An alternate church growth strategy...

A friend of mine sent me this article on church planting yesterday. It's by far one of the most exciting and challenging articles I've read in recent months. It challenges a lot of my perceptions and assumptions about church planting, church leadership, and my definition of "church".

God has really been stretching and growing me personally in so many ways and with so many of my assumptions where "church" and spiritual life and leadership are concerned.

It's also been helpful that I've been teaching a New Testament Survey class to several high schoolers at a local high school. It helps to contextualize the areas where God has been challenging me while I'm teaching others what the Bible says about those very things.
Click here for the article.

Questions to think about as and after you read this article:
1.) How would you define church? What are its core characteristics?
2.) How would you have answered this young couple's questions?
(i.e., Would you have discouraged them from continuing b/c they were not trained enough?)
3.) When is a church a church? How often should they meet?

Tags: Jesus, church, disciple, discipleship, growth, multiplication

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Comment by Tobias Valdez on May 13, 2009 at 2:35pm: What I read in this article is what I long for in my own life and the group of people I spend time with. I've grown up in the institutional church, but have never seen anything like this happen in my life or the lives of those around me. I've heard stories like this and have read stories like this, but they are not about people here in the U.S., all of them have been in another country. Surely there are stories of this kind of thing going on in the U.S.

I've left the institutional church because what I saw and experienced within it did not look like what I read in the New Testament, nor did it ever look like what I read in the article you shared here. I long for and pray for the example shared in the article will become a reality for my family and community.

Thanks for sharing.

Comment by Will Ratliff on May 14, 2009 at 10:28am: Tobias -

thanks for your comment. You're one of many that I've run across in recent years that have the desire for that experience but have yet to see it come to fruition. i'm praying for your family and community today that it would be a reality for you! Our culture seems to have a lot of hang-ups where "church" is concerned. I pray that we all can be freed from those to experience the life, the communty, and the joy that comes from sharing and living the Gospel.

Comment by Guy Muse on May 15, 2009 at 8:53pm: Will,

Thanks for the link posted above to my recent blog post about Monica and Medardo's new church plant here in Guayaquil. Your post has encouraged me to go ahead and share the blog here on Simple Church. If interested in reading more about Medardo, Monica, and how things got started click What a difference you've made in my life and What a difference you've made in my life (Part 2).

An alternate church growth strategy...

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