Tag: Church Planting

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Velocity 2010 – Rick Warren

rickwarren-buttonVelocity 2010 Church Planting Conference

Session 6 Speaker: Rick Warren

If God has called you to be a church planter, do not STEP down to do anything else…not even the President of the United States. This is the greatest calling.

1,000 Years from today, if Jesus does not come back, all Kingdoms will have fallen, but the church will still be standing.

If you can grasp that God created me to love me, I should never struggle with inferiority again.
No need for posing, masks, being cool, etc. Because God chose me.

Nothing matters more than the church.

Do All for the Global Glory of God.

The more important your job, the more humble you must be.

What the church is doing will outlast anything Bill Gates, Any Country Leader, Famous Musicians, or Famous Athlete does.

We need new churches for new generations.

Spread the major mistakes around. Challenge staff to make 1 major mistake a week J

Rick’s Rules for Church Planting:

1.    Don’t take early losses seriously – They don’t determine the outcome of your church.
-Ignore your early losses…Rome was not built in a day, neither is a church.

A mushroom takes 6 hours to build; an oak tree takes 60 years. Do you want a mushroom or an oak tree as a church?

Legitimate growth is conversion growth.

Focus on membership & discipleship, not on the crowd or the numbers.

The measure of a church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity.

It’s not a sin to be a small church, it is disobedient to be a small minded church.

If you want the anointing of God in your life & his blessings; your life must be built on humility, integrity, and generosity.

These are the antidote to the three Greatest Traps of Ministry and Leadership:

The Kingdom of God needs us to FINISH WELL. It does not need us to flame out.

Satan is entirely predictable. His main 3 temptations are:

1.    Lust of the Flesh is the temptation to Feel – Anything that makes you feel good. (Hedonism) (Pleasure) [Sex]

2.    Lust of the Eyes is the temptation to Have –
(Possessions) [Salary]

3.    Pride of Life is the temptation to Be – Desire to be worshipped, envied
(Position) [Status]

(I John 2:16, 18)

Never confuse your self-worth with your net-worth

Jesus was tempted to use what was given for ministry to feed him-self.

Satan wants to tempt us to use our gifts on ourselves, verses for the ministry and what God has called us to.

Jesus was tempted to be spectacular with the gift he was given.

Satan will tempt us to be spectacular.

Glory comes from suffering, not showing off.

You don’t have to be original in everything that you do.

Church planters need to study a lot of the first 1500 years of the church for deep roots.

Jesus was tempted with things.

Satan will tempt us to develop a spirit of expectation that we deserve things because of what we’ve done.

Antidotes to these 3 Temptations:

1.    Integrity – From Integer “A unit of one” – Our life is one, we are not separated into sects, we are one.
“Titanic Trap” – – You cannot compartmentalize your life. If you try, you lack integrity.
A hole in your life is a hole in your life and it will sink
You never sin privately, you are affecting your family, your church, and others you influence.
You don’t have to be perfect to have integrity, you have to be authentic.

2.    Generosity (antidote to the lust of the eyes) –
The way you spend your money shows what you value.
The more I give the more I become like Jesus.
You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.
Every time you give you break the hold of materialism in your life.

3.    Humility – (antidote to
It means you don’t give yourself the title “Apostle”
If you have to have a big title you’re not humble.

Titles mean nothing, what matters is do you love people?

Don’t give in to false humility:

God created you, Jesus died for you, the Holy Spirit lives in you. You are not junk.

Humility is not denying your strengths, but being honest about your weaknesses.

We grow fastest and best through models.

It’s better to have someone following a person who is trying to do right versus someone who isn’t trying at all.

Someone who is not teachable is not humble.

Be humble or you will stumble.

Lesson from the whale – When you get to the top and get ready to blow, that’s when they harpoon you.

How do you bring people through the front door and out the back to get involved in missions? You better have an intentional process.

It’s not about looking cool, it’s about meeting needs.

If you are going to last and make it to the end…you must understand the 6 phases of faith:

When God does any miracle…he takes it through 6 phases of faith:

God…

1.    Gives a Dream

2.    Decision (choose to go after it) – Dreams are unimportant if they are not moved on.

3.    Delay – Always a delay (New Passion 3 years) – God is not a vending machine. God is more interested in the individual than the dream.

4.    Difficulty – You will face all types of problems (Critics, Lack of Resources)

5.    Dead-End – The death of a vision

6.    Deliverance – God likes to turn difficulties into possibilities; He then gets the glory, not us.

Every time we hit a dead-end, God does not want to help us, he wants to do a miracle.

I got to meet Rick Warren, one of my all time Spiritual Influences

Velocity Conference: Main Session 1 Highlights – – Main Session 2 Highlights – – Main Session 3 Highlights – – Breakout Session 2 with Pete Wilson Highlights – – Main Session 4 Highlights – – Breakout Session 3 with Tony Morgan Highlights

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Velocity 2010 – Tony Morgan

tonymorgan-buttonVelocity 2010 Church Planting Conference

Breakout #3 Speaker: Tony Morgan (Twitter)

“The Giant Inflatable Blue Monkey”

You can’t have a clear communication strategy without a clear discipleship strategy

People enter the church at Point A and hopefully we’ll move them to Point B (A fully devoted follower of Christ)

The steps that happen between Point A and Point B helps determine the effectiveness of people moving from Point A to Point B

*The churches ministries & processes are the “Steps” to get from Point A to Point B*

Too many choices make decisions more difficult – which can lead to paralysis (or sitting in neutral)

Complexity Creep – We keep plugging new things in, without unplugging old things.

It helps by first defining what a fully devoted follower of Christ looks like for your church.

Our message should be focused…Jesus’ message was focused.

Questions Each Church Should Ask:

  1. What Event or Program requires a pulpit announcement in order for it to succeed?
  2. What would you NOT participate in if you were not the pastor or leader?
  3. Does this program reach people outside the church? Or does it satisfy insiders?
  4. Where is the fruit?

Are the next steps clearly communicated?

When all ministries of a church are communicating about their ministries at the same time, it produces chaos!

5 Basic Communication Strategies:

  1. Clarify Missions, Vision, & Values
  2. Develop a Focused Strategy
  3. Consistency in Branding & Voice
  4. Prioritize your Message
  5. Be Intentional to Eliminate Competing Messages

It is possible to do the work of God, without doing the work God has called you to do.

Every time we say yes to things outside our vision it pulls us away from what we are called to do.

75-80% of people come to a church because of an invitation from a trusted source (friend/family)

Build through relationships not through promotions (promoting things)

Velocity Conference: Main Session 1 Highlights – – Main Session 2 Highlights – – Main Session 3 Highlights – – Breakout Session 2 with Pete Wilson Highlights – – Main Session 4 Highlights – – Main Session 6 Highlights

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Velocity 2010 – Dave Gibbons

davegibbons-buttonVelocity 2010 Church Planting Conference Session 4

Speaker: Dave Gibbons

Deconstructing Illusions

7 Shifts in Modern Culture:

1.    Moving from Multicultural framework to a third cultural framework

2.    Economic Shift

July 27, 2048 – The date that India and China will have more per capita income than the western world.

Inequalities begin to shape with an economic shift. New power (because of increase in income) produces injustices. It can lead to war, because of the increase in power.

Isolation is a norm in economic shifts

3.    Technology Shift

Millennials do not see a separation between technology, they see it as something all together. It is the norm, not something amazing.

4.    Vision Dissemination Shift

Vision dissemination begins from the fringe, the outside, not just from one source.

5.    Majority to Minority

By year 2042

Is the church prepared for a shift from Majority to Minority.

6.    Professionalism to Activism

This generation is sick of preaching.

Quit asking what will offend people and ask what will they be offended about.

Harvard Study, people can only pay attention for 18 minutes before their mind starts to wonder.

7.    Shift from the West to the East

You have a different impression of God when you live in oppression.

Americans are not used to being servants, but that’s what Jesus calls us to be.

God uses the community of the church to lead us. The pastor is to equip the saints.

Are you equipping the saints? Or are you building large numbers?

Move campaigns for buildings to campaigns to building people.

What would the church look like if God was not contained?

What would the church look like if the budget was not 70-80% for building but 70-80% building people.

Strategic Responses:

1. Leveraging the power of the Holy Spirit

The church in America  does not believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, if they did, they would pray more.

Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing.

How are you teaching on the Holy Spirit? How are you living it out?

2. Communal Living

As a pastor how often do you hang out with your people?

You can impress people from afar but you can only impact them up close

3. Third Culture Focus

Are you teaching people to adapt?

You cannot be creative with only homogeneous people.

How much of church budget is R&D (Research Development)

4. Campaigns for Building People

“If you treat your wife, like your Iphone, you’d have a great marriage.”

America is fascinated with “forms” of doing church.

Be Fascinated with the flow of the Holy Spirit

5. Mindset Shift

Proverbs – As a man thinks in their heart, so they become.

Define success up and to the right…(line on a chart…)

Jesus starts up top and moves down to the left (line on a chart…)

You don’t have to be huge to be potent.

Our job is to PLANT the seeds and be faithful. God’s job to GROW it.

6. Have to have a New Target

Problem has been how we define the “Target”

The half breed Samaritan was someone that would be hated. That was Jesus’ definition of neighbor.

Maybe the test is not our numbers, but how many people are we loving that are not like us?

Has crime gone down in our city?
Is there still homeless?
Are there still foster children in our area?

7. Fathers Coming Home

A true Father sees his children.

Affirm a child’s special destiny. You have to know them, hang out with them.

Roles as a pastor is sometimes to be a father who is home.

If you want to reach the next generation? The world is crying for a father to be home.

Velocity Conference: Main Session 1 Highlights – – Main Session 2 Highlights – – Main Session 3 Highlights – – Breakout Session 2 with Pete Wilson Highlights – – Breakout Session 3 with Tony Morgan Highlights – – Main Session 6 Highlights

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Velocity 2010 – Pete Wilson

petewilson-buttonVelocity 2010 Church Planter’s Conference

Breakout #2 Speaker: Pete Wilson (Twitter)

“Everyone’s Welcome, Nobody’s Perfect, Anything is Possible”

Churches Desiring Transformational Community –

Studies Show:

  • One thing that separates happy people from unhappy people is the simple idea of being connected in community.
  • The level of satisfaction in churches is determined by the level of community experienced.

Someone said…”I’ve never known anyone who has failed to love & succeeded at life.”

Genesis 2:18 “It is not good for man to be alone.”

You were created with the capacity for deep relationships

Develop a Philosophy of community before you develop a Strategy of community.
(What is the Heart behind the strategy?)

*Your Church MUST understand that Everybody is Welcome.

Luke 15:2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Romans 13:8

* Has your church created environments where people can belong before they believe?

Some Church Models = Believe, Belong, Behave

Church Models adapting to Current Culture = Behave, Belong, Believe
(It may be that people enter your church by participating in a church service event for the community rather  than through the Sunday morning Worship Service)

Your Church Must Accept that Nobody is Perfect.

Matthew 7:1

Luke 18:10-12

The sins you find the most appalling to God are the ones you don’t struggle with.

Your Church Must Believe Anything is Possible.

It’s the church’s job to create environments where we help people discover their new name.

Secular businesses & organizations understand that “Everyone is Welcome” and that “Nobody is Perfect” – There is nothing overtly “Christian” about that. The church has to believe in addition that “Anything is Possible!”

If our churches are a true “Just As I Am Churches” – We would not be able to put out enough chairs for the people who would come and we could not plant enough churches.

Velocity Conference: Main Session 1 Highlights – – Main Session 2 Highlights – – Main Session 3 Highlights – – Main Session 4 Highlights – – Breakout Session 3 with Tony Morgan Highlights – – Main Session 6 Highlights

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Velocity 2010 – Steven Furtick

stevenfurtick-buttonVelocity 2010 Church Planters Conference

Speaker: Steven Furtick (Twitter)

“Jesus Told Me To”

“Imitate the faith of others, not their miracles”

“The most important criteria that will determine your church plants success (outside of God’s power) is your ability to sense what God wants you to do next along with the courage to do it & the leadership to get others to do it with you.”

There is no substitute for the gospel

Mark 11:1-6

[Jesus tells the disciples to go get the colt…if confronted, reply “Jesus told me to…”]

If Jesus didn’t tell you to plant a church…DONT!!!

Jesus May Be Telling Us To:

1. Make a Costly Personal Sacrifice as a Leader –

Velocity is not generated from the outside in, its generated from the inside out.

“Its the things you do when no one sees that produces the results (fruit) that everyone wants.” – Craig Groeschel

– – There’s a cost to your calling.

2. Painful Relational Shifts –

Some people cannot go to the places where God is calling you.

If someone can walk away from you, let them walk.

Steven Furtick – “I live by the value, leave people in better condition than you found them” [Do not use and abuse people. Love them, but don’t let them hinder you from doing what Jesus tells us to do]

3. Repent of Secret Sin –

4. To Take a CS (Crack Smoking or Christ the Savior) Step of Faith –

Its valuable to have a team that says I’ll go get the colt with you, even if we get arrested, we’ll go to jail together.

Steven Furtick had 7 “crack smoking” families help him launch elevation

[MY NOTE] New Passion – – We had 20 “crack smoking” adults plus our children help us launch New Passion. We had VERY little money (even had to borrow money), we had no guarantee of success, very little equipment (and what we have is mostly borrowed), very little skill (that’s me!). All we had was “Jesus Told Me Too…” Thank you all for Embracing a Faith Bigger than Ourselves…I can’t wait to see what God does through all of us! He’s already changing lives 🙂

Velocity Conference: Main Session 1 Highlights – – Main Session 2 Highlights – – Breakout Session 2 with Pete Wilson Highlights – – Main Session 4 Highlights – – Breakout Session 3 with Tony Morgan Highlights – – Main Session 6 Highlights