At the recent Dwell Conference in NYC, we were able to put a brand new book into the hands of 300 church leaders. Compelled by Love, subtitled The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living is the new book by our friend Ed Stetzer and Acts 29 church planter Philip Nation. As we ... Read More
Category: General
Well, this blog post is being written while I sit on a train with my lovely wife Grace traveling between New York and Philadelphia. It’s been a busy but cool few weeks. Read More
Category: General
At the most recent regional training day in St. Louis, Darrin Patrick spoke of developing and equipping leaders. It is a vital topic for church planters as they seek to build, multiply, and facilitate good leadership. Darrin spoke out of the books of first and second Timothy; books that were written to a scared young pastor and are a gold mine for planters wrestling with the task of being a leader. Read More
Category: Leadership
Tyler Jones and his wife Kimberley planted Vintage 21 five years ago. After attending many churches in the area, Tyler and Kimberly noticed an absence of people in the 20-40 age groups. After much prayer and guidance, they felt God's call to begin a church with people of that age group in mind. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Picture this: You work in a high school and all the 14-year old boys are slumped over and have no guidance because many of their dads are not present in their home. So, you decide to start a young men’s bible study group to give them some guidance and community. But, guess who shows up: all the churched kids. Many boys leave the church when they reach the end of high school, why does it happen so consistently?...“The world is now filled with passive, emasculated men that were not validated by their fathers.” Read More
Category: Church Planting
A church planter is a uniquely gifted pastor with a passion to proclaim the gospel to those who are unchurched with the goal of establishing a new community of believers on mission in their community for the glory of God. But just because a man is called to plant does not mean it is easy to do without some help from those who are actively involved in birthing new churches. Acts 29 and Mars Hill Church want to humbly offer to help. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Ed Stetzer spoke in Philadelphia recently on the topic of ‘Missional Movements and Church Planting'. Ever the missiologist pundit, Stetzer gave summation of God's mission to the world and how the church can be and is part of it. Read More
Category: Church Planting
In these last clips from the 2008 Chicago boot camp, Mark Driscoll answers two important questions from the ladies in the audience about the influence of culture and media on the family as well as where Mark's wife comes alive in the midst of planting a church and the messiness of ministry. Read More
Category: Church Planting
‘Seeing God’s vision for the culture is so important in how we live now.’ In the last 50 years there has been fierce debate over the extent to which the church should be involved in evangelism, social action, or both. ‘The gospel is not a culturally specific truth. It transcends culture. Worship music is not solely the sound that comes out of Nashville, Tennessee.’ Read More
Category: Church Planting
Roughly two years ago Mars Hill Church experimented with multi-site church, thanks to the influence of my friends at Leadership Network and pastors they connected me with to learn from, such as my buddy Larry Osborne. That experiment has proven wildly successful and we are now a church with seventeen services on six campuses and are expanding campuses rapidly. For us, multi-site has become a second form of church planting and has revolutionized how we do ministry. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Darrin Patrick, lead pastor of The Journey, spoke at our Boot Camp in Chicago about Leading the Mission. Darrin planted a church in 2002 in St. Louis and it has since grown and seen many people come to Christ as well as he serves as Acts 29's vice-president. In this session Darrin shares how ‘practicing hospitality is more than just inviting Christians over to watch Survivor' and that leading the mission in church planting is a gruelling yet high calling. Read More
Category: Church Planting
At the boot camp in Chicago this year, Mark Driscoll answered questions from church planters and their wives. With great honesty and candidness Mark spoke about the ways he succeeded and also the ways he failed in loving his family while planting Mars Hill Church. It was a helpful time of Q&A. Read More
Category: Church Planting
It has been a super busy few weeks and I thought it would be fun to catch folks up on some of the highlights... Read More
Category: General
Mark Dever spoke at this year’s boot camp in Chicago about Evangelism in Church Planting. Some may think that wearing a suit and talking about relevance is a paradox, but not for Dever. He spoke with great wisdom, kindness and humility sharing his love for evangelism. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Almost 1,200 people attended the Text and Context Acts 29 Boot Camp this week in uncharacteristically sunny Seattle for three days of fantastic teaching. Among those were spiritually hungry people from 46 states and 11 countries, 49 Acts 29 pastors, 23 couples to be assessed as Acts 29 candidates and Mars Hill Church staff and an army of volunteers. Read More
Category: General
Mark Driscoll spent an hour talking with the participants of the Chicago boot camp about the importance of having a gospel-centered family. In this Audio clip, he tells his story about planting Mars Hill Church in Seattle and the stress it placed on his family. He then answered one question, How do I fulfill my role as a godly wife to my husband who is a strong leader? Read More
Category: Church Planting
Mark Driscoll led the session on Preaching the Mission to the students and faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and to the sold-out boot camp registrants in Chicago (Deerfield) at the end of January. Driscoll said he prefers to preach rather than teach about preaching. He cleverly said it is the difference between going on a date and teaching someone about dating. “Going on a date with your wife always ends... Read More
Category: Church Planting
“You [Acts 29 Pastors] are taken to be the essence of cool by many young ministers, and I personify not cool,” said Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church and founder of 9Marks, in his address at our Chicago Boot Camp last week. Dever, conspicuously clad in suit and tie, united the commonality of our mission by saying, “Our differences are enough to separate some of my friends..." Read More
Category: General
In light of the New Year I wanted to share some advice with fellow preachers. One of the best things a preacher can do to improve their preaching ministry is to plan out what they are going to preach at least a year in advance. This allows the preacher to begin their research and study well in advance so that when the week of a sermon arrives, they will be well on their way to speaking as God intends... Read More
Category: Leadership
What are the differences and similarities between the "emerging" and "emergent" church? Has the emerging church struck a chord with engaging the younger generation? How do we engage the emerging church? How should we respond to the challenges it raises? Read More
Category: Church Planting
Our church planting boot camps are always open to all people and are beneficial to all church leaders. The next boot camp will be in Chicago January 29-30 on the campus of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). "Chicago at the end of January?" you ask, doubting our sanity?" I told you that church planting is not for wimps. Read More
Category: Church Planting
The St Louis Metro Baptist Association has formed a Church Planting Fund called “Show Me Partnership.” It is a way that people can assist those church planters whose funds from the Missouri Baptist Convention will be cut off January 1, 2008 because of a decision made by the MBC on December 10, 2007. Read More
Category: General
Acts 29 Network and the Southern Baptists share the same mission: to seek and to save the lost; to go into all of the world and share the gospel of Jesus and to baptize and teach the believers through the local church. For this reason, we love the SBC, have appreciated our partnerships throughout the country and are now mourning the loss of our fellowship with the Missouri Southern Baptist Convention. Read More
Category: General
Acts 29 Network is blowing into Chicago January 29-30 for a church planting boot camp on the campus of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. This training coincides with TEDS’ Church Planting Week. Read More
Category: Church Planting
In September, Mars Hill Church hosted the Resurgence/Acts 29 Network Fall Conference titled: Continuous Worship. Harold Best, Mark Driscoll and Tim Smith shared same great content in the area of worship in the church today. Read More
Category: Leadership
Missional Leaders, Church Planters, and those supporting church planting from the Metro-Philadelphia Region and other surrounding areas are invited to hear Ed Stetzer, Missiologist in Residence for Lifeway Resources, for the afternoon to look at... Read More
Category: General
Text and Context is the National Resurgence Conference and Acts 29 Boot camp featuring John Piper, Matt Chandler, Mark Driscoll and Jim Gilmore among others... we are looking at 1000 people in attendance... Read More
Category: General
Geoff Bradford and Steve Huber, pastors at liberti in Philadelphia, PA, shared to a group of church planters and pastors in the Northeast about the theological foundations and the practical implications of the multi-site model. Some key questions addressed: What does it mean for you and for your church to be ‘sent' into the world God has placed you? What is the church you serve built for? Read More
Category: Church Planting
Darrin Patrick, Lead Pastor of The Journey and Vice President of the Acts 29 Network, spoke at the 2007 MissionalX Conference. Darrin's two sessions, "Dealing With Personal Idols"" and "Bringing the Gospel Into Culture" are now available. Read More
Category: Leadership
We had an excellent line-up of speakers at our Raleigh Boot Camp last month. All audio, video and notes are now available from our main sessions for you to listen to or download. Read More
Category: Church Planting
A quick Google search for the words “executive pastor” will mostly give you hits for available job postings and existing executive pastor (XP) bios. Dig a little deeper and you might come across the occasional article. The reality is that there just isn’t much out there for the guy who sits in the second chair pastoral role in his church. So XP’s are often left to reinvent the proverbial wheel. This does not have to be the case. Below you will find descriptions of five resources that no XP should be without. Read More
Category: Leadership
"The Acts 29 Boot Camp in Raleigh was the best training I received in preparation for church planting. I laughed, I cried, I struggled with the messages, I argued with myself but I walked away better prepared to plant a gospel-centered church." (Attendee at our Raleigh Boot Camp) Read More
Category: Church Planting
Lots of questions have come up in why we use video for delivering sermons during church services at many locations, so I did a little lecture to answer the questions for anyone who cares: Read More
Category: General
In February 2008 I am publishing my next book along with my friend Dr. Gerry Breshears. It will be titled Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions. I am really excited about this book since it is my first hard-bound book and is by far better than anything else I have published to date. Additionally, my friends at Crossway have been great to work with. They are aiming for 50,000 sales the first year, which is a big deal and would put the book on the New York Times Bestseller list but, alas, nowhere near the level of all the books on flying people and the end times. This book is also the first in an entire line of books called Re:Lit (Resurgence Literature). To help get the books sales started, we’ve done two things for you and anyone else you can help me get the word out to. Read More
Category: General
It is very humbling to see how God is significantly using our network to influence and shape the church planting culture. Acts 29 Network exists to start churches that plant churches. Next week in Raleigh, North Carolina, over 250 individuals will be joining us at the new location of Vintage21 for a two day boot camp. Our boot camps are simple but profound: emphasize solid theology and contextualizing the gospel. We will not waver on either of these commitments. We won’t water down our theology to reach more people and we won’t attack the culture in the name of Christianity. We are planting churches that are missionaries in their respective communities sent by Christ with the gospel (John 20:21). Read More
Category: General
Matthew Kruse is the Lead Pastor of 7 Mile Road, an Acts 29 church just north of Boston. On September 15 the church is releasing their first original worship album entitled Truth Within the Static. We’ve invited Matt to guest blog about hopes for this CD and about some of the theology that undergirds the project. Purchase information, lyrics, and chord charts can all be found at www.CarmenDei.com. Read More
Category: Acts 29 Church Highlights
As President of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network, one of the joys of our work is networking with various denominations, as well as other networks, to see gospel-centered, Jesus-loving, Bible-preaching, risk-taking men planting churches as fast as possible. Some of the church planters in our network are in independent churches, some are Presbyterians, some are Baptist, and there are a host of other such partnerships that we thank God for. Read More
Category: General
New Audio Posted: On August 14th, Darrin Patrick spoke to church planters and leaders in the St. Louis area about what it means to be a church on mission and why this is still a crucial question that faces the church in contemporary society. Read More
Category: Church Planting
In this 5 minute excerpt, Mark Driscoll speaks to the dynamics of the family behind the scenes in planting a church especially defining the role of the church planter’s wife. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Acts 29 Network's next boot camp will be on the East Coast in Raleigh, NC hosted by Vintage 21 on September 19-20th. The Acts 29 Network desires to cultivate localized missionaries who will first reach their surrounding cultures and then branch out to the world. This is carried out by helping qualified leaders called by God to plant new churches and replant declining churches in our nation and around the world. Read More
Category: General
Tim Smith, Mars Hill Church's worship pastor, has a deep passion to equip and encourage other worship leaders as both theologians and musicians. As a result, he is now embarking on a series of new projects that I wanted to let everyone know about in the following interview we conducted. Read More
Category: General
We interviewed Tyler Jones, Lead Pastor of Vintage21 and host of the upcoming Acts 29 Boot Camp in Raleigh, North Carolina. A29: When and where did you plant Vintage21? TJ: We planted Vintage21 in downtown Raleigh in November of 2002 – about a week before Thanksgiving actually – and believe me, we had no idea what we were doing. A29: What do you mean that you had no idea... Read More
Category: Acts 29 Church Highlights
Nearly every church planting network and assessment center uses some form of Ridley’s list of characteristics for an effective church planter. While I normally decry cut and paste articles, we get numerous questions from potential church planters asking if they should plant a church. When I set out to plant a church, I examined a list of characteristics from Malphur’s book to discern God’s call to plant a church. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Mark Driscoll shares in this three minute audio clip some of the lessons he learned in the beginning stages of planting Mars Hill Church and offers great insights of what to avoid as a pastor. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Listen to this 4 minute audio excerpt from Scott Thomas and Mark Driscoll answering the question of those pastoring a church that seems to be plateauing and/or recognizing the church is off mission and what steps one might take to turn it around. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Listen to this 5 minute audio from Mark Driscoll and Scott Thomas explaining the importance of calling for a church planter including what it means to confirm your calling, being called to a geographical location, the timing of your call and some practical steps of what to do next once you are called to plant a church. Read More
Category: Church Planting
At our 2006 Reform and Resurge Conference in Seattle, my good friend Pastor Darrin Patrick from The Journey in Saint Louis spoke frankly of the burden that pastoral ministry is. He presented the following statistics... Read More
Category: Leadership
The one thing that I appreciate most about Mark Driscoll is not his communication skills although he is a brilliant and gifted communicator. It is not his wit and humor and ability to make people laugh in almost any context. It is not his photographic memory or his understanding of complicated doctrinal and theological concepts. I think his IQ is on par with genius but none of that really matters that much to me. What impresses me most is... Read More
Category: General
Religion says, if I obey, God will love me. Gospel says, because God loves me, I can obey. Religion has good people & bad people. Gospel has only repentant and unrepentant people. Religion values... Read More
Category: General
I have met some bloggers out there and they are all interesting in their own way. Anybody who is excited to put their ideas, pictures, random thoughts, ramblings on the web for anyone to see has to be partly nuts. Some give it a go for a short time and find it taxing to regularly write things the whole world can see and a few might find interest. Others become addicted to blogging. It is these cats that I write about. Read More
Category: General
In light of some recent attacks on us and on our leadership, we wanted to “set the record straight” about a few misrepresentations about Acts 29. This is lengthy for a blog, but it is necessary for contextual clarity—something our critics don’t always practice. Read More
Category: Church Planting
A godly leader must make great sacrifices to begin a new work. Starting a family comes at a great expense. Starting a business comes at a great expense and starting a church or ministry will only come at a great expense to the leader. Nehemiah led the Jewish people to rebuild the broken walls around Jerusalem. He secured financing and time off (12 years) from King Artaxerxes to lead the people to reverse the desecration they were experiencing since their return from the exile. After fighting the initial opposition by outsiders, Nehemiah addressed the oppression by insiders. God's people at that time experienced financial hardship due to high taxation and famine. Furthermore, the unrighteous rich were taking advantage of the righteous poor by charging high interest rates on loans and then taking their fields, vineyards, houses and even children as slaves when they defaulted on their debts. Even Nehemiah had succumbed to the temptation to increase his own wealth through unjust means. Read More
Category: Leadership
Missional-Is that a Real Word? - A church that is not missional is not really a church. A church exists by mission as the sun exists by burning. When the sun loses its burn it ceases to be the sun. When a church loses its mission, it ceases to be a church. Missional is an adjective describing all of the activities of the church body as they are brought under the mission of God (missio dei) to proclaim the good news of salvation through His Son Jesus Christ. Being on mission very easily becomes one activity in church among many others vying for attention. Over time churches allow meetings, programs, traditions and other good things to cumulatively move the church from missional mode to maintenance mode. A church must continuously see itself as missionaries and all of its energies must be missionary. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Acts 29 provides boot camps for the purpose of setting the theological compass for missional church planting. Last week we had the biggest boot camp of our existence. Over 350 people converged upon Seattle for the Acts 29 Church Planter’s Boot Camp. 32 men and their wives were assessed as potential planters with Acts 29 Network. Over 42 Acts 29 member pastors came in to assess. 20 pastors began their 6 month training to be a church planting coach. Read More
Category: General
This Blog has an accompanying audio podcast made available by and used by permission of National New Church Conference. The audio can be accessed on the National New Church Conference website. The National New Church Conference is a cross-denominational gathering designed to connect, inspire, equip and challenge church planting leaders. The conference will be held in Orlando, Florida April 23-26, 2007. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Leading a church or ministry is a tough assignment. It is even tougher if the leader does not have a compelling vision. Compelling, according to Dictionary.com is “to force or drive, especially to a course of action; to have a powerful and irresistible effect, influence, etc.” The vision of a leader must irresistibly force others to follow. How does a leader gain such a compelling vision? I offer ten suggestions: Read More
Category: Leadership
Nehemiah led the people of God to rebuild the devastated walls of Jerusalem in just 52 days in spite of opposition, ridicule and internal conflict. Nehemiah applied a principle in his life that is sometimes overlooked in our analysis of his leadership principles. What made him so effective and what can we learn from his response to the trouble that had overtaken the survivors of the exile? Read More
Category: Leadership
How would we define church planting? The best definition I know of which describes church planting is the word “missions.” Church planters are missionaries. If church planting isn’t about missions it’s only about rearranging Christians. You can start a new church using attractive programs, dynamic worship, and fancy PowerPoint displays, but if all you’re doing is drawing other Christians from other churches That’s not missions. We call that “sheep-stealing,” or “swapping chairs on the Titanic.” Church planting is about missions, reaching out to the unchurched. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Jonathan Herron, lead pastor of Catalyst Church in Kent, Ohio shared with Acts 29 his process of planting Catalyst and their plans for the future. Read More
Category: Acts 29 Church Highlights
Tim Keller, lead pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, NY offers church planters insights to help clarify the purposes of the church based on the example of the early church in Acts 2:42-47. Read More
Category: Church Planting
The most important factor in determining an effective gospel-centered church plant is the lead pastor. Cool bands, hip buildings and powerful children’s ministries may contribute but do not make the biggest difference. It is the clear visionary guidance of the lead planter. Below are ten characteristics of a "wise church-planter." Read More
Category: Church Planting
Prayer and worship can feel like a waste of time when items of business are pressing. Making worship a priority in your schedule will not only ensure there is time for worship; it will also begin to transform you as you guard your time with the Lord. If your own personal worship lacks depth and significance in your life, you will be unable to lead others into the presence of God. Read More
Category: Leadership
We live in a me-centered world. Many churches are rapidly becoming me-centered. The consumer (church attendee) arrives at church expecting the supplier (church) to provide a flawless product (ministry, style, program) that meets all of their needs. The gospel is merely an added afterthought. If a church is centered on success (rather than the pursuit of Jesus) it forfeits its original calling by Christ and seeks merely to attract or keep its (paying) “customers.” Read More
Category: Church Planting
JR Vassar is the founding pastor of Apostles Church in the Midtown/Upper East area of Manhattan. JR launched the church in September 2005. Before moving to NYC in January 2005, he served for four years as the Teaching Pastor of Lake Pointe Church in the Dallas area. Apostles Church has been growing steadily and reaching emerging professionals, young married couples and several families. He is married to Ginger and they have two children. Apostles Church is a member of the Acts 29 Network. Read More
Category: Acts 29 Church Highlights
Twenty Questions You Should Ask Yourself before Considering Starting a Church by Dr. J. Allen Thompson, President of the International Church Planting Center in Atlanta, and coordinator of multicultural church planting for Mission to North America for the PCA. As an executive with Worldteam, Allen helped the organization to focus on a strategy for training and deploying national workers in church planting in 14 countries. Read More
Category: Church Planting
Relational Rage is a disturbing characteristic within the body of Christ. Professing Christians are simultaneously dependant on Christ’s forgiveness while displaying a colossal reconciliatory deficiency. In other words, church people are intentionally hurting one another with no real attempt to seek forgiveness—the gospel message of reconciliation. As a young Christian in my teens, I noticed this serious gap of inconsistency. It turned me off at first and then as a pastor it engulfed me to try to correct this obvious flaw in the body of Christ. I found it to be deeper than I expected. While trying to mediate between two feuding church members (as a pastor in the church), I became the retaliatory victim of their animosity and rebellion. They weren’t interested in the gospel being applied to their fury. I finally stopped throwing my pearls before the swine and concentrated instead on ministering to those whose heart was on the gospel. But pigs still stink even if we try to ignore them. And they roam freely throughout the church snorting and rooting and defecating around pre-believers and new believers. We wonder why the church stinks. Read More
Category: General
Paul Dean, an Acts 29 church plant in Issaquah (a suburb of Seattle) is celebrating his one year anniversary this Sunday (January 21) as the founding pastor of Alathia (meaning “Truth”). He has served as an assistant pastor in Ohio, youth pastor in Richland, WA and Tacoma, WA and was a children’s pastor in Pullman, WA. He was also employed as a history instructor at Washington State University. He lives with his wife Kathryn and three young children, Nathan 9, Carolyn 7, and Alaina 5 in Issaquah, WA. Every year, over 1 million people in this country start a business. Forty percent of them will close by the end of the first year. Within 5 years, more than 80 percent of them will fail. According to author James Emery White, “The statistics are about the same for new churches.” So what made the difference for this church plant in Issaquah celebrating this milestone day? Pastor Dean sat down with us and answered some questions that most church planters have to face at some time to avoid being a statistical casualty. Read More
Category: Acts 29 Church Highlights
If Christianity is going to make a difference in the world, its leaders cannot just sit around waiting for the phone to ring and answering every e-mail complaint that hits the inbox. Leadership is not keeping everyone happy (that will never happen—especially for me). Leadership is not just gathering a bunch of mostly stubborn people together on Sunday. Rather, leadership is moving people in a passionate drive toward the mission of God. Nobody exemplified this better than Nehemiah. The Book of Nehemiah is not just about building a wall. It is about missional leadership—building a city within the city. It is a story about how God’s people worked to live as a countercultural kingdom amidst an opposing culture. It is an inspiring story of how church leaders today can lead with humble confidence to build a safe place to gather as a city within the city for the good of all. Nehemiah raises many missional leadership questions every Christian leader must seriously answer if they hope to build a city within the city. The following twenty questions are general principles. They will be most beneficial if used along with the reading of Nehemiah so that they can be specifically applied to actual ministry issues. Read More
Category: Leadership
This time of year prompts many people to make New Year's resolutions-even if they know they made the same ones last year with no real evident change. The most common resolutions are dieting and exercise, finances and something to do with relationships (marriage, family). Most resolutions are broken within the first week of proclaiming them. Some questions that come to mind: What is the benefit of making a resolution? Are they even a biblical practice and how can they be redeemed? Do they have any lasting effect on changing a person? Are these changes superficial and carnally-controlled or are they Spirit-changed? Read More