In anticipation of being assessed as a church planter, I wonder how I will respond if my “grade” on the assessment indicates that church planting isn’t the most appropriate ministry for how God has made me. Maybe I’m better suited to pastor or replant an existing church. I don’t know, but I’m definitely praying about it.  This post from Scott Thomas on the Acts 29 Network Blog provides helpful thoughts when Envisioning a Replant.

1. Envision what the worship gathering could be (Acts 2:42-47).
   • Attitude of body during worship
   • Music
   • Prayer
   • Teaching
   • Communion
   • Children
   • Exaltation of God
   • Incorporation of arts
2. Envision what the evangelism could be (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).
   • Who can you reach immediately?
   • What attitudes toward evangelism need to change?
   • Where or how could you boldly make an impact with the gospel?
   • What steps of faith need to be taken to reach the unchurched and the unsaved?
   • How could your youth evangelize?
   • How could households evangelize together?
   • What worldwide impact could you make as a body (i.e. foreign missions)?
   • How are you going to be an eternal value to your community?
3. Envision how education and discipleship could be effective (Acts 2:42).
   • How will it become a passionate pursuit of the body (“continue steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine,” Acts 2:42)?
   • What resources (people, qualities, gifts) do you have in place to launch greater disciple-making?
   • How will the fathers and heads of households (single moms, etc.) be trained to be the priest and spiritual head of their homes?
   • How will the older men and women teach and interact with the younger men and women? (Titus 2)
   • Will the age groups be segregated (children, youth, singles, college, married, etc.) or will they be integrated into the body?
   • What role will small groups play?
   • What training will be needed to help develop disciples who are passionately pursuing Christ?
4. Envision an Acts 2 commitment to fellowship (Acts 2:44-45).
   • In what ways will the body seek to meet the needs of one another (spiritual, social, financial, physical)?
   • What attitudes need to change to be sacrificially generous with time, money and resources for the encouragement and edification of the body?
   • How will the body serve one another actively and responsively in an unprompted way?
   • What will the membership requirements be? How will it communicate a covenantal commitment?
5. Envision an effective youth and children’s ministry.
   • Will they be integrated into the church ministry? If so, how?
   • How will families be strengthened through the student ministry?
   • How will the youth be encouraged and trained to evangelize their friends?
   • What role will the heads of households play in the student ministry?
   • Who (person or groups) will lead the youth and children’s ministry?
   • What facility changes are needed to communicate the value of children and youth?
   • What other positions of leadership need to be filled to be effective?
   • What leadership development with the students will be put into place?
   • What programs or customs need to be extracted from the youth and children’s ministry to avoid distractions from the ministry goals?
6. Envision an equipping staff (Eph. 4:11-13).
   • What changes need to be made with the staff (paid or volunteer) to meet the church’s goals?
   • Are the staff members doing the ministry or leading people to do the ministry? If they are doing the bulk of the ministering, how will they develop the body to do the work of the ministry?
   • Are you over-staffed or under-staffed to meet both financial obligations and the development of lay people (taking responsibility for ministry)?
7. Envision a body not reacting to finances to determine God’s call (Matt. 6:24).
   • How will faith in God calling a body to reach out to the community and world be weighed against financial responsibility and stewardship?
   • If mortgages or debts exist, how will they be paid off in a realistic way over a reasonable time period?
   • What attitudes or practices about money and finances need to be changed?
   • Is a budget in place? Is it a true reflection of the church’s giving and spending (balanced budget)?
   • What expenses can be cut immediately to be redirected toward the church’s mission?
   • Is the body (especially the leadership) making decisions based on finances or on God’s calling?
   • What creative ways can you generate more income without sacrificing resources, biblical principles, or expending paid personnel?

I’ve always struggled with pride. A guy that I played baseball with in high school called me the most arrogant guy he had ever met. I don’t think it’s true, but it’s a criticism that still stings to this day and one that I work hard to fight against. When people ask me about character flaws or struggles, I always mention pride/arrogance because I want people to “know that I know” and not let me off easy when I am proud. There’s no room for pride or arrogance in the life of a disciple of God and I am working against God when I seek glory, attention, or point-of-place for myself.

With that background, a recent post on the Acts 29 Network blog was especially appropriate. Acts 29 recently “added the measuring of arrogance and pride as a piece of the assessment process at the advisement of J. Allen Thompson, church planting consultant for Redeemer Church Planting Center. Allen calls these ‘stallers and stoppers.’”.

Allen calls the first staller/stopper “Self-Centered.” It is displayed by arrogance, betraying trust and being unethical. The measurable aspects of arrogance, according to Thompson’s research, are the following:

1. Takes criticisms of ministry programs personally.
2. When under tension is cold and aloof making others feel inferior.
3. Seeks to be the ultimate authority in the ministry.
4. Tends to be abrupt and impatient in manner.
5. Tends to live a parallel life from spouse.

I look forward to my assessment at the November Acts 29 Boot Camp, Lord willing, and I am praying that through the Holy Spirit’s power in my life, I will be able to fight against being self-centered. I greatly covet your prayers in this process.

Parakaleo is a gospel-centered ministry that exists to strengthen the gospel spreading impact of church planting
by coming alongside church planting movements and church planting couples.
Through coaching, connecting, caring, and celebrating they facilitate training,
encouragement and care of church planters and their spouses. They recently conducted research about the greatest sources of satisfaction or stress for church planting wives. Here’s the list

Six Primary Sources

1. The Husband
2. Support System (often lack of other contact with church planting wives)
3. Sabbath Rest
4. Reliance on Christ
5. Boundary Ambiguity
   1. Role Ambiguity (what is church planting wife’s role)
   2. Emotional Ambiguity
   3. Physical Ambiguity
6. Physical health

Eight Secondary Sources

1. Changed lives
2. Commitment and sense of call to church planting
3. Family Time
4. Raising kids
5. Church growth
6. Expectations- from/of self and others
7. Finances

Use of gifts and abilities

This list of seven qualifications of a church planter is comparable to other lists, but serves as a reminder of all that church planters are called to do and be. This post was written by David Nicholas, the founder of The Church Planting Network.

1. Has a working knowledge of God’s Word.
2. Godly Character
3. Communication skills
4. Evangelistic fervor
5. Leadership abilities
6. A good fit for the area
7. Self-knowledge of personal giftedness and personality

This week is our second Re:Train class, Missional Christology, taught by Dr. Bruce Ware, a professor of Christian Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Our pre-class work included reading four books

• Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper
• Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance by Bruce Ware
• Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution by Jeffrey, Ovey, and Sach
• Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology edited by Sanders and Issler

This class will be intense, but I’m really looking forward to learning more about Missional Christology. But, you may ask, what is Missional Christology? Well, here’s Dr. Ware’s explanation from TheResurgence.com.

“Missional Christology” focuses on aspects of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ which are central to the mission he fulfilled, by the ordination of the Father, in the power of the Spirit. Christology is relevant to the mission of the church because we are called to express and extend the mission of Christ. His mission is now ours.

The Father’s Plan

Understanding the Person and Work of Christ as missional is crucial and central to understanding Jesus and his work correctly. The mission of the Son began long before his going to the cross, or his baptism, or even his incarnation. The mission of the Son began in eternity past when the Father devised his plan by which the Son would be preeminent over the created world the Father designed, planned, and willed to create.

As the Father chose the Son to be his Agent by which creation would come into being, so the Father chose the Son to be his Agent by which re-creation also would come to pass. The Son’s mission, then, was from eternity past the mission of one thing—he sought in all that he thought and felt and said and did to do the will of his Father.

Divine Empowerment

But to accomplish this mission, the Son had to take on human nature and live as one of us. While he was fully God, he also was fully man. And as man, he needed divine empowerment to obey the Father, resist temptation, and fulfill the mission the Father sent him to carry out. The Spirit’s indwelling presence and power on the Son was necessary for the Son to accomplish what he did. Only as the Spirit-anointed Messiah could this Christ be our Savior.

To see the mission of the Son correctly requires that we see him in Trinitarian context. Both the Person and the Work of the Son are fully inexplicable apart from seeing the Son’s relation to the Father and the Spirit. Getting the Trinity right is crucial to getting the mission of the Son right.

Christ’s Mission

So, the Son was sent by the Father and empowered by the Spirit—but to do what? Here we realize that the Son’s mission was about regaining the lost creation through the salvation of the elect and his victory over the powers of darkness. At the core of the Son’s accomplishment are the dual biblical themes of penal substitution and Christus Victor. His payment for sin and victory over sin constitute the basis for the fulfillment of all that the Father sent the Son to do.

Spirit-Empowered Disciples

Amazingly, the mission of the Son does not end, though, with his efficacious death for sin or his victorious resurrection from the dead. Rather, this is where the mission of the Son moves more clearly from “singular” to “plural.” His singular sinless life and singular substitutionary death now give way to plural ministry as he now completes his mission with, and only with, the joint-work of his followers. Jesus’ last words to his disciples instruct them to wait in Jerusalem for what the Father has promised. They will be granted the very same Holy Spirit invading their lives as had been indwelling and empowering Christ throughout his life and ministry. They will proclaim his message, display his character, perform his deeds, and further his mission only as they are Spirit-empowered followers of the Son.

The Great Drama

In the end, he will return to complete his mission of remaking everything such that it becomes more glorious and magnificent than it was originally. Just as the second Adam surpasses the first, the new Eden surpasses the original. Christ will take his rightful place as Supreme Victor over all, and we, his saved followers and friends, will reign with him forever and ever.

What a story this “missional Christology” is! What drama. What majesty. What glory. To see the mission of the Son as his-mission-become-ours should result in stirring within us the longing to do as Christ did. As his mission was the mission of one thing—to do the will of his Father in the power of the Spirit—so ours likewise should be the mission of one thing—to follow our Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit, doing all we do in obedience to him, to the praise and glory of the Father.

A church in a college town that doesn’t minister to college students falls short of all that the local church is called to be. This doesn’t mean that a church needs to specifically target college students to the exclusion or slighting of non-students, but it should seek, as Paul did, to be all things to all people that some might be saved for the sake of the gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:22-23). One of the challenges at Ambassador will be our willingness to invest in, and minister to, college students while not catering to them.

Justin Holcomb, our dean at Re:Train, has written a list of “the top six things you need to know if you’re doing college ministry.” I pray that churches in college towns would take up the challenge to reach college students for Christ and that lives would be transformed by the gospel.

1. Don’t confuse the gospel with religion
   To prevent doing this, talk about Jesus (who he is and what he has done) all the time. If you don’t, students will think Christianity is really about something else, like morality, philosophy, piety, social justice, or a religious experience. If you start talking more about what they should do instead of what Jesus has done, you’re preaching another gospel (Gal. 1:6-9), which is to put heavy burdens on them (Matt. 23:2-4).
2. Learn about sexual assault
   The prevalence of sexual assault is staggering. At least 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men are or will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetime. And the numbers are much worse for college students. These young women and men feel crippling shame, deep guilt, and painfully alone because of what has been done to them.
3. Teach students how to read and interpret the Bible for themselves
   This means being clear on the relationship between the law and the gospel. The law is “perfect, true, and righteous altogether” (Psalm 19:7-9) and “holy, just, and good” (Rom. 7:12), but it does not effect what it demands (Gal. 3:21). The good news is that on the cross Jesus took our penalty of law-breaking and fulfilled the law, so he could give us his righteousness. God then works in us to will and to do his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). The very law that condemns us becomes the very thing that God fulfills in us through the power of his Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:18-23), not through our effort (Gal. 3:1-3).>
4. Be prepared to comfort students because of divorce and death
   College students are at a phase in life where their parents seem to get divorced, if they aren’t already, now that their children are leaving home. This is also the age when grandparents begin to die.
5. Study apologetics
   Many students still have brain cells left, and they’ve been reading and thinking about their world. They have legitimate questions about who Jesus is and what he did and why he isn’t just a good example. They want to know why they should trust the Bible as reliable. The immense suffering in the world makes them doubt either the goodness or power of God or both. They think Christians are hypocrites and bigots, so why should they become one?
6. Be prepared to counsel students about what they’re really facing
   You must be prepared to counsel about eating disorders, pornography, cutting, abusive relationships, and the lingering damage of sexual sin. College students tend to be the shock-absorbers of the myths our cultural sells. Idols are brutal slave masters.