At the recent Advance the Church Conference in Raleigh, NC, I sat down with Matt Carter, Pastor of Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, TX, to talk about something close to his heart–pastoring his family. Matt shares some great counsel from the Scriptures and his own life to help us do just that.
Posted in: Marriage and Family
Pastor Mark Campbell | Lead pastor of Portico Church Arlington | Arlington, VA Call to Plant I came on the staff at Portico Church, an Acts29 Church plant in Charlottesville, VA, in 2005. The church consisted of our Lead Pastor, Chris Atwell and his family and myself and my wife and daughter. When I arrived, Chris was just finishing radiation therapy for tongue cancer. Needless to say, the road was going to be difficult, but God is faithful beyond our wildest imaginations. After labor with minimal success for over a year, Chris was re-diagnosed with cancer in May of 2006 and had massive surgery to remove a large portion of his tongue and his lymph nodes. During the two months Chris was recovering, the church grew from 30 to 100. In the next two months, Portico would grow to 200, ...
Posted in: Meet a Church Planter
A called-by-God church planter is a truly focused individual. He knows that he needs specific things in order to do what God has called him to do in the city to which He has been sent. Continued from yesterday... Men As chauvinistic as it sounds in today's egalitarian climate, you really do need a few good men to help you plant a church. God will send some godly women, whom you will love as mothers and sisters, that will be used by God in unbelievable ways to extend the kingdom through your local church. I am not minimizing the role of a woman in church, or women in general. In our church, women lead worship, teach bible studies, serve as deacons, etc. I’m simply highlighting the reality of the "just as". Just as the men go, so goes the family. Just as the men go, so goes the ...
Posted in: Entrepreneurial Aptitude
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A called-by-God church planter is a truly focused individual. He knows that he needs specific things in order to do what God has called him to do in the city to which He has been sent. Building One of the things that he needs is a building. I remember driving through my city almost every day with my eyes peeled for my dream building. I looked at schools, science centers, community centers, art galleries, coffee houses and old church buildings. Heck, I even looked at a VFW (Veterans of Foreign War) building/bar complete with a medium sized tank from World War One directly in front of the entrance. I remember getting totally stoked about a potential building only to have my hopes dashed time and time again. On more than one occasion, I had vivid dreams about a certain meeting space, which ...
Posted in: Entrepreneurial Aptitude
