GlocalNet

This is one of the men at our church, Scott Prickett - and with him is Anthony.  We have a ministry to youth at a facility called McFadden Ranch.  Scott has worked with Anthony and, Wow! what a transformation.  This guy is going to do something great with his life, I just know it.  We went out to see Anthony on his last night in Fort Worth to celebrate all that’s happened in his life the past year and it was fun.  I’m going to miss him.  He always sat on the front row, but Sunday there were 3 more guys on the front row to take his place.  Keep moving straight, Anthony, you may be the senior pastor of NorthWood one day.  His life will be a best-seller one day, if he stays focused on God and moving forward. 

Last night another crop of young people from NorthWood who sense God is calling them into vocational ministry came over to my house.  There are so many of them.  We have an internship of sorts, but not sure how to help them all.  I love these kids and am so proud of them.  Some of them I’ve known since they were babes - literally!  They want to be pastors, singers, missionaries, kingdom vocationals, etc.  I’m so excited about their future.  They get to live in the world at a time that will be absolutely the most fascinating and exciting - it will also be a time that calls upon them to be more creative and entrepreneurial than any group in the history of humanity.

I’ll be in Atlanta later today at Shawn Lovejoy’s church planting conference at Mountain Lake Church.  I first met Shawn when he went to Egypt with me a few years back.  He’s done a great job of growing his church, planting churches, working globally - the whole thing.  His church has become a teaching church.  David Putman works with him.  He is a real awesome guy, as well, that I love hanging out with when we get the chance.

At NorthWood we’ve been studying our church planting and making some adjustments based on some observations, etc.  We want to double the amount of churches we are planting annually. Before I jump I like to call some of my anchors to see if I’ve got a toe to stand on.  I called Ed Stetzer - Mr. Brain - to ask him about an observation.  Here it is - Brian Hook and I were talking about this.  Denominations planted churches, then a handful of churches began to plant churches and from those churches evolved networks.  In the early days those networks do good, but as they grow nationally they struggle.  I saw this in Glocalnet in the early days.  Ultimately - Brian Bloye created his own in Atlanta - which has done great in Atlanta - and Vance Pittman in Vegas - which has done great there as well. Networks seem to work best in mother churches based in specific cities, when they go national they always seem to lose steam.  This says two things to me - first, focus on the city - your relationships with the city leaders and pastors are what you can maintain and what builds the fuel for you to plant like crazy where you are.  You can spread yourself out like that across the country.  If you have a strong “affinity” doctrinally or methodology then you can make it a little longer - but even so each city and specific churches are all unique. Sometimes it’s not just the style, but the culture in the church or of the leader in the church.  Second, focus on mother churches - I’ve been saying this for a good while now.  Churches plant churches - not denominations - or even networks.  The only hope of a church planting movement will happen from the rapid multiplication of churches from mother churches.  So should we partner nationally - you bet - but more as an “alliance” not “network.”  Implications?  . . . . . still workin’ on that!

“When we follow God’s Spirit - we won’t go over the edge - but we will always be up on the edge.”  From my sermon on the Trinity yesterday for which I only got though my introduction!