Church Planting Wisdom - From Jonathan Herron

Jonathan Herron (www.JonathanHerron.com)  is leading Catalyst
(www.CatalystChurch.cc), a fresh start-from-scratch church that
launched on September 10th with 150 people.  Jonathan is a member of
the Acts 29 Network (ww.a29.org) and speaker with The Source for Youth
Ministry (www.thesource4ym.com).

1)  Preach a Big Jesus.  Before you even work on a vision statement,
make sure you know the Jesus of the Bible.  Mark Driscoll
(www.marshillchurch.org) has the best advice: be all about the Jesus
we find in Revelation 19 and get your Christology right.  Men and
women will worship that King!  People will sacrifice for a God who is
on the throne ruling and reigning.  A white hot devotion to advancing
His kingdom will lay the foundation for a healthy church plant.

2)  Be a Dreamer.  In Acts 2, Peter stands up and delivers the world’s
first sermon about Jesus.  What does he quote?  An obscure verse from
a minor prophet named Joel.  Peter talks about how this Kingdom of God
movement will be led by dreamers and visionaries.
Think about it - as a church planter, you are essentially becoming a
missionary.  You will be learning a new culture, new language, etc.
Dream about what it would look like to have the resurrected Christ
displayed in your context.  Be faithful to the early church structure
(Acts, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus).  Don’t copy another church.  Honor the
Creator by being creative.  Dream big.
For example, when we started having our initial core group bible
studies, we called them “Dream Parties!”  We were envisioning together
what God wanted to do in the greater Kent State University area.

3)  Be a Blogging Pastor.  I cannot emphasize enough how powerful a
tool blogging is in 21st century ministry.  I ended up joining the
Executive Team at my previous ministry, NewSpring Church
(www.NewSpring.cc), after being discovered through my blog!
In my current ministry, we’ve seen new families and singles join the
mission of Catalyst simply by coming across the blog.  The postmodern
culture doesn’t assume that just because you have the title “pastor”
that you are to be respected.  Blogs break down assumptions and reveal
your heart.  Imagine if blogs had been around during Paul’s ministry -
we probably would have had a lot of e-pistles!

Thanks, Jonathan for the great insights. Batting clean-up tomorrow will be Bob Franquiz.