The Never-Ending Need of Multiplying Leaders

Pastors of growing churches know all too well the old adage of there being two sides to every coin. The excitement and energy of a growing congregation comes brings with it new needs and a constant demand of more people to help carry out the ministry.

Missionary Identity

As Christians, I believe we should always be more driven by our missionary identity than we are by our national identity, our political identity, our environmental identity, our social identity, or even our church identity.

Loving Your Community

Several years ago, I talked with a local sheriff about the pressing needs he saw in our community. While he was grateful for the church groups who came through the jail to offer Bible studies and prayer meetings with his prisoners, he said it would make an even greater impact to “stand at the back door and meet the inmates when they are released.”

Escaping the Performance Trap

We don’t have to stay stuck in the endless loop of performing and pretending.

The religious life sometimes feels like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. Joby Martin says we are constantly fighting to keep our bad parts (temper, materialism, lust of the flesh, etc.) from popping out. Every once in a while we lose control and that sin nature wriggles free and pops up, sometimes several feet into the air—metaphorically speaking. It’s embarrassing, so we grab it and shove it back down under the water.

The Church Multiplication Challenge

Across the United States, in churches of all shapes and sizes, God is breathing new life into his people as increasing numbers of leaders embrace the kingdom call to not just grow, but to reproduce and multiply.

A generation of seasoned pastors who’ve pursued the growth paradigm—and now an emerging generation of new leaders with an eye toward the next move of God—are uniting around the priority of reproduction and multiplication. These churches are leaning into their discontentedness and taking action. They are shining the light on a new and far-less-traveled path to success for leaders who’ve been focused exclusively on the church-growth paradigm of the past 40 years.

The 3 phases of church-planting churches

It seems for the last four decades or so, church communities have been talking about planting other churches. But much of that time was spent talking without taking action. The difference today is that people are actually walking out the talk. In other words, we’ve moved beyond just the idea of planting churches to actually doing it.

I would like to frame what has and is taking shape with regards to churches planting churches in three phases.

6 Marks of a Healthy, Well-Balanced Christian Life

My husband and I both work full-time, and we have two children in preschool. My job is creative and demanding; some would say I’m at the top of my field. On paper, this looks wonderful. In real life, it can be both messy and exhausting. Some nights, after the kids are in bed and my choices are laundry or working on my website, I’m too wiped out to do anything but go to bed.

I’m wondering all the time if I should stay the course, if I should change jobs (I’m topped out where I am), if I should switch to part-time so I can homeschool (I’d love to do this but not sure we can afford it). I wonder what I’m even aiming for. As a mom, what does a well-balanced, healthy, God-honoring life even look like?