Survey: Characteristics of a Church PlanterBy Pastor Scott ThomasActs 29 DirectorExecutive Elder, Mars Hill Church in SeattleI am researching essential characteristics of a church planter (elder qualified is assumed). What do you think are the top qualities of a church planter (not just a pastor)?
I asked people on Facebook and Twitter to respond to the question above. These are the comments they made after consolidating concepts. Do you have any more ideas? If so, and I will post the results and give you an opportunity to vote. Once I get the voting results, I will post them for you to see what others think are the key characteristics of a church planter.
Clearly called to plant a church
Recommended by others to plant a church
Visionary leader; track record of drawing ...
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What Would Jesus Twitter?By Pastor Scott Thomas
With the current phenomenon of Facebook where people update their status daily and Twitter members who update their status event by event with their phone, I wondered what some of the Bible character's status updates would have looked like. Here's my attempt:
Adam is lonely, really lonely, naming animals...starting with A - Aardvark
Adam is having surgery today - taking out a rib
Adam is the husband of the most beautiful woman in the world. Okay, she's the only one, but she isn't wearing any clothes
Eve is looking at pretty apples and talking to a snake. He's a sly little creature.
Adam is leaving the garden and shopping for "the perfect leaf" with Eve
Cain is hating his brother
Isaac is walking up the mountain ...
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The Gospel in All its FormsLike God, the gospel is both one and more than that.by Tim Keller | posted 5/23/2008 in Leadershipjournal.net
The gospel has been described as a pool in which a toddler can wade and yet an elephant can swim. It is both simple enough to tell to a child and profound enough for the greatest minds to explore. Indeed, even angels never tire of looking into it (1 Peter 1:12). Humans are by no means angels, however, so rather than contemplating it, we argue about it.
A generation ago evangelicals agreed on "the simple gospel": (1) God made you and wants to have a relationship with you, (2) but your sin separates you from God. (3) Jesus took the punishment your sins deserved, (4) so if you repent from sins and trust in him for your salvation, you will be ...
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Church planters are some of God's most amazing servants. They are, generally speaking, young men who love Jesus, love their wives and children, love the church, and love lost people. With their wives and children they step out in faith to plant a church that shares the love and truth of Jesus with lost people. Their family does so at great cost to their finances and health.
One of these risk-taking, hard-working church planters in our Acts 29 Network is Brad Hovis, who is planting High View Church in Denver. Every year the church planters and their wives from Acts 29 gather for a few-day retreat so that we can invest in them. At our retreat last summer, Brad informed me of a very difficult situation he and his lovely wife were facing. She was pregnant with their second child, a baby ...
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Mission and Vision:
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1. Our first mandate is the Great Commission
Our vision is to have 1000 churches with an average of 250 people each. That would be a quarter of a million people worshipping Jesus in A29 affiliated churches. This could be accomplished in under 7 years.
2. Church: what is it?
(from Vintage Church) "The local church is a community of regenerated believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. In obedience to scripture, they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, observe the biblical sacraments of baptism & communion, are unified by the Spirit, are disciplined for holiness, scattered to fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission as missionaries to the world for ...
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