A brother in Christ and a partner in ministry, Pastor Rashid Emmanuel, was shot dead in Faisalabad, Pakistan, yesterday, after being exonerated from accusations of blasphemy against the prophet Muhammad.
We are grieving Rashid’s death and praying/hoping for the safety of other Christians in Pakistan. The country is 97% Muslim, and though the government has a good record of protecting religious freedom, some radicals among the population are very hostile to Christians. Sources on the ground are complaining that the blasphemy charges were spurious in the first place. Religious freedom advocates have criticized Pakistan’s blasphemy law for being vague and subject to exploitation by those hostile to Christianity:
Section 295-C: Use of derogatory remarks, etc; in respect of the Holy Prophet. Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.
In the past few weeks I’ve listened to two sermons by aspiring church planters here in Omaha. In both cases these men tell personal stories of how God has used the Acts 29 Network – and our process for training, assessing, and developing future leaders – as a key resource in their own development.
People ask all the time what exactly our process is for raising up and training church planters. Listening to these stories might help you have a better understanding of why we believe the gospel, mission, and community come together to have a formative influence on young leaders – and how we try to steward what God is doing in their lives for greater influence.
Justin Dean is a church planting resident at our sister church, Core Community… he tells the story of how his first meeting with Ethan and me at an Acts 29 bootcamp in Louisville last year became God’s means of calling him to Omaha for a season. Erick Whigham is one of our emerging leaders at Coram Deo… he tells the story of how God used a conversation with me to temper his expectations and give him patience.
I just returned from 3 days in Phoenix, where I did some teaching and training for church leaders through the Surge Network. Surge is a local coalition of gospel-centered church planters and pastors who want to see the gospel transform the city of Phoenix. They hail from many networks and traditions: Acts 29, Sovereign Grace, Presbyterian (PCA), Baptists, and nondenominational churches. But they are united in their commitment to robust theology, missional church dynamics, and a gospel-centered philosophy of ministry.
One Surge leader explained the vision to me this way: “Right now, a-theological megachurches dominate the landscape of Phoenix and drive much of the religious conversation in our city. But what if, in 10 years, the more Reformed, gospel-centered churches (whether small or large) were driving the conversation? We think that would be a good thing for the gospel, a good thing for church planting, and a good thing for the city of Phoenix.”
Surge revolves around three primary initiatives: a monthly lunch open to all and focused on networking and training; a year-long “Surge School” open to committed leaders who want to develop theologically and missionally; and a small number of church-planting internships and residencies designed to develop and train aspiring church planters. I was invited to speak at the monthly lunch and to teach on gospel-centered ministry for the Surge School.
It’s great to see movements of God like this, where like-minded, gospel-saturated, kingdom-focused leaders come together to advance the mission of God in their city. I wanted to share what the Surge guys are up to in order to urge you to 1) pray for what God is doing in Phoenix and 2) pray for God’s continued grace as we seek to forge similar kingdom partnerships here in Omaha.
It was a great privilege this morning at Coram Deo to have JD and Michele Senkbile back with us. The Senkbiles were an integral part of the original team that founded Coram Deo. They moved to Cape Town, South Africa, in December of 2008 to oversee Acts 29’s church planting work on the African continent. Throughout 2009, the Holy Spirit made it clear that they needed to plant a church in Cape Town as a home base for gospel movement in southern Africa. So in January of 2010, they launched Vox City Church in the heart of Cape Town. The word vox is Latin for voice… Vox City Church desires to be a voice for the gospel in the heart of Cape Town.
If you’re not familiar with JD and the work God has called him to, audio from today’s message will be up shortly on the Resources page or Coram Deo’s iTunes podcast. Keep JD and Michele and their team in your prayers as they seek to shape a biblically faithful, culturally relevant gospel-community-on-mission in this important global city.
Every summer, Acts 29 lead pastors and their wives from across the country gather in Colorado for 3 days of rest, refreshment, and reconnecting. At these retreats we dive in deeply with each other and often hear “off the record” from some of the key leaders and influencers within the Acts 29 movement. Here are the five best quotes from the teaching time at this year’s retreat:
“How many of you guys are in your 20’s? [Pause to let audience raise hands] You don’t know ANYTHING!” – Mark Driscoll
“Why don’t you stop blogging about election and go find some elect people?” – Mark Driscoll, lambasting Calvinists who love doctrine but don’t share the gospel with anyone
“Don’t come up in here talking about yo’ Reformed theology if God ain’t sovereign from your waist down!” – Eric Mason, talking about young black men in his church committing sexual immorality
“My elders be flankin’ me… if you want to step to a girl in my church, you gotta come through a FLEET of dudes!” – Mason, talking about protecting his flock from irresponsible young men
“God, I know you sometimes take your people home early… I’m just praying you wouldn’t do that with my daddy.” - Matt Chandler describing his 7-year-old daughter’s prayer for him at bedtime one night
One of the best kept secrets in the Acts 29 Network is David Fairchild, lead pastor of Kaleo Church in San Diego. At the first Acts 29 bootcamp I ever attended, David went off on a room full of dudes about why they needed to LOVE theology… and I immediately realized, “This is a tribe of men I want to run with.”
David is a dear friend and partner in ministry who has family in Council Bluffs and is therefore very excited about what we’re doing at Coram Deo. In this video post he explains the tri-perspectival understanding of spiritual leadership which Kaleo and Coram Deo share. For those of you who want to understand how we think about leadership… watch and learn.
In financial planning, law requires brokers to disclose that “past performance is not a guarantee of future results.” In leadership, the opposite is true. Mark Driscoll observes:
If you’ve never done anything, something radical could change, but the odds are tomorrow, you’re not going to wake up and start doing a lot. If you’re not faithful, you’re probably not going to be faithful. There’s something to be said for consistency… Whatever God has for you, you’ve got to start by doing something. There are a lot of people who walk in, and they’re totally fired up for two weeks, and then it’s over, you never see them again. Past performance indicates future performance. We want to see somebody who’s been doing something before we unleash them to do something else.
If you live near Omaha and are a current church leader, an aspiring church planter, or a mature Christian seeking further theological training… the opportunity you’ve been waiting for has arrived.
Following up on our previous announcement about Porterbrook, we’re pleased to officially roll out the plan for Fall 2010/Spring 2011 along with application materials. Interested parties should begin the application process now; applications are due by August 1 and space is limited.
Here are the major details:
Porterbrook is a church-based theological training curriculum that’s rich in content but more relaxed in style than a traditional seminary degree; think University of Phoenix, Bellevue University, community-college-continuing-education. For an overview, check out the previous post.
It utilizes a cohort-based approach to learning: cohorts of 3-5 students meet together for study and accountability as they progress through the material; all cohorts come together once per quarter for a day-long seminar.
Porterbrook kicks off this fall with a day-long seminar on September 9, 2010; additional seminars take place on Nov 18, Feb 24, 2011, and May 19, 2011.
All the details you need to know are included in the attached document (see below), which includes a curriculum sample so you can see the kind of stuff you’ll be learning and applying.
Our goal for 2010 is to facilitate 4-5 cohorts of 5 students each.
So: if you’re interested, read the attached PDF. If you’d like to apply, please get the ball rolling. We are excited about the potential to train and release future leaders through this gospel-centered, church-based, Reformed/missional curriculum. We’re also working and praying to try to land a Re:Train site in Omaha in the next 2-3 years to provide seminary-level training alongside the more simple/organic style of Porterbrook. Please be praying for God’s grace on these efforts.
For the past two years we’ve been gathering together every church planter we know in Omaha for a quarterly lunch. At these quarterly events we pray together, talk about the city, and serve each other through teaching and training. We’re pleased to announce that Hugh Halter will be the featured speaker for the next Omaha Church Planters’ Quarterly on March 30.
Hugh is a missional-church pioneer who describes himself as “a mentor to church planters and somewhat jaded pastor of the Adullam church network in Denver.” He is best known for his recent book The Tangible Kingdom, which has become a must-read among church planting strategists and missional leaders everywhere. Hugh has been a featured speaker at dozens of church planting conferences including Exponential and Verge.
Hugh has been a longtime friend to Core and Coram Deo. What we love most about him is that he is both passionate and pastoral. He isn’t afraid to challenge your thinking, but he’s humble and charitable and disarming in his posture. And he isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of guy. In his own words, “We’re about all forms of churches: Mega/Micro/Traditional/Contemporary/Mainline. We need them all, but all need to be led by Missionary thinkers and move beyond simply ‘doing church.’ God’s church must get back on the move and find the beautiful balance between gathering and scattering.”
Our goal in bringing Hugh in is to help church leaders think about how to create missional structures. How can you help people live out the gospel in everyday life? What must churches do to shape missionaries, not just Sunday-morning Christians? How can leaders create missional opportunities that fit their context? The theme of this quarterly will be “Your Church on Mission.”
The invitation has already gone out to the church planters we know, but we wanted to post it here on the blog to reach missional leaders we might otherwise miss. If you’d like to attend this lunch, please email kendal@cdomaha.com. We are accepting RSVP’s on a first-come, first-served basis, with priority given to pastors, church planters, and small group leaders. The event will take place from 11 AM to 2 PM on TUESDAY, MARCH 30, at City Church in Benson.
Statistically, church planting is a suicide mission. Church planting books and conferences often observe that 80% of new church plants fail within the first four years (though this data has not been carefully sourced). A controlled statistical study by Ed Stetzer showed that out of 1000 churches planted between 2000 and 2005, only 68% remained viable after four years.
A number of factors contribute to this failure rate, but denominations and church-planting agencies often compound the problem by throwing money and opportunity at any young Christian leader with a dream and an entrepreneurial spirit. In our own city I have witnessed numerous church planters come and go, burning through hundreds of thousands of dollars while trying vainly to hold together a core team by the sheer power of their charisma.
From the outset, the Acts 29 Network has had a different model. We have held firmly to the biblical criteria for eldership given in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. No man can be approved to plant an Acts 29 church unless he is an exceptional man in every way: a strong husband and father, a sound theologian, a gifted leader and preacher, and a proven start-from-scratch entrepreneur. While others are looking for better methods, we are looking for better men.
And the numbers seem to indicate that God is blessing this approach:
From 2006 to 2009 Acts 29 assessed 414 potential church planters and approved 240 (58%) to go forward as Acts 29 Candidates. (Candidates must gather a core of 40 people before moving to Full Member status). Two hundred of those men are now Full Members who are active in church planting; the rest didn’t make it through the candidate phase.
Of church planters who are assessed, approved, and progress to Full Member status, the viability rate within Acts 29 is 98.4%.
Acts 29 currently has 204 Full Members and 85 men in candidate phase (including our own Will Walker), for a total of 289 churches affiliated.
With over 40% of applicants rejected, you’d think that aspiring church planters would be going elsewhere. But the exact opposite is happening: in 2009, Acts 29 had 470 new applicants – an average of 39 per month. God is raising up an army of men who want someone to shoot straight with them. They want to know if they’ve got the right gifting, calling, and experience to plant churches – and they’re coming to us because they know we tell the truth.
The purpose of this post isn’t to brag about Acts 29, but to celebrate what God seems to be doing. And to make the point that when we follow the Bible’s instructions for church leadership, surprisingly… it works. Please pray for God to continue raising up qualified church planters who will plant gospel-centered churches all over the world – so that people might meet Jesus, cities and cultures might be transformed, and God might be glorified!
