Follow the TK guys on Facebook.
Close Encounters – Summer Message Series at Bridge Church
We’ll begin a new message series this Sunday at Bridge Church. Close Encounters: Conversations that Bring Transformation. We’ll be looking at Jesus’ one on one interactions with people in the Gospel’s. The Big Idea will be that close encounters with Christ bring life transformation. The secondary idea is that we can be catalyst for life transformation as we bring people into a close encounter with Christ. Some of the questions will be asking: How did Jesus deal with shameful sinners, the wealthy fringe, those with major health issues, the religious zealot, the sinful fridge, people with rough edges, those who had doubt, the political idealogue. These are the people that we are walking past and relating to everyday. What can we say to lead them to see the light of the Glory of God in Christ? Let’s take some lessons from the Master. Should be a lot of fun.
Memorial Day
Very proud of my family who have protected and are protecting our freedom in the US Military. My Grandfather, PT Corley, served in North Africa during WWII. My Father, Danny Corley, and his older brother Robert served in Vietnam. Then today, Burt Corley just returned from Afghanistan and is a veteran of several theaters of war and conflict since the early 90’s. Chad McCann is currently in Afghanistan with the Louisiana National Guard. Whit Gallaspy has served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and is expected to make another deployment in the near future. If I’m leaving someone out, family, please remind me.
Praying this weekend and always for all of our troops. And not taking for granted the freedom that they have and are providing for my family.
Interesting side note: a relative of mine has found two great, great, great uncles of ours who were injured in the Civil War. She found their application for VA disability in the late 1860’s. They were injured in the battle of Hope Church, which actually was the name of our first church plant :)).
The Church Has Left the Building
This weekend marks Bridge Church’s 4th Faith in Action Sunday as a church. The idea is to have as our natural rhythm spending one Sunday per quarter serving the community in intentional ways. Our projects thus far have included kids activities and block parties at a local trailer park, building handicap ramps/porches for elderly and disadvantaged residents, serving at Nursing homes, visiting and bringing care baskets to area ICU waiting rooms, prayer walking, cooking for low income housing residents, trimming trees around a local trailer park, cleaning up yards, etc. Click here for a video of one of our past FIA’s.
This Sunday, we’ll meet at the West St. Tammany YMCA for breakfast at 9am and then break out to put our faith in action.
Recent Conversations
“My son had been asking questions about Christianity, but then he had a verbal altercation with a neighbor who goes to church every Sunday.”
“I was thinking about visiting _______ church, but somebody came into my business acting like a jerk, and they were wearing a T-shirt from there.”
“I’m a security guard and work details for churches. I see how they act toward us when they’re leaving, so I’d never go to church.”
“When I was 14 I went to church, but got called into the pastors office and yelled at for shooting spitballs, so I never went back.” (Now he’s 30 with a criminal and painful past).
Really wanting the church to think through our attitudes and actions outside and toward those on the outside of the church building. I’ve read the fastest growing religious affiliation is the unaffiliated. My desire is to not be a stumbling block for those who need to see the beauty of Christ.
Worth Reading: Live Sent by Jason Dukes
There is a hunger among young Christian leaders for something more. Not necessarily more or bigger crowds or church buildings. But for more and deeper community. For authentic relationships in and outside of the church. For a greater impact on people that are far from God. And for a return to defining church as a WHO, not a WHAT. It will be OK with us if that results in big crowds and buildings, but not at the expense of community, authenticity, kingdom impact. Jason Dukes, in his book Live Sent: You Are A Letter, expresses what I feel so many are looking for today. As a Church Planter and network leader (check out www.reproducingchurches.com), Jason is leading a charge for the church to give ourselves away intentionally. That’s how he defines living sent. The imagery of living as a letter sent by God to the world is simple and key to understanding who we are as followers of Christ. As Jason says, “Sunday mornings cannot be viewed as just ‘fueling stations’ any longer. They must be viewed as POST OFFICES, gathering and sorting mail in order to send out those letters into daily culture.” An essential message for the 21st Century church that wants to make a deep impact in the lives of people. Great question: Is our lives and churches like the “draft” folder in our email inbox? Saved but not sent. “We must go beyond just gathering. We must gather to send.” The book outlines a great process for every Christian and leader to use to assess where they are spiritually. A few of the topics: rethinking church as a who not a what, knowing the value of every Christian to God’s mission, what hinders us from being sent, contextualizing through relationships, getting rid of our safety addiction. Also, Live Sent is filled with stories of real people doing just that. Even includes the story of a brother from my home state, Rob Wilton with Vintage Church, Uptown New Orleans. As a Church Planter or Pastor who desires to have an impact, this book will help chart the course.
Here are a few of my other favorite quotes:
- “He did not go to the cross because we were lovable. He went to the cross because He loves us, and it is His love for us that makes us lovable. It is His pursuing love that makes us valuable.”
- “The most crippling issue hindering us from ‘being the church’ is our insecurity to think we need more than what Jesus did…”
- “The health of a local church is actually not based on the number who ‘attend’ but rather the way in which people love one another and are walking relationally in life.”
- “The story of the church is far greater than what happens on Sunday mornings.”
- “Which address means more to God? The address of the church building? or the address of the world?”
- “If we are to see disciples made, we must engage people in genuine friendship. Multiplication cannot be programmed. It happens. It blossoms.”
- “church leaders must be willing to measure success not by how many they can draw and manage, but by how many they can release…”
You can follow Jason on Twitter. Also, follow Reproducing Churches the network he helps orchestrate along the Gulf Coast. Also, Jason blogs at JasonCDukes.com.
A few Discipleship Tools for Kids
Loving the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Really makes the stories in the Bible come to life in a way that spurs imagination and conversation. This morning we read the story of the hidden treasure from Matthew 13. The way the author described the treasure led our three year old to want more – “Was it heavy! Let me see it!” Always hard to stop with just one story.
We’ve kept a little book called My 1st Book of Questions and Answers by Carine MacKenzie around our dinner table for the past six months or so. Set up as a Catechism for young kids. Great for initiating further conversation about faith.
This summer I’m going to start a discipleship track with Jack, our seven year old. We’re going to use the Wheel
Illustration by the Navigators. He’s agreed to do it only if his wheel could be the Monster Truck version, which could also have some spiritual implications I’m sure.
Also looking forward to having him with me on several Faith In Action projects through our church this summer. Debriefing the plight of other peoples lives / why is there pain and evil in the world, has been a great faith builder for he and I.
Please share other ideas for discipling/connecting faith with family.
Galatians Highlights
Finished up our Series of Messages on the New Testament book of Galatians yesterday at Bridge Church. I had a lot of fun tracking through it this Spring and found myself again convicted, changed, and reassured by the Word of God. Here are a few highlights from the series:
- The Gospel = Jesus’ sacrificial death, because of our helplessness to save ourselves, for our rescue from sin’s penalty. Galatians 1:3-4
- Distorted and Different Gospel – 1) “To be right with God you have to become a __________.” Doesn’t matter what goes in the blank. 2) Jesus + __________. Adding to the work of Christ.
- When you see the real Gospel you realize that nothing in your past is sufficient for salvation. Galatians 2:1-14
- Christianity is about BEING, not DOING. It’s about who you are because of what Christ has done, not WHAT you do. Galatians 2:15-21.
- If you say, “I’ve got to do more to be saved” (go to church, be a good person, recycle, etc.), what you are saying is that Christ life, death, and resurrection was insufficient and ineffective.
- Two ways to live: 1) By the Law – “I’m trying to be a good person.” 2) By the promise – “Understanding that I can’t be accepted by God on my own, I put all my hope in Christ’s accomplishments. Galatians 3:13-14.
- In Christ, there is POWER TO BECOME something brand new. Not based upon what you look like or what you do. Galatians 3:26-29; John 1:12-13.
- Practical Outcomes of a False Gospel: Idolatry, Disunity, Impure Motives for serving. Galatians 4:8-20
- Legalism is a lethal dose of self-salvation and pride. The Gospel shocks self with its irrational generosity and free grace.
- You might be a legalist if: 1) You devalue the work of Christ and love of God, 2) You feel an obligation for you and others to be perfect, 3) You feel a sense of insecurity with God because you are not perfect, 4) You hinder and belittle the growth and progress of others, 5) You’re offended by the thought of loving and serving sinners as Christ did. Galatians 5:1-15
- A legalist can’t trust God to change someone from the inside out.
- The Spirit of God produces “whatever it takes” and “I don’t care who you are” kinda love. Galatians 5:22-23.
- The Set Free life means death to impression management, death to risk management, and death to self-salvation and self-reliance. Galatians 2:20, 5:24, 6:14.
Download individual messages here, or subscribe to our podcast on Itunes.
Lane Corley 