Ed Stetzer is the Southern Baptist church planting guru. Planting Missional Churches functions like a textbook for a seminary class on church planting. By missional, Stetzer means "doing mission right where you are" (19). For Stetzer, it means thinking like a missionary to our own American culture. A missional church then has a culture whereby it … Continue reading Planting Missional Churches
Church Planting
The Forgotten Ways
Alan Hirsch coined a lot of terminology to pretty say the same thing as every other church planting book ever written. Hirsch entitles his paradigm of ministry, "Apostolic Genius" (81) (I'm sure no pride influenced the name). Essentially Hirsch says that traditional church doesn't work anymore and what we need is church 2.0 which sounds … Continue reading The Forgotten Ways
Global Church Planting
Lincroft Bible Church can learn much about church planting in our own country by learning from the experience of global church planters. In their book, Global Church Planting, author Craig Ott and Gene Wilson thoroughly breakdown the task of church planting by providing "best practices" and "principles" for aspiring planters to follow. The first section gives the … Continue reading Global Church Planting
AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church
How does the church keep from being too inward focused? How does the church balance the big gatherings with smaller service initiatives? It's questions like these that Hugh Halter and Matt Smay seek to answer in their book And: The Gathered and Scattered Church. Halter and Smay don't want people to lose their love for the church, … Continue reading AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church
Pioneering Movements
What kind of leadership would is take to make the gospel spread quickly across an area? That's the question that Steve Addison takes up in Pioneering Movements: Leadership that Multiplies Disciples and Church. The Gist Churches join in gospel movements by training leaders (24). A powerful combination is "training followed by action" (25). The training method … Continue reading Pioneering Movements
The Open Secret
Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998) was a Britist missionary for many years to India. He wrote many books focusing on the church and her mission. The Open Secret introduces some key issues surrounding the concept of mission. Because church plants must be mission focused in order to survive, the book has direct implications for shaping the discussion around church … Continue reading The Open Secret