Wed 24 Aug 2005
My wife and I are going to the Acts29 church planting “Boot Camp” in Dallas next month. We are hoping to learn a lot from folks who have been there and done that before. They are the ones who always quote the stark statistic that 80% of church plants fail in their first year.
I hope to bring back a lot of information that we might apply at Mesilla Park Community Church.
Sat 23 Jul 2005
What is the bare-minimum set of requirements for a group to be called a church? Does it need a pastor? A building? Do they need to regularly observe holy communion? What about worship? Sermons? Do they need to be accountable to a sister church? What about legal issues?
What does the world call a church? Could that perhaps be a good measure? Can a small house church have the same image to a community as a large “brick and mortar” church? Can a local church pastor who hasn’t been through seminary receive the respect that a Roman Catholic priest or Methodist minister can?
When is a church part of The Church, and when is it just flying solo?
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Wed 13 Jul 2005
You’ve all seen them – beautiful, intricate, painstakingly hand-crafted ships in bottles. They reflect the skill and talent of their craftsman, and not just anybody can build them. But as anybody who has seen one being built, or has tried to build one on their own knows, you don’t build the ship inside the bottle, you design it, fabricate it, and perform much of the detailed finish work outside the bottle. You then fold it up, squeeze it through the opening, pull the magic string, and “poof!” your ship snaps into place. Once this is done, the only way to get the ship out of the bottle is to break the bottle.
Is this a fitting analogy for how churches are built in America these days?
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