June 7-12, 2010 marked a new adventure for me and our student ministry.  We participated in PowerPlant, a mission trip experience put on by NAMB to help church plants and teach students about church planting.  It was the first time that I had been part of this ministry.  I had heard about this ministry before but not had any friends who had actually tried it out.  After much prayer, I felt led to take our group on this adventure.

Here are some thoughts that I had from this mission trip…

• Church planting is important. I had not heard a whole lot about church planting as a ministry of local churches.  The only churches that I knew of growing up that newly started were those that consisted of a group of people who were tired of the way things were going at one church and decided to start something new (that suited their own tastes).  What I seen in Indianapolis (and been seeing a lot more of in other areas) was amazing.  There is truly an understanding that no one church can be “all things to all people.”  We got to see churches working together as teams to reach entire cities instead of them competing with one another over the same 100 sheep.
• Church planting is not the only way to reach the world. I know that the emphasis of this week was the importance of church planting, but I was reminded that if the current established churches would step up and be what God desires them to be (Great Commission and Great Commandment focused people), then the need for new fellowships wouldn’t be as needed.  (Note: new fellowships are still needed, but in some areas they wouldn’t be if the current ones stepped up.)
• Students will shine when given the chance. Okay, I had known this already, but hadn’t had much of an opportunity with this group of students to see it happen.  I was blown away at how these students took the reigns and stepped out into unknown territory.  It was encouraging to see this generation of students step up to the plate and knock it out of the park.

I received a copy of this book by Dave and Jon Ferguson from Zondervan in exchange for my honest thoughts about it.  Sweet deal, huh?  I thought so too… until I read this book.  It was then that I realized that it was a VERY sweet deal.  Dave and Jon Ferguson planted a church (Community Christian Church in Chicago), and it has quickly become one of the models for reproducing churches around the world.

In “Exponential”, Dave and Jon Ferguson lay out the principles that they have felt called to in forming reproducing fellowships of believers in Christ.  They break it down into four parts:

1. Movements Start With 1
2. Reproducing Tribes of 10-100
3. Reproducing Communities of 100-1,000
4. Reproducing Movements of 10,000s

I really enjoyed reading this book.  It was great to see the strategies laid out by these men in reproducing communities of faith.  What made it such an easy read was that it had the real-life experiences weaved through it from the life of Community Christian Church.  It’s nice to read something that not only sounds good on paper but comes from a source that has seen it work.

I would highly recommend this book to all leaders in Christian ministry.  This work does a great job of encouraging and challenging us to be faithful to reaching the nations with the Gospel.

Note: I would have had this blog post out a lot earlier, but the birth of our second child kind of took first place in my mind.