Great thoughts from Tim Chester, co-author of Total Church and a leader in The Crowded House – an international family of church planting networks

1. Recruit a team
   You can’t do it on your own! It doesn’t need to be a big team. Half a dozen people would be enough. What does matter is that you have people who are on board with your vision. We routinely ask people not to join us. (Our rule of thumb has been not to have Christians from other local churches join us just because they fancy a change of church.) We want people to feel a sense of coming to be part of missional team (even if they have a full-time secular job).
2. Develop a vision
   Start to develop a sense of what kind of church you want to be. What principles or values will shape you? Try to express this is in a clear way so that everyone in the team can articulate it for themselves. We don’t have much in the way of programmes, plans, structures and buildings. But we do try to set a clear vision so everyone knows what they should be doing and has the freedom to innovate within the vision.
3. Hang out in your area
   Walk the streets, prayer walk, spend time in local cafes (do your reading and prep there), join community groups, talk to people about your area. This serves a double purpose: (1) it will help you contextualise and (2) it will begin to build bridges with people in your neighbourhood.

Put on by Matthias Media October 14-16, 2009 at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Speakers include D.A. Carson, Phillip Jensen, Mark Dever, David Helm, and Tony Payne. Full website is at http://www.peoplegrowth.org/. Here’s a summary blurb

At Matthias Media’s 2007 Conference, several hundred pastors, church workers and other ministry-minded Christians gathered at Washington’s Capitol Hill Baptist Church to think about ‘Gospel Growth vs. Church Growth’. We explored what the Bible says about gospel growth, and how it basically proceeds through three foundational Ps: Proclamation, Prayer and People.

At our 2009 conference, we’re going to zero in on the third and often neglected ‘P’: people. Because gospel growth happens in people and through people.

It happens in people. You can have growth in numbers, in budgets, in programs, in activities, in staff, in baptisms, in buildings, in reputation, and even growth in the quality of preaching, but unless individual people are growing in knowledge, in faith, in godliness, and in love as disciples of Christ, it’s all a noisy clanging gong. Are your people really growing? How would you know whether they are or not? Who is discipling each person in your congregation?

Gospel growth also happens through people. Jesus commissioned every disciple for disciple-making, and a pastor-teacher’s job is not only to Proclaim and to Pray but also also to equip, train and mobilize People for the task. Gospel growth multiplies as Christians get involved in the three P’s: in prayerfully speaking God’s word to other people, in whatever way they can, large or small, at home or at work, in small groups or one-to-one. Is this happening where you are? Or is the ministry basically done by the staff? How many people in your congregation, for example, would be willing and able to do the foundational personal discipling work of following up a new believer and establishing them in the basics of the faith?

The 2009 Matthias Media Conference will explore the paradigm shifts that need to occur in our thinking if we are going to build ministry around people not programs.

Who is this conference for?

We welcome anyone – men and women – to come to our conference. We strongly encourage pastors to bring along any person in leadership. This will be an excellent conference for pastors and other ministry leaders to attend together because of the subject matter. Further, we also encourage college and seminary students to attend (there is a discounted registration price).