missio

Track: Networking

Speaker: Ed Stetzer

Topic: Trends in Church Planting

This is where Ed Stetzer presents missional research goodness. You can download the entire powerpoint and presentation here: Missional Research. I will highlight things here that are not in the powerpoint.

• 200 million Americans don’t know Christ; 120 million are ‘unchurched’.
• Typical church plant attendance is low: around 50. We have to keep our expectations realistic.
• 4yr Survivability = 68%. 4yr Survivability in 1988 = 67%. Improvement? Nope.
• Stan Wood has done some mainline research, and Todd Hunter has done interesting stuff with church ‘pathology’/autopsy reports on why church plants fail. I’m looking them up soon.

Good stuff as usual from Stetzer.

This conference has started off with a bang! The worship band came out swinging along with a couple of artists who painted while the band played. It was wonderful to be led into a place with God like that. The host then pulled out some kind of gimmick with the gold sponsors (some kind of tournament, more info later), and then the band came out again and played a weird song including a xylophone. It was cool, just kind of out there.

Following that, a short video was played that showed that Jesus wasn’t a Christian, He only called people to follow Him. Wayne Cordeiro started us off with the theme, dissecting the first part of Acts 1:8, “You will receive power”. The theme was “spirit-led”.  Here are my notes:

• The world is crying out for genuine people and authenticity!
• In order to achieve authenticity, there is one profound thing that is simple, yet necessary.
• Don’t substitute largeness for depth.
• We have to remember that although we can teach what we know, we will always reproduce what we are.
• As the leaders of the church in the coming century, we have to realize that with great privilege comes great responsibility.
• As church planters, we often get arrogant and prideful, and yet when we start the work, we don’t have what it takes to finish. That is, wisdom.
• People don’t come to Christ because of lights and bands.
• We don’t know the tests that are to come that are stumbling blocks to people coming to know Christ, but the Holy Spirit does.
• How do we get wisdom?
  • Personal experience. Yes we learn from experience, but we don’t have that much time, or leeway in making mistakes.
  • Others’ experience. A single book full of experience and insight is priceless; yet God, in His infinite wisdom, has given us 66 books of experience and insight, raw and unedited. (Psalm 119:98-101)
• The Spirit is concerned with our root, which determines how permanent our fruit is/becomes.
• Our root is this: daily time in the Word with God.
• The Holy Spirit, at His bottom line, is our divine mentor, constantly with us daily, guiding us through our daily decisions.
• We have to hear the heart and voice of the Master, not just one hour a week on Sunday am, but an hour daily.
• One of the greatest things that Wayne did at New Hope was to teach the people to feed themselves at home.
• But how, practically?
  • Have a study time including a Bible, a dedicated place, a pen, a journal, and a daily planner (to keep distractions minimal.
  • The method Wayne uses in journaling is S.O.A.P.
    • Scripture: Write the key Scripture down.
    • Observation: Write down what the Spirit has brought out in the Scripture to you.
    • Application: How can you put it into practice now?
    • Prayer: Write a prayer including the observation and application for the Spirit to aid you in.
• With no roots, we rot.
• And remember this: our individual time with the Spirit provides our genuineness, so don’t mimic, just tap into the same source: the Spirit-guided Word.

Great stuff from Hawaii. More in the future, of course!

I enjoyed the retreat thoroughly! I got a little sun, but hey, what’s an Irishman to do? Anyway, I was fishing off of a jetty on the Pamlico Sound when God spoke to me very loudly (not audibly, but it may as well have been). He told me that I could stand out there all day and not catch a fish. And I told Him that that would be OK, because I love fishing. When asked why I love fishing, I thought about it, and realized I loved fishing because I liked catching fish. He then told me that I could stand out there all day and not catch a fish, and yet I would enjoy it because I knew if I stood out there long enough, I’d eventually catch a fish. And then it hit me like a freight train: Fishing for men is no different. We can stand on the pier all day and not catch a one for a long period of time; but eventually we will, and it makes it all worthwhile.