Food for Thought: Church Planting Movement Edition
Every week here at Pursuing Glory I try to bring together the best posts I’ve found that will equip the end-times church to operate in her God-ordained destiny. These are the best blogs, articles, books and other resources related to our purpose here at this site. Feel free to visit, comment, and make use of the resources found at each site.
Most of the following links are connected with the idea of seeing multiplying church movements birthed in the Earth. We’ll talk more about multiplying church movements shortly, but for now let’s just say that for the harvest at the end of the age to become a reality, God will need to begin to birth multiplying church movements here in the West and in the nations of the Earth. Their reality will fuel and sustain the great harvest.
Cesar, Man of Peace Ross Rohde gives the readers of his blog a down-to-earth current example of how men/women of peace can aid church planting. I’ve heard (and experienced) that when Jesus leads you to a person of peace, you can’t help but start a church. Starting a church without a person of peace is incredibly more difficult. In all of my reading, this is the most down-to-earth description of how an individual finds a person of peace and establishes a church. Ross blogs regularly at thejesusvirus.
To the Fourth Generation You really can’t beat first-hand information from people who are on the front lines of any ministry. Steve Addison got a chance to sit down with church planters who have seen the churches they’ve planted start daughter churches, granddaughter churches, and great-granddaughter churches. He combines all the insights from that time and presents the common themes in a three page PDF document. It’s a treasure. Steve blogs regularly about Christian movements at Movements That Change the World.
Passing It On and What is Sequentialism and Why Does it Prevent Multiplication? These are both posts by Felicity Dale, who with her husband gives leadership to the annual House Church conference that pulls together many house churches and house church movements in the nation. In “Passing It On” Felicity writes about the need for the taught to teach others in order to see church planting movements birthed. “What is Sequentialism and Why Does it Prevent Multiplication” focuses in on how our need to have everything right in a church or movement before we expand is often the reason why no growth happens. Both of these articles are extremely worth your time and can be found at Felicity’s blog Simply Church.
A Lesson in Unity Here, Kevin Matthews looks at the behavior of fire ants and how they swarm and then relates it to our need to operate in the same spirit of unity. This article at first might not seem very closely related to church planting movements but I can assure you that at their core, church planting movements operate in this way. They are led and built up by five-fold ministries that encourage this unified swarming. This is a great picture of how Christ builds an at once individual and yet unified body. You can check out more of Kevin’s writing at Kevin and Lorna’s Daily Devotional.
Photo Credit: Brain Food by The Wandering Angel at Flickr.
Moving Forward
Milestones are interesting things. They tell you where you are, they tell you a little bit about how far you’ve come, but they tell you very little about where you’re going. The last post for me was a bit of a milestone. For whatever reason, I felt like I had to do something special for the 200th post on the blog. That something special took me a lot longer than I had planned—the better part of six months!
Now the question becomes, where do we go from here? And in a lot of ways, that’s what this period of not posting has been about. It was more than just time spent writing and working…it was reflecting on where this blog has been and where it is going. Moving forward, you’re going to see me focus in on a lot of topics that came to the surface when I wrote Why You Come to Pursuing Glory: The Outpouring of the Spirit, Apostolic Leadership, Organic House Churches, and Night and Day Prayer. But my hope is that the blog goes beyond just me writing about these topics. My hope is that this becomes a gathering point for people who believe these themes were designed to work together. I’m also going to remain true to my commitment to be real and talk about my life here as well, because I still believe it’s crucial to what we’re doing to be open, honest, and real.
For all of this to happen some changes are necessary. The biggest change you will see is I’m going to start posting different blogs in different categories to help people who come here find content that is useful to them. For those of you who come to hear about the happenings of our lives, there will still be plenty of posts on life stuff, reflection, and maybe a picture or two of the kids. You’ll see all of these posted under the category “Blogs.” For those of you that use this blog as a resource or enjoy hearing about what Jesus has been speaking to me, I will continue to post those posts here as well. You’ll find those under the “Articles” category. I’ll also be forcing the most recent “Articles” post to stay at the top of the blog, so that people who are looking more for content can find it quickly and easily.
There will also be several new types of posts coming to the blog. If you liked the last post, my hope is to continue from time to time to produce Christ-exalting writings that are more like poetry and stories than resource manuals. You’ll find these sorts of posts in the “Writings” category. And, in an effort to begin building not just a community, but a community that is building up all of its members, I’m going to start posting in a category I’m calling “Resources.” The goal of this category will be to point you to significant resources I’m finding out on the web, give away free resources that I’m beginning to develop myself, and update the community that is forming here on changes to the blog. This sort of post, for example, would be filed under “Resources.”
But none of this matters much if a community of like-minded individuals doesn’t begin to dig deep and encourage one another in the things that the Lord is doing. To do that I want to suggest a couple of simple steps you could take to help:
- Comment on the posts you like or disagree with. Not everything I write will interest you. But some of it will. And some of it will make you furious. I value discussion, so if you’re moved by a post in a good or bad way or you have something to contribute to what has already been said, leave a comment.
- If you’re a blogger, join with me in this conversation. If you see something here that provokes you to write a blog, let me know about it. I would love to link to what you’ve wrote, and see the conversation go farther than just my little corner of the internet.
- If you haven’t yet, subscribe to Pursuing Glory somehow. If you’re not particularly technologically inclined, hit the “Email Subscription” button on the sidebar of the blog. If you’re more into computers or you’re daring, you could subscribe to this blog using a feed reader. I found a great video explaining the process here. Let’s face it. Life is busy and it’s easy to fall out of the loop. Either of these tricks will help you stay involved in what’s going on.
- Finally, give me suggestions. I’m certainly not the only voice or the only one talking about the things that we cover here. Please point me in the direction of others who are both resources and voices for the sort of things we discuss.
Most of these are simple actions, but they will help all of us begin to move forward in the direction the Lord is taking us. Thanks for listening.
Why You Come To Pursuing Glory
Welcome to post number 199 here on Pursuing Glory. You may have noticed that I haven’t blogged here recently, mostly because I’ve been wanting to do something significant for the 200th post. Normally, I’m not a big numbers guy, so I wouldn’t make a big deal over the 200th post, but for whatever reason, reaching that post number has got me thinking about the direction of the blog, who comes and reads what’s here, and what God intends to do through this blog. All of this is motivated me to take a look at my top posts and ask this question: Why do people come and read this blog.
Looking at the stats is a little telling. The number one post here on the blog is "A Summary of the Lakeland Revival." Undoubtedly, this blog post came out during the final months of the Lakeland Revival when controversy was beginning to swirl and so many came looking for information about what had happened. But I also think it speaks of the desire in the body of Christ to truly experience the power of Christ not only in our own lives but in the lives of the lost and dying. This post is significant because you come here believing God desires to pour out his Spirit in a dramatic way that awakens the nations.
The next most popular blog (which is really shocking to me) is called "Mark Driscoll Kicks Terry Virgo’s Butt." This blog recaps Mark Driscoll’s visit to New Frontiers and points you to the blog posts of both Mark and Terry. I’ve been totally shocked by how many times this page has been viewed. What is even more shocking to me is the fact that about half the traffic comes looking for information on Driscoll and half comes looking for information on Virgo. What’s driving those hits, I believe, is a sincere desire to experience and understand true apostolic leadership. Both of these men represent significant movements of believers around the world struggling for the truth of the Gospel to be presented to a lost and dying world. I believe some of you come because you’re hungry for the kind of Christianity where apostolic leadership is welcomed and encouraged.
"While We Slept" and "Wolfgang Opens A Webshop" are two other high ranking posts that feature Mercy and Wolfgang Simson. The content of these posts announce Mercy and Wolf each opening up a presence on the internet. I believe that these posts are visited frequently for the same reason that "Mark Driscoll Kicks Terry Virgo’s Butt" gets traffic. However, Mercy and Wolf represent something different as well. Mercy definitely has a prophetic anointing resting on her life. Wolfgang is definitely an apostolic leader in the body of Christ. But both of them also represent the growing house church movement that is developing all over the world. I’ve never discussed the house church movement in a very structured way but this blog definitely has become a place to discuss the shift going on in many peoples’ hearts to a more relational form of Christianity that meets in homes. I believe some of you come here to catch a glimpse of this transition that is taking place across the world.
Another post that gets some pretty significant attention on this blog always seems to be "Red Moon Rising Quote #2." This blog is a quote that came straight from the book "Red Moon Rising," which chronicles the birth of a prayer movement in Europe that challenges young adults to live lives of extravagant devotion to Jesus in the context of prayer and service. I know people come to this post because of the quote, but I believe that throughout the body of Christ there is a hunger to live lives of deep prayer and consecration to Jesus. I believe you come to the blog because you know that the move of God that is coming will be supported by a revolution in prayer, both individually and corporately.
Finally, Stuff I’m Reading has always been a significant page on this blog. This blog is significant in a way that is different from all the other posts. This page is all about me and what material God is using to grow and mature me. And in a way, I think this page is popular for the same reason that posts like "I Win (And Proof That I’m Not A Bad Sport)" and "Because She’s My Valentine" remain popular on the blog. If I can say this without being self-centered, I think a lot of you come here to stay caught up with me. This to a large degree was and is still the purpose of the blog. As I’ve slowly moved over to Facebook and Twitter, a lot of that personal "what are you doing" sort of content has slipped out of the posts here. However, in my attempt to focus in more on the blog again, look to see more of this as we go on. I’ll explain that later.
So this blog has a lot of people showing up for different reasons. But I believe that God is going to raise up a move of the Holy Spirit marked by radical signs and wonders, lead by seasoned apostolic men, who are extending the Kingdom through prayer, evangelism, and house church planting. I call it “this thing,” and if you’re interested in seeing where it goes, stick around. We’re in for a fun ride.
Cluster Map
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