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Planting Missional Churches by Ed Stezer
Main Takeaways Chapter 1: Basics of Church Planting 1. Planting a church should have a missional goal to reach the field around it and to addapt it’s approaches while maintaining its theology. 2. Church planters can often be energetic entrepeneurs but should not lose touch with the fact that their jobs are one of spiritual…
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Contextual Christianity without Compromise
A new church plant’s survival is largely based on it’s ability to engage the culture it finds itself in. For instance, Griffith and Easum explain in Ten Most Common Mistakes Made by New Church Starts, that many churches fail to survive due to a fantasy vision that fails to exegete the culture of the community…
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Reflections on Common Church Planting Mistakes
One of the most surprising mistakes mentioned in Griffith and Easum’s book, Ten Most Common Mistakes Made by New Church Starts, concerned church planters having “no plan for the other six days of the week.”[1] The authors explain how churches that are built around a model based on codependency to the pastor will only have…
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Chapter Summaries/Reflections: “Ten Most Common Mistakes Made by New Church Starts” by Jim Griffith and Bill Easum
Chapter One: “Mistake Number One: In pursuit of the Great Commission, church planters neglect the Great(est) Commandment.” (Griffith and Easum, 8) “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.” (Revelation 2:4) The church of Ephesus had remarkable works, labor, and patience. They hated evil and loved good. They were able to…
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Return to Apostolic Christianity
I believe the toughest question author Reggie McNeal poses in his book, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church1, concerns “The Shift from Church Growth to Kingdom Growth” as summarized by Tony Bowick in Sums2, or, as McNeal writes, “how do we deconvert from churchianity to Christianity?” This is the toughest question due to the…
...and in his temple all cry, “Glory!” 