I write this on an Amtrak train returning from a 4th of July weekend with my young adult son in New York City.  We are headed to DC for fireworks tonight before he flies home tomorrow.  He and I had great fun in New York.  I had never seen Times Square at 2 am, but when you travel with a 21-year old, you shift into a slightly different time zone.  Yesterday, after we watched the Yankees toast the Toronto Blue Jays (in about 97 degrees), we noticed that our subway train back to Manhattan was headed ultimately to Coney Island.  Neither he nor I had ever been to Coney Island, but we had read all kinds of stories and seen movies about it - so we said, “Let’s just stay on the train all the way to the beach,” About ninety minutes later (we were riding the local) we arrived in this large railway terminal on the lower coast of Brooklyn, with thousands of people pouring out of trains onto the beach and into the amusement parks of Coney Island. 

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“Beware ministry on the cutting edge; because on the cutting edge you bleed.”  I’m told this piece of advice was circulating more than a decade ago, in the church growth movement, among mega church staff people.  The idea was this — better to play it a bit safe when trying to grow a mega church.  Let someone else experiment.  Use the tried- and-true methods that are working to grow your church — and don’t take too many chances.  This advice may have worked in the 1990’s of fast growing suburban church planting; but in my world, the words take a different twist.

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One of the significant tasks of church leaders is to find, equip and deploy lay people to lead in creating new places for new people. If we are going to produce a multiplicative growth for the new church starts movement in the United States, engaging lay people in church planting is one of the paths to move forward.  We have this great opportunity and solemn responsibility, as leaders of our United Methodist denomination, to empower the lay people of our churches to get out from their church pews into the world to give witness to the amazing love of God by proclaiming the Gospel of Christ and participating in planting new churches.

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It’s been one of the most frequently quoted scriptures, “Without a vision the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:19) As church planters we have been well schooled in the virtues of casting a compelling vision. Wise planters do this well…and often! But there’s another side of this that requires equal diligence. I phrase it like this, “Without adequate funding the vision perishes.” Many a church plant has shriveled up and withered away because of a severe case of financial dehydration. Casting vision is easy. Gathering folks around that vision is exciting. Asking for money to support that vision is neither easy nor exciting (for many of us).

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My friend David Arruda is a pastor in Massachusetts.  Many years ago, David was running several businesses at the same time.  He had gathered a management team of folks with a highly structured approach to business.  They constantly tried to slow down decisions, seeking to run every idea by senior management before people on the front lines could act.

One day, determined to teach another style of leadership, David took a marker and wrote the following words on a whiteboard: “Have fun.  Take risks.  Go fast.”  The next day, the mantra had caught on and he found it on whiteboards all over the building.  When David transitioned into pastoral ministry, he held on to this winning mantra, adding the words, “for Christ’s sake.”

Today I am working with David to develop a network of home fellowships sponsored by 14 mainline congregations south of Boston.  We are seeking to develop an approach to building new faith communities that serve and disciple persons who are largely beyond the reach of the staid, historic congregations who are sponsoring this effort.  We are borrowing ideas from other Christian groups and applying them in ways that are still very new for mainline protestants in the USA. (more…)

As various topics were discussed at the School of Congregational Development think tank track, there seemed to be some practices that got the attention of congregational developers and district superintendents alike. Many of these are driven by the bishop, others may be implemented by district level leadership. Each of these discrete actions help build a culture that feeds and grows new churches while strengthening existing ones. (more…)

The recent Gallup poll on the positive perception in the public toward the United Methodist “brand” reminded me of a conversation Tom and I had with a group of planters and the debate we often hear about whether or not to include “United Methodist” in the name of a new congregation or not.

A couple of months ago we had the honor of visiting with 4 successful planters from the North Georgia Annual Conference. The conversation ranged across many topics and one of the things that turned up was the topic of branding.

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