NewChurchLife

The Watering Hole also has Messy Church. This is a great family church idea – that community families love, Check it out!

Street Pastors have been working out of a number of church plants in the UK for some years – and also introduced into Sydney by smallboatbigsea. This al Jazeera news piece highlights the importance of this creative ministry – and its influence in society. A great story.

While about equipping missionaries for the Global South, this article is worth reading by those making disciples in the Global North as well. It is a wake-up call to the syncretistic impact of modernism upon evangelicalism -
1. Worship is equated with meetings – rather than living for God.
2. Preaching is equated with teaching – rather than discipleship through mentoring.
3. Orthodoxy is right doctrine – rather than transformed lives (orthopraxy).
4. Buildings for Christians are symbols of ‘success’ – rather than signs of disconnect from the impoverished.
5. Education is substituted for character development and competence in disciple-making.
6. The gospel is primarily equated to personal salvation.
Check out Equipping the People of God for the Mission of God.

Since late Friday (when I arrived in Brussels from Cairo) I have been visiting churches and new planting initiatives with Jeroen Tuinstra (leader of Adventist churches in Belgium and Luxembourg) and church planting coordinator, Rudy Dingjan. We have shared with a church that has birthed new churches – and 5 planting initiatives -

1. Antwerp church: has supported language plants over some years – and is again host to a new international church plant.
2. Antwerp International church: When I visited last this church plant was overflowing with people. It has started again, having now multiplied.
3. Antwerp Ghanian church: This became the largest group in the international church – and is now intentionally planting among Ghanians.
4. Antwerp South plant: From the pain of conflict with the mother church some years ago, Antwerp Zuid is focused upon reaching new people.

The main Antwerp church has the potential to encourage other plants, house and simple churches. Their growing experience in fostering new initiatives could make this a planting hub (Acts 19:1-10). We think of such a church as a ‘grandmother church’ – releasing and affirming, encouraging and blessing. (The ‘mother church’ metaphor can have the connotations of control!)

5. Charleroi church plant. Although only a small church, the members have recognized that they must relate to relational streams with whom key members are connected. A small team has formed, believers who have wide connections – and they are inviting friends to join them for meals, and now times of worship. A new church is emerging in the town – as new people become disciples!
6. Russiophone church plant: A dedicated team of 10 believers from a mix of Russian speaking countries are connecting with friends to introduce them to Jesus and faith.

‘Today Peter and Liz Kenny from our Salvo community launched a Family Gathering at the Bellarine Estate,’ reports planter Peter Hobbs. ‘We have been partnering with them in training young people from the Bellarine Secondary College in how to run a restaurant. We have been building genuine relationships with the staff and students for over a year now.’ This came to a head when Peter Hobbs challenged Peter Kenny to listen to God and do what he said. He said “I feel God is telling me to help you guys (Salvos)”. Since then we have been partnering in the Faith Restaurant Project.

The staff don’t attend church due to their hours in the hospitality industry. The students don’t attend church or believe in God. Tonight that changed and 25 of the staff and students gathered together in their normal work surroundings to share in a meal and to read from the book of Luke. For the first time in their lives people were reading about the virgin birth, that angels came to visit Mary. The issue about whether Mary was “kind of raped” by God came up… yes the conversation was very real and touched on some really tough subjects. But God was good and people asked questions and engaged with the text. It was seriously an inspirational, normal and fun night. All of the unbelievers said they would like to come back again. We had one of the Bellarine’s best musos support the night; he came for the gathering and played while he was there. Awesome music.

So many great stories connected with tonight, but hopefully they will come out soon.

‘What we love about this all is that disciples are now making disciples,’ says Peter Hobbs. ‘Hopefully this is the start of a movement… which in 10 years time will be so out of control we won’t be able to keep track of where the kingdom is expanding.’

Jesus used 5 simple invitations to make disciples and equip them for his kingdom movement. It’s simple and reproducible … Disciple making

How Jesus made disciples was the basis of a practical four day intensive in church planting for pastors in Egypt (April 21-25). The stories of Jesus were explored for principles – and then ideas put into practice. The 4 fields (Mark 4:26-29) together with Jesus instruction to the 72 disciples (Luke 10:1-24) provided the foundation for (1) connecting with communities, (2) identifying ‘persons of peace’, (3) sharing ‘our story’ to introduce the story of Jesus – so that it grows ‘all by itself’, (4) gathering people of new relational streams into groups, and (5) multiplying faith groups. All identified immediately with Jesus’ teaching on finding the ‘person of peace’ – a person who welcomes, is hospitable, a person who has influence and reputation. ‘In our culture we can identify these people immediately,’ pastors said. ‘It has been so inspiring to find the simple approach Jesus followed and taught is just what we need today!’

Adventist leaders in Kenya are serious about being a church planting movement. Almost 500 leaders, pastors and members – all committed to planting churches – participated in a week-long Church Planting Conference (14-20 April 2013) with Peter Roennfeldt as guest speaker. ‘We cannot continue doing mission in the way we have done it!’ declared Paul Muasya leader of the 750,000 Adventists in Kenya. ‘Each year all church leaders in Kenya participate in planting another church,’ says Samuel Lumwe, Adventist Missions Coordinator for the country and co-organizer of the conference. ‘This conference was organized to equip all to equip others – to cultivate a multiplying movement!’

Elkana Kerosi, Mission Director for East Central Africa, co-taught a church planting workshop with Peter Roennfeldt. Members of this workshop developed specific plans to plant over 100 new churches as well as equip other planting teams. Fifteen specialist workshops, each of 10 hours length, equipped participants to multiply plants among people groups such as hearing impaired, postmoderns, other world religions, prisoners, and street dwellers.

Just 4 minutes – Falling Plates. Share the link with others!

Along with teaching I have been prayer walking in two parts of the city. About four months ago I felt the Holy Spirit prompting, ‘Why don’t you play cricket with those boys. Through them you can enter into their homes.’ (Read more of this e/m from a friend sharing faith in an Asian city)