starting with a group not an individual
Starting a new simple church - do you try and lead individuals to Jesus, then bring them together to form a new simple church? Or, should you start with an existing 'oikos' (network of relationships)? This is something we have wrestled with constantly. In the excitment of someone new coming to Jesus we often forget about this person's existing network and how open they may be to the gospel too. Starting a community with an existing web of relationships is far far easier than trying to create community from a group of strangers.

Here is David Watson on this subject:

It is very important to start new groups with the Core Values (DNA) you want to see in the church. This is probably the most common mistake I see in church planting. People start groups without the essentials of church and hope to reform the group once they become Believers. Or, they establish unintentional DNA that hinder replication and/or growth.

The heart of a church start is a lost family or affinity group. Redeem existing groups; don’t build new groups by winning individuals to Christ and congregating them, or by using existing Christians. Most church planters try to build new groups by winning individuals to Christ and then forming them into groups. If you take any time to think about this you will realize that this form of church planting is very slow, is not easy to replicate, and is not keeping up with current population growth.

I never start churches using personal evangelism or with Christians. If you use personal evangelism, you miss the New Testament concepts of disciple-making to salvation, family-focused evangelism and establishing the new church around a minimum social unit or existing group. (See Matthew 10 and 28, Luke 9, Luke 10, Acts 10, and more) If you start a church with Christians you have just established an unintentional Core Value that it requires a group of Christians to start a church. These kinds of churches do not replicate well because, if the church is dynamic and growing, no one wants to leave it in order to start a new group.

Go here for the full article by David.

Labels: Planting

posted by alexander @ 8:48 AM    0 comments

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cpm consultation quotes 5
Some quotes from a global consultation between CPM/SCP practitioners, March 09. Click here to see full notes.

# Person of peace is the person in whom you see a genuine interest in knowing the truth. May not be a peaceful person, but have a spiritual hunger. A person who is loving their neighbour, doing good things (ecology, human rights - they may also be the gatekeeper) may be that person – they may also have great respect among their community. They are the people God has prepared. As you make more spiritually–oriented statements, they respond positively. They know their community, are networked already. Invite others to join the group.

# Often persons of peace were already philanthropists. They were already generous leaders in their community.

# Or, they may be extremely unlikely. Imams, village chiefs, opinion leaders, and heads of secret societies of traditional African religions have also emerged as people of peace after much prayer. Sometimes their first reaction is violent and then they experience a change of heart.

posted by alexander @ 8:46 AM    0 comments

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cpm consultation quotes 4
Some quotes from a global consultation between CPM/SCP practitioners, March 09. Click here to see full notes.

PoP:
# A person of peace has a spiritual hunger (he connects when there is a spiritual person around).
# We must be creative in identifying a person of peace. Just because someone is friendly and well-meaning doesn’t necessarily make him/her God’s choice. Also, there are those who just like to raise spiritual issues but, in fact, only for the sake of discussion. Beware, they will waste your time.

Who it’s not: Friendly people, people of good will, willing to help you but not interested in spiritual things, those who like to talk about God, but only want to discuss, don’t want to look at scriptures.

posted by alexander @ 8:42 AM    0 comments

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cpm consultation quotes 3
Some quotes from a global consultation between CPM/SCP practitioners, March 09. Click here to see full notes.

Church planting is not a job - it is a lifestyle.
- It is this kind of obedience that makes the next generation of believers impressed with God. Without this, we will not see CPM. If we are flawed, the system will be flawed.
- “Wearing it on our forehead”= living in an obviously spiritual way.

1 Cor. 12:12: The doorway to the church is baptism. Discipling is about bringing people to the point of baptism.

posted by alexander @ 8:39 AM    0 comments

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