Base Camp Part 4 Q & A and what sort of church are we to build

The final session of the Saturday was a questions and answer session where the delegates got to grill the hosts on various aspects of church planting. There was a great deal discussed that holds true not only for church planting but also for any church which wishes to be missional into their community.

Here are a handful of the questions and some of the answers……

1. How can you birth a church in the supernatural
   1. Are you doing it
   2. What do you have faith for
   3. Preach baptism in the spirit

 

1. How do you set the church ‘mode’ to “the longer you stay in this church the more non Christian friends you will develop”
   1. Must be encouraged
   2. It’s a continuous battle
   3. YOU have to model it and the leadership team HAS to model it
   4. Who do you make heroes? People will emulate those who are shown to be a good example
   5. The church ‘filter’ needs to be set to mission, nothing gets through if it is not missional
   6. when having events have a competition to see who can invite the most people
   7. Really think your small groups through and make them missional

 

1. One of the health checks of a good church is that they plant out new churches, how do we invest in church planting
   1. Focus on raising up leaders
   2. Get healthy first
   3. Reproduction is the goal not just church planting

 

1. Getting from 0 up to 50 people is the hardest part of church planting how do you do it
   1. Cast vision, be able to give it well as

                                                              i.      30 second version

                                                            ii.      3 minute version

                                                          iii.      30 minute version

1. Constantly cast the vision
2. Meet people where ever you can
3. Draw people in with “God is Good, and I am Ok” events

 

1. How do you choose you launch site in your location
   1. Population Groups
   2. Who is not being reached
   3. Where can YOU reach the most
   4. What are your past successes
   5. Be clear on who you are called to reach
   6. Where should the core team live

                                                              i.      NOT TOO CLOSE TO YOU!!!!!

The final session of the weekend was a look at the type of church we are to plant. This was based on Isaiah 61. There is sooo much good stuff in there that it would take a few blog posts t go through it all which I don’t have the time for right now, but I may come back to it at a later date.

However here are the verses used in ESV. They are amazing. This is the type of church we are to raise up for Jesus and how He will in his sovereign grace and mercy work in and through us.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion– to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.

 

The emphasis is mine and if you add those up you get the role of the church in our community.

 

There were two words of caution given in all this

1. Don’t do too much too soon
2. Do what you are able to do well

 

Wise words I think, next post will be on what our next steps are on our journey, following n from BASECAMP and will be the last Basecamp post

Base camp Part 3 – Prospective Church planters “calling” and interviews with church planting coaches

Tony Thompson is a man who is infectious, mischievous and warm hearted, he has also planted two churches in the south of England in St Neots and Luton, and he took those of us who were prospective church planters through a session on calling which was excellent.

Utilising the stories of Saul, David and Paul he showed us that when God calls us TYPICALLY there are five stages in that calling. These are

• Private calling, God calls us in a private way, either directly to our hearts or through people
• Private response, we respond in some way to that calling David goes to the war front, Saul hides Paul goes into Damascus
• Public Calling, there is then a more public calling where more people become aware of the calling
• This is then responded to by the people around them and the person grows into the calling
• Recognition, finally the calling is recognised for what it is and the person is released into that calling.

One of the main things tony spoke about was the time between the private and the public. This is a time which God uses to grow the person into the roll they are being called to do. It is imperative that this is not too short or two long.

Also when we are called God will typically use trials to perfect and it is how we respond to those trials that changes and builds things not us.

How will we respond will we push through or pull back? Will we run and hide or will we stand and fight. These are important issues for anyone who is called of God to do anything.

He then made a statement that I found quite interesting and one that I hopefully fit the bill with. “Leaders have a constructive Spirit of discontent, no destructive”. I have at many times in my life in the church been discontent with things but my aim has always been constructive in how I respond to them, well almost always. My reaction is “that’s bad! how we make it better?”

An important lesson for anyone out there who is discontent with the church, dot just gripe about it pray and then act to solve the issue.

Following this session we had our interviews with our coaches. This was probably the most scary part of the weekend. Nobody on the course really knew what these looked like, how they would be worked through and what feedback we would get.

We had been assigned to Roger Bye a chap who had planted a church in Cockermouth in Cumbria, and who is heavily involved in the New Frontiers churches in Canada, in particular the one in Oakville, Ontario. We had already touched bases with Roger before the interview and had shared dinner with him and his wife Cheryl the night before.

The interview was very relaxed and we chatted through how we had got to our current stage in the process. How we felt called to church plant, where we felt called to church plant and talked about our past experiences. This was a great time of sharing with Roger and Cheryl and we were able to work through our story to date and were greatly encouraged by the wisdom shared by them.

They gave us advice on what we need to be doing now, and helped us plan the next couple of steps on our journey. I will be blogging on this as the last post on BASECAMP in a few days time.

Basecamp part 2 – Call, Vision and Character

Basecamp, the new Frontiers Church Planting weekend, was not only a time for meeting some great people with big visions and a desire to see the nations reached it was also an excellent time of teaching on the subject of church planting.

We were blessed with having a number of excellent speakers over the weekend including David Stroud, Matt Hatch and Tony Thompson. The teaching was fairly basic in some ways but brought to life through the speakers sharing their experience of church planting, how they had done it and the issues they had faced and overcome.

David Stroud took the first session focusing on Character, Vision and Call.

CHARACTER

• Humility
• Conviction
• Endurance
• Stability
• Security in who we are in Christ
• Strong relationship with the Lord
• Secure marriage
• Good follower

On CALL we looked at the different ways God can call you to church plant.

These included

• God speaking into your heart
• Prophetic calling
• Dreams and vision
• Being asked by someone to do it

And finally VISION based on

• Scripture
• You
• Context

These need to be in equal tension with each other, best described as triangle with equal sides and angles                                           

Finally we looked at the skills of the church planter

• Motivated for the lost
• Able to gather lost and believers
• Self Starter
• Manage time and set goals
• Raise up other leaders
• Cast Vision
• Communicate to a small group
• Communicate clearly
• Preach to 30 – 70 people

This is some list of things and against some Mrs Beatthedrum and I do well in others we fail miserably. The good news for us is that God is involved and wants to be part of the process or changing us, or to some degree sanctify us so we become the people he wants us to be.

So we have a lot to learn, a lot to change, a lot to repent of, a lot to do and a lot of prayer is needed. For us the big thing is that God is involved and wants to do this through us.

There will be a lot of hard, difficult work ahead, but it will be worth it if we can bring Him more glory