You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2008.
I want to commend to you the audio from the Dwell Conference in NYC, co-hosted by Tim Keller (Redeemer Presbyterian Church) and the Acts 29 Network. This was a conference hosted earlier this year that focused on urban church planting, although the messages are applicable for all believers seeking to dwell bothin the text of Scripture and the context of culture. They have made the notes for each message as well. Here’s the links for the audio to download:
1. Dwelling with Non-Christians (Darrin Patrick)
2. Dwelling in the Gospel (Tim Keller)
3. Dwelling thru the Text (Mark Driscoll)
4. Persuasion (Tim Keller)
5. Dwelling in the Text (Mark Driscoll)
6. Dwelling in the Cross (C.J. Mahaney)
7. Dwelling in the Kingdom (Ed Stetzer)
8. Dwelling Incarnationally (Eric Mason)
On Thursdays, the plan is to highlight a core value and/or defining characteristic of a Grace church plant. Beginning next Thursday, we will begin working through the book, Humility: True Greatness, by C.J. Mahaney by taking one chapter a weak. This is a fantastic book with very helpful application, and I encourage you to get a copy for yourself. Cultivating humility where we see ourselves in light of the gospel and submit our lives to the supremacy of Christ is a must in every church, but especially true in early church plants.
Below is the book outline separated by chapters to give you an idea of what will unfold in the weeks and months to come. I look forward to being challenged to humbly seek the Lord for His blessing and grace in our lives.
Part 1: Our Greatest Friend, our Greatest Enemy: The Battle of Humility Versus Pride
I. The Promise of Humility
II. The Perils of Pride
Part 2: The Great Reversal: Our Savior and the Secret of True Greatness
III. Greatness Redefined
IV. Greatness Demonstrated
Part 3: Our Great Pursuit: The Practice of True Humility
V. As Each Day Begins
VI. As Each Day Ends
VII. For Special Focus
VIII. Identifying Evidences of Grace
IX. Encouraging Others
X. Inviting and Pursuing Correction
XI. Responding Humbly to Trials
Each Wednesday, we will be drawing our attention to reflecting on church planting as revealed in Scripture, in particular as seen in the book of Acts. In our first installment, I make the argument for the relationship of the Word and Spirit of God as the means by which God advances His church for His glory.
The emphasis on the relationship of Word and Spirit was really brought out during the Reformation, especially in the writings of John Calvin and later in the Puritans. The agency of the Spirit and the instrumentality of the Word are, in my mind, key to understanding how God worked among His people then and now. The paradigm of Word and Spirit together helps to prevent theological error and recognize the source (or foundation) of our work. I hope to elaborate this paradigm more in the future, but for the time being, allow me to list seven places in the book of Acts where the Word and Spirit paradigm can be seen.
Word and Spirit in the Early Church
Acts 1:1-2
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
Jesus, through the Holy Spirit gave the commands to his apostles. The commands (word) were communicated in the power of the Holy Spirit (spirit). The Word and Spirit paradigm was first seen in Jesus and then emulated by the apostles.
Acts 4:8-12
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Peter declared the gospel (word) to the rulers and elders having been “filled with the Holy Spirit” (spirit). Proclamation of the gospel, as seen in the post-Pentecost Peter, is done in the controlling influence of the Spirit of God.
In the initial stages of core group meetings, it is important to implement ways to cultivate community contacts. Scripture speaks of adorning and commending the gospel with a missional lifestyle that attracts sinners to the glory of God in Christ. Jesus declares that our light should shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16). There are inward disciplines that should be done “in secret” (such as praying, giving, and fasting as seen in Matt. 6), but there are also outward disciplines to be done among a watching world who have not tasted the goodness of God’s grace. Jesus also says that our love for one another should be God-like and genuine, and as a result, the world will recognize that we belon to Jesus Christ (John 13:34-35). Not only has Jesus called us to be in the world, He has sent us there. In other words, being in the world and living among unbelievers is not haphazard or merely coincidental. God has purposed and propelled us into an existence where the setting for the salt is in the earth and the light is in the world, a place where “sinners and tax collectors” are not only within arm’s reach, but also welcomed at our dinner tables. Safe places are suitable to our insecurities and underscore our inaction. There is no need in getting messy, no worry about having to confront sin and the idolatry of unbelievers. But do remember, for our sake and their sake, that Jesus knew of no such safe place. He confronted sinners and the very idols of their hearts (e.g., the rich young ruler). In the center of pagan culture, Jesus asked the question, “Who do you say that I am?” The challenge before us today is getting messy for the mission, loving sinners while confronting their sin, and be willing to ask the earth-shaking question about who Jesus is and what He came to accomplish. Cultivating community contacts is a challenge, I pray, we embrace for the glory of Christ and the transformation of many lives by the sovereign grace of God!
Everyone wants to be a part of a healthy church, but does everyone want to play a part in the health of a church? That’s a good question to ask, especially when it comes to developing the core group of a future church plant. In his book, What Is a Healthy Church Member?, Thabiti Anyabwile provides ten marks of what a healthy church member looks like. Often in church planting, the focus tends to be on matters related to securing growth rather than securing health, and it is for this reason why over the next couple of months, we will be discussing this book on Monday’s. If you don’t have a copy, I encourage you to get one for yourself. Here at GPC, Monday is for Membership, so we look forward to learning, sharing, and growing together with the hopes of cultivating healthy church members who embrace the vision to plant healthy churches for the glory of God.
The ten marks of a healthy church member are as follows:
1. Expositional Listener
2. Biblical Theologian
3. Gospel Saturated
4. Genuinely Converted
5. Biblical Evangelist
6. Committed Member
7. Seeks Discipline
8. Growing Disciple
9. Humble Follower
10. Prayer Warrior
The Grace Planting Center is the online headquarters for strategic planning, missional thinking, and comprehensive resourcing of the church planting vision of Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, Florida. The goal of this website is to provide commentary, information, and resources for church planting within the context of confessionally Baptist and Reformed churches.
You can subscribe to the GPC blog or bookmark our home page for future reference. Thank you for visiting our website, and it is our hope that churches and church planting efforts will be helped as a result of this resource.
Why Sowing Grace?
October 26, 2008 in Commentary, Grace | Tags: Church Planting, Grace | by Timmy Brister | Leave a comment
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
1 Corinthians 3:5-9
During the summer months of 2008, Grace Baptist Church became convinced that God was leading them to become a church planting church. The next couple months consisted in praying and pursuing God’s heart for the mission in Southwest Florida, and, as a result, Grace launched a church planting vision with the stated desire to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the region for the purpose of planting Christ-centered, gospel-driven, mission-embracing churches in the aspirations that these daughters would develop the same missional DNA for furthering the kingdom of God.
We recognize, however, that such a work will not be fruitful apart from sovereign grace in salvation and strengthening grace in sanctification. With the promise that Christ will build His church and the prospect that the seed of the gospel will fall on fertile soil, we sow in faith, knowing that it is the grace of God that causes the growth. No human production, strategy, method, or process can produce such fruit. It is supernatural in nature; therefore, church planting is principally a divine work whereby God works through those whom He has entrusted with the gospel to bring about the transformation of lives by means of the faithful proclamation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Whether we are talking about God’s field, God’s workers, or God’s building, the common denominator is the same–God.
Having an understanding of the supernatural work of the mission and divine nature of the church, we desire to live Spirit-empowered lives that commend the gospel to sinners as attractive witnesses to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ. The outworking of the mission of God in the planting of churches is the fruit of the grace of God sown in the hearts and lives of people whom Jesus has called to Himself. In the same way, we desire to sow the gospel of God’s grace with a passionate commitment to the progress of the kingdom of Christ through confessionally sound and missionally saturated churches rooted in the sovereign grace of Almighty God.