KIDS BRING PARENTS TO ‘MEETING POINT.’ Those of us who know her can see the delight on the face of Rosemary Lethbridge face as she reports on the community activities of the ‘Meeting Point’ church plant. “There are now 50 children attending either the gymnastics club or Kidz club,” reports planter Rosemary. “Some of these children also attend Kidz Church that meets twice each month. And, we are finding that while parents are as yet unwilling to attend an adult service, they not only bring their children to Kidz Church but stay! Who’s worried? They are still getting the good news!” “The gymnastics club has a waiting list and to accommodate this we now run two sessions a week,” writes Rosemary. “We recently held the first of what we hope to be an annual award ceremony. Twenty-two children and fifty adults gathered to witness the work and applaud the children as between them they collected 26 awards. Local businesses donated trophies for the most improved gymnast, gymnast of the year and most outstanding gymnast. They attended the display and presented the children with these awards. We now have 5 parents as part of our team.” 

LONDON LIVE CAFÉ – SOMETHING NEW! The aim is to provide a ‘home away from home’ for Aussie’s and Kiwi’s – and also other young professionals – who visit London by the thousands each year.  As well as a weekly Friday night café/worship event, a small group network is already in place (with plans to expand). ‘London Live’ will also provide careers workshops and leadership development opportunities. A venue has been secured on Oxford Street. (If you are going to be in London – book these dates into your diaries May 19, June 9, July 21, Aug 18, Sept 15, Oct 20, Nov 17, Dec 22 – and get along to Regent Hall (just outside Oxford Circus tube station. View it at: www.regenthall.co.uk) To be involved – contact Murray Harvey [email protected] . 

KORINTA BUILDING LEADERS FOR KINGDOM MINISTRY! Over 200 people crowded the KORINTA café (Riga, Latvia) on Sunday night (12 Feb) to worship and share faith. Planter Juris Rekis says, “It was such an awesome night of worship and praise. And that night just standing there in the crowd, seeing what has grown from a handful of crazy young people, tears flowed down my face.” In the last half-year the leaders at KORINTA have been concentrating on building up the leadership teams. “This means empowering, equipping and mostly motivating and encouraging the leaders to let God take them to places unknown,” says Juris. “Kris, who devoted himself at the age of 15 in the first Baltic Church Planters X-Change, has now built a strong and powerful worship team that is professional and devoted to Christ.” At the end of May 2006 there will be another training event for the KORINTA leadership team. For more details contact Juris Rekis [email protected] .

‘FORGE’ CONFERENCE WITH NEIL COLE – Melbourne, Australia! Neil Cole is “one of the most innovative … church planters in the world.” He has seen “around 600 churches started in the last 6 years through his organic leadership network.” The Forge Mission Training Network in Victoria (Australia) is hosting a “how to” conference (5-7 April at The Factory. 8-12 Silma Street, Mitcham) for leaders and pastors who want to network, interact and learn from some of the most innovative practitioners in Australia – as well as work through Neil Coles organic leadership principles. To attend you must register on [email protected] .

PRAY FOR DISTRICT PASTORS WHO ARE ALSO PLANTING CHURCHES! Marijan Persinovic represents many thousands of pastors who care for a district of churches – and yet still plant new churches. Marijan pastors 5 established churches – and has been planting a sixth in Vukovar (a city in Croatia devastated by the Balkans wars). Last year 5 unchurched people were led to the Lord and baptism – making a total now of 19 baptized believers – and, a new community building was opened. “Please pray for me that God will give me wisdom for leading all these churches,” requests Marijan. 

FREEDOM TO DREAM! “I'm constantly meeting people who I'm sure are open to God but closed to institutional church,” writes church planter David Cox from Cyprus. The Nicosia team that he is working with has formed a “pastor’s support/advisory team which will have the freedom to dream and think outside the box.” 

24-SEVEN Ministry! Matthew Gamble of the 24-SEVEN Ministry Center writes to tell of their church plant in Seattle. He and Steve Leddy planted this church about a year and a half ago to reach young adults. Check out their website at www.24-seven.org.  

THE LUKE 10:2b LEADERSHIP SOLUTION! At a leadership meeting of DAWN in South Africa last month, house church coach John White spoke of “the Luke 10:2b leadership solution – a daily prayer for labourers in the harvest.” White says that “since he started praying this, and teaching this organic principle to other believers, God sent people … asking advice on how to plant churches.” In the 11 Feb 06 issue of UK Church Plant.Info Gordon Lethbridge outlined the ‘10:2b’ concept. 10:2b stands for the 10^th chapter of Luke, the second verse and the last part (part b). In the second part of Luke 10:2 Jesus told disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” (Luke 10:2b)     You will note that Jesus follows a strong contrast (a plentiful harvest with few workers) with a strong command – “Ask” (beg, beseech or implore) the Lord to “send” (also a very strong word) more workers! Gordon notes that this “is a really power packed instruction from Jesus.” Two questions: (1) “Do we follow that instruction with strong requests?” and, (2) “Where do you expect the workers to come from?”     This is how it works. “Set your mobile phone, PDA or any other alarm to go off at 10:02am (or pm if you prefer) every single day. When it goes off whatever you are doing send up an impassioned prayer for the Lord to send workers for yours and other church plant’s harvests. It need not be a long prayer but it must beg, implore and beseech. A virus spreads so suggest the idea to your prayer team, your prayer partner, your core group, your small group and anyone else who is willing to pray for the harvest. An epidemic starts with just one infected person – YOU.” 10:2B RESULTS! In the first seven days trialling 10:2b – with his mobile phone alarm going off each day at 10:02 am – Gordon Lethbridge had five offers of help for ministry areas in the ‘Meeting Point’ church plant in Wales. Gordon says, “One Sabbath a mother of one of the children at Kidz Church told us that she had booked herself on a course to train as a pre-school gymnastics coach after she heard that we were unable to offer anything for this age group. This will mean that we can now reach an age group that we have been unable to reach and for which there is nothing available in the town. (This same woman has just started referring to Kidz Church as “our church” which is great as it is an indication that she is “belonging”. She is also sharing what we do with her sister in Brazil who has started using the ideas with her community children’s group.)” 

CHURCH PLANTING IN ENGLAND – AN ENCOURAGING REPORT!  A report on the activities of the Adventist church in south England and Greater London during the last five years demonstrates the significance of church planting as fostered by the previous leader, Don McFarlane, and the current leader, Humphrey Walters (who was formerly the church planting coordinator). In his report to the church in the United Kingdom Don McFarlane listed 27 churches that have been planted in the last five years. He went on the describe the ‘Lights Across London’ – a plan to plant “20 new churches in London between 2005 and 2010.”  “Twenty new churches in London between 2005 and 2010 seemed ambitious when the plan was initially made,” Don McFarlane said. “However, subsequent developments indicate that that figured might be doubled.”  

RE:VIVE REFLECTS ON THE HIGHLIGHTS OF PLANTING! The re:vive team (Grantham, England) recently reflected on their church planting journey. Here are some of their comments –

• “God has been placing people in our lives in advance, ready for when we need help from them… He had the Scout Hut lined up for us, knowing we would need it!” – Dave
• “Being part of Alison's journey and inviting her along to the International Church Planters X-Change, having booked the ticket before getting a 'yes' from her.” – Lydia
• “I really enjoyed the coaching.” – Markymark
• “God has had the answers for the problems we have encountered – before we realized there were problems!” – Jon
• “This time last year re:vive kids was only a thought and plan – and now we have about 14 kids registered which is great.” – Paula
• “By being simply 'available' to God, he has used us … To see the Holy Spirit working way ahead of us and changing (transforming) people's lives is amazing.” – Lee
• “It is fantastic to see the difference God makes in people's lives.” A recent text from mate Darren said: “Re:vive is working, Theresa is loving it, count me in… Let's take Satan by the ‘short and curlies’.” – Paul

 DAWN – 20 MILLION NEW CHURCH PLANTS! Meeting in South Africa last month, DAWN (Discipling a Whole Nation) directors and associates set a goal of 20 million new churches around the world by 2020 – and an initiative to mobilize 100 million prayer intercessors by the year 2020. Of the 20 million new churches, 9 million will be planted in Asia (including Australia and the Pacific), 4 million in Africa, 3 million in North America, 3 million in Latin America, and 1 million in Europe. See www.dawnministries.org . 

EQUIPPING FOR CHURCH PLANTERS 2006 …  
 

EUROPE
 

KORINTA Planting Conference: 18-19 August 06 (Riga, Latvia): To support and encourage church planters across the Baltic countries. Don’t miss the worship and workshops – a time of inspiration that you will not want to miss. For more details contact Juris Rekis [email protected] or Aira Arina [email protected] .

WWAFT 2006. Those of us who attended the last Weekend of Worship and Fellowship Together (WWAFT) organised by Isobel and Bryan Webster will be pleased to hear that they have organised another WWAFT for this year. The dates are 10-12 November 06 in Lincolnshire. For further details contact Isobel Webster – 01522 569965.

SOUTH FRANCE MISSION CAMP: 18-23 August 06 (France):  For more details contact Pierre kempf – [email protected]
 

AUSTRALIA  

AVONDALE COLLEGE – MA WINTER SCHOOL Church Planting Courses: June-July 2006: Church Planting: A Theological Framework and Church Planting:Principles & Practice will be taught by Peter Roennfeldt. For registration and more details on pre-requisite reading, teaching modules, dates and assignments contact Peter Morey (Graduate Studies Coordinator, Distance Education Unit) – phone: +61 (0)2 49 802 174; fax: +61 (0)2 49 802 177; e-mail [email protected] .
 

GATEWAY Connecting 2006: 3-5 October 2006 (Victoria, Australia):  Rick Paynter and Gateway Family Church will be presenting another Connecting Conference in 2006. More details will soon be available at www.gateway.asn.au .
 

UNITED STATES  
 

NATIONAL NEW CHURCH CONFERENCE – in Orlando, Florida (USA), 25-29 April 2006: The National New Church Conference is the largest gathering of church planting leaders in North America.   It includes over 30 workshops and main sessions featuring presenters such as Gene Appel, Mark Driscoll, Alan Nelson, and Ron Sylvia.   For more – visit http://www.startingchurches.com/index.php 

EXTRA READING: Insights from a Church Planting Movement in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea – by Graeme Humble: 

     Winding through the mountains of Simbu Province in my 4WD with a group of local pastors and the district director, we passed what appeared to be a church. When I asked these church leaders if they knew about this church, not one of them had any knowledge of its existence, not even the pastor who cared for the area. I suggested we back up and go pay a visit. There were no church sign boards, just a simple bush material church in a clearing in the middle of a coffee plantation. We met the owner of the land, who introduced himself as a graduate from the lay training school. He had recently returned home with a passion to plant a church in his own village. He had cleared a patch in his own plantation and together with his family, built his church. People from his village began to attend, and thus a new church sprang up, unknown to the denomination and even the local pastor. Similar stories have been recounted many times in various places throughout PNG and are a testimony to the passionate men and women who gave of themselves to plant churches for Jesus Christ in un-entered areas.
     The following observations are insights I gained from being involved in a church planting movement in Papua New Guinea. They arise from 8 years of ministry in PNG, four of them in the Eastern Highlands-Simbu region where the Seventh-day Adventist Church grew from an estimated 2 or 3 hundred churches to approx 600 churches within 5 years. (25,656 members in 1985 to 40,595 in 1989). Apart from the moving of the Holy Spirit, there are some human influences which I believe assisted the church planting movement:

#   STRUCTURE: It is important to provide a structure that is conducive to growth and that actively encourages the planting of churches. This impacts all areas of operation, and includes staffing, budgets, policies and ongoing support.

#   STRATEGY: The practice of setting goals brought focus and direction to our church planting movement. The denomination planned a nationwide strategy which included slogans such as “Grow One – Grow a Church and Reap a Harvest,” “Each Church to Grow a Church,” “Target 600,” “Harvest 90.”

#   MOBILIZATION OF LAITY: When ordinary members of the church catch the vision to plant churches, it is not only vital to continue to motivate these potential church planters, it is just as vital to provide them with leadership development and training. The denomination provided a six-week lay-training school which enabled and then released graduates with the challenge to multiply churches.

#   CONTROL: When a church planting movement “takes off” or a bevy of church planters is released, the denomination cannot control the multiplication of churches. I learned the principle of “holding loosely” as opposed to micro-management. “Holding loosely” encourages local ownership of the church plant together with the development of local leadership skills. Decision making needs to be as decentralised as possible.

#   FINANCE: A church planting movement strains denominational budgets and helps it to focus on priorities. However, we observed that the explosion of church plants was not dependent on funding from the mission. Nominal funding from the mission assisted some church plants, but many were self sufficient. Mission budgets were strained when attempting to provide adequate regular pastoral care to the burgeoning church plants throughout the mission.

#   CHURCH PLANTERS: Candidates for church planting can be the most unlikely of people and come from either lay or pastoral backgrounds. It appeared that the majority of church plants were initiated by laity. The factor that seemed to be more important than any other was the passion of the church planter in sharing his faith and raising a community of believers – in short planting a church.

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CHURCH PLANTING NEWS
Peter Roennfeldt
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