By Eric Rafferty
Last week my three year old son, Memo, had the experience of going through Vacation Bible School for the first time. As a three year old all I really wanted for him was to get through the week without hitting anyone (he did great on that front by the way). Learning deep truths about Jesus wasn’t really an expectation I had for him, and I definitely didn’t expect him to teach me a foundational truth about mission with Jesus. But that’s exactly what happened.
Eric Metcalf is the Lead Planter of Community Lincoln Park | Old Town – a new church being launching in downtown Chicago on Oct 20, 2013. Eric also provides leadership to NewThing’s Leadership Residency Program – a program designed to apprentice church planters to start new churches. Previously, Eric led NewThing (www.newthing.org), a growing church planting network focused on catalyzing a movement of reproducing churches. Under Eric’s leadership, NewThing was able to double in size every year for 3 years straight; reaching a goal of planting 1 new church every 11 days. Eric has been married for 14 years to his beautiful wife Erin and has three incredible children: Joey (9), Lydia (8), and Max (5).
Because of his leadership with New Thing, I asked him to write a post on the top 3 things church planters must do. He has seen tons of churches plant over his years, so he has a thing or two to teach us!
I led NewThing for almost 4 years and I found 3 things to be true. I’m now planting a church, a Campus of Community Christian Church, in downtown Chicago (Lincoln Park) and I’m still finding those 3 things to be true. Want to know what they are, keep reading you will find out what I believe are the top 3 things churches must do.
By Brad Brisco
Christendom is the term given to describe the religious culture that has dominated Western society since the fourth century when the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Post-Christendom refers to the time after Christendom, when the church lost its place of power and influence.
Exponential Los Angeles will offer the DiscipleShift theme based on five shifts churches can make to plant and lead churches that make disciples who make disciples (outlined in the recently released book DiscipleShift by Jim Putman and Bobby Harrington, with Robert Coleman).
Exponential is praying the conference will be a gathering that spotlights the work of church planting already happening in the West; equips leaders; and catalyzes new conversations, relationships and ultimately church planting movements.
If you weren’t able to make it to Orlando or want to give your spouse or team the opportunity to experience DiscipleShift live, make plans to attend Exponential LA. At less than $65 per person (when joined by a spouse), Exponential has made it as affordable as possible to attend. Register today at http://
exponential.org/LA to get the Super Early rate of $99/$29 spouse registration! The price goes up on June 30. So reserve your spot this week.
Found this great post by Ed Stetzer that I thought you all might want to read in light of todays events.
Last week, the largest Christian ministry devoted to helping homosexuals struggle against their attractions apologized to the gay community and announced it was shutting down.
Today the Supreme Court of the United States struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996. The Supreme Court also declined to rule on Proposition 8 from California (Christianity Today has the full story here).
In doing so, same-sex marriage recognition remains a state issue and (although this is not completely clear that this time) it appears to remain legal in California, as it is in 12 other states and the District of Columbia. Also, the United States government will recognize the legality of those marriages with respect to federal benefits. (I’ll update this paragraph as the ruling is analyzed, but this is the first look.)
Needless to say, our culture is changing– quickly and dramatically on this issue. But how should Christians respond?
As some of you have asked for more details on the post detailing the New York/New Jersey InterVarsity pathway, I thought it would be a great idea to share with you the pathway that InterVarsity is working on nationally through the Chapter Building Initiative.
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Being scared is part of the human condition and no one can avoid it. But being scared cannot be what dictates how we lead and press out. If we are going to be on the edge of faith and lead initiatives to start new things, then two things are guaranteed:
LA Greeks gathering this school year for training and vision
As we are planting Greek Ministry with InterVarsity in Los Angeles, we continued to be surprised by a campus called Loyola Marymount. Loyola was not one of the first places we were looking to start Greek Ministry, but as I document in this post, God is growing something there underground. He has made it clear that we need to be there and get something started, so we have been obeying that this year. God took this ministry to the next step last night!
Any community that wants to be on mission with Jesus has got to be marked by incarnation. The heart of incarnational ministry is to encounter the love of God and to embody that love in a particular place with a particular people. Look at any community that has brought the gospel to a new environment in a transformational way and you’ll see them encountering the love of God and embodying his love in that place. They incarnate the gospel and lives are transformed. Sounds great right? So why isn’t every Christian community living incarnationally? We see two ways that a community can miss the mark of incarnation and fail to see transformation occur. We can fail to inhabit a community and we can fail to actually incorporate the gospel into our lives.
Photo Courtesy of Ben Heine (cc)
Technological breakthroughs coupled with the ever-connected global village have birthed a generation that sees the world differently. Millennials are a beautiful generation that is highly creative! Creatives are everywhere — especially in the university context. I believe there are more opportunities now for creatives to express themselves than ever before!