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Church Planters @ T4G

I got a few emails from people yesterday wondering if there were any planned gatherings for church planters at Together for the Gospel this year. I also got a few others from people wondering what Acts 29 Network people I knew that were going to be there.

The answer to the second question that I know with certainty is: myself, Pete Williamson, Joe Thorn, Kevin Larson, and Brian Brown. I'm also told there will be folks from LifePoint Church (Ozark, MO) and no doubt there are others (folks from Sojourn maybe?).

Because there is a decent group of A29 people, and because the answer to the first question is, "I don't know"-- we have decided to try and facilitate a gathering of like minded church planters (A29 or otherwise) at this year's T4G conference.

For Those Interested in Joining Us: We will meet Wednesday during the 4:45-7:00 pm dinner break at The Irish Rover in Louisville. Head straight there at the break and we'll try to get tables. Larson and Thorn are quasi-gods in Louisville, so I'm trusting that they can get us the hookups. If you're more inclined to make arrangements than you are believe my myths about quasi-gods in Louisville, then you're more than welcome to call ahead and see if you can get us a table or three reserved.

Please FWD this to people that would be interested in joining us, and let me know if I can do anything else to get the ball rolling.

See you there...

Irish Rover
2319 Frankfort Ave
Louisville, KY 40206
(502) 899-3544

Technorati Tags: A29, T4G

UPDATES

People continue to comment to me that I haven't added anything in the way of real content to this site in almost three years, and I continue to laugh them off and tell them that I've had other stuff going on. However, I realized last week that it has been over a year since I have even made minor additions here (like updating my book and music lists). 

Since this site has become little more than a repository for photos of my son's growing head, I decided that it's time for some real updates.

Not that you should be expecting the re-emergence of a steady flow of posts, but there is a lot of exciting news that has happened since we moved to Arkansas last summer that I'm eager to share. Most importantly, I want to update those who are interested about our church planting progress in Kansas City.

My major update will be finished sometime this weekend, and I will post it sometime between now and when I head out for Together for the Gospel bright and early next Tuesday morning. In the meantime, I will be posting smaller updates and tweaking a few things on the site that have gotten squirrelly as a result of my neglect.

I am also working on some major site updates at our Reach Kansas City website. Those that have found that site useful in the past should watch out for a decent amount of updated content.

Speaking of updates, everyone should be refreshing their Schrute consciousness in preparation for the return of The Office tonight!!

Dwell Urban Church Planting Conference

DWELL CONFERENCE

Speaker Topics:
Mark Driscoll - Dwelling in the Text & Dwelling through the Text
Tim Keller - TBD (2 sessions)
Ed Stetzer - Dwelling in the Kingdom & Dwelling in the Mission
CJ Mahaney - Dwelling in the Cross
Darrin Patrick - Dwelling with non-Christians

Technorati Tags: EdStetzer, TimKeller

Updates on Kansas City Church Plant

We have had an amazing and amazingly packed fall. I have made over half a dozen trips to Kansas City and have been thrilled at all the connections God is creating for us there. To be honest, time previously spent blogging has been filled with new faces, coffee, BBQ, photography and hanging out with Katie in preparation for our little boy's arrival, Lord willing, sometime within the next month!

Hopefully, this explains the tumbleweeds gathering in the corners here. I was reminded twice yesterday about the lack of even menial updates like books and music. However, I have been making some behind the scenes changes (like this updated bio), and hope to roll out a few more updates and improvements over the weekend. In the meantime...

TWO THINGS YOU NEED TO SEE:

1) The Arkansas Democrat Gazette recently wrote a profile on Fellowship Associates (the church planting leadership residency that I'm currently participating in). You can download the article here.

2) Our Fall Newsletter is Available!! I made a small oversight in the way I sent them out via regular mail, so if yours arrived looking more like confetti than a newsletter, feel free to download a fresh one.

October Newsletter

If you did not receive a newsletter (either via email or regular mail), and would like to receive them in the future, please feel free to contact me. NOTE: since we're more excited about building relationships than sending out newsletters, please let me know a bit about yourself and why you are interested in our vision to cultivate communities of disciples for the glory of God and the good of the city.

Visit our vision casting and fundraising website: Reach Kansas City

Church Planting Q&A

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of meeting with Ariel Vanderhorst. We met at the Broadway Cafe, drank coffee, talked all things Pinback, Kansas City, Westport, & church planting. Ariel is a good man, and I have enjoyed getting to know him more through his blog.

Ariel is also a glutton for punishment, because after listening to me talk for over an hour, he interviewed me for a paper he's working on for a church planting class. I talk fast-- and faster still when people get me rolling about things I'm passionate about. Therefore, Ariel had no small task in taking notes during our interview. You can read his notes here.

THE BASIC OUTLINE OF OUR INTERVIEW
1. What’s been the greatest challenge(s) of church planting?
2. How do you deal with the financial needs?
3. How do you deal with the “people” needs? (Finding people to work with and attend the church.)
4. How did you (or would you) put together a core group?
5. What was or is the role of your “mentor” or role model?
6. What is the role of sponsoring/partnering churches?

If you have any questions in response to my answers to Ariel's questions, feel free to post them in the comments here as well, or you can email me with questions.

As always, you can track our progress as we work to plant a gospel-centered church in the urban core of Kansas City.

Kansas City: The View from the Middle (NPR)

NPR's Day to Day profiles life in Kansas City: Kansas City: The View from the Middle. Though the piece carries a subtle tone of condescension, it offers a nice profile of a great city that we are growing to love with increasing intensity.

The term "middle" conjures up a host of pejoratives: middling, middle-brow and middle-of-the road.

But settle down in what folks on both coasts deride as "flyover country," and you discover something different: a political environment that celebrates consensus as much as conflict, a space where culture and business are comfortably intertwined, and a place where history and modernity don't just live, but thrive.

[...]

Kansas City is the embodiment of the middle. It's near the geographic center of the continental United States. It's the dividing line between a traditionally "blue" state (Missouri) and a traditionally "red" one (Kansas). And it's a sprawling — but human-scale — metropolis, with a reviving downtown and so many construction cranes that locals joke "the crane is the new state bird."

The first thing you notice as an outsider is the architecture. The way glassy modernist sculptures like the still-under-construction Sprint Center arena nestles amidst stately, century-old apartment buildings. Or how the city's colonnaded grande dame, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, has sprouted a funky new wing that glows softly at night.

You can read more, and listen to the show here. To read more about our efforts to plant a new church in Kansas City, check Reach Kansas City

Are Church Plants the most effective form of Evangelism?

Drew Goodmanson answers the question with three key ingredients that lead to greater conversion taking place within the context of church plants:

1. Jericho Walls - Church planting requires a tremendous amount of faith and a slight bit of gospel insanity ... Church planters need to have a sense of calling because church planters have to look at the Jericho-sized walls of starting a church and addressing the world's unbelief and pray to God as desperate men who have to have God show up in order to plant a church.  And this is where God tends to arrive most, when there is a humble people lifting their hands desperate for Him to show up...

2. Fat Cats Don't Hunt -  When church plants begin, there is a smaller number of people and they often have a much greater external focus.  Larger churches often see a great necessity for taking care of the people that are already showing up.  Therefore, a larger church tends to spend more time on internal programs...

3. Risk & Reward - New churches have greater freedom to be flexible, change on the dime and try new things.  This means they can experiment with new methods, sounds, styles and often this can reach untapped people groups.  The same principles are seen when start-up companies are more innovative and surpass the larger bureaucracy-laden companies in tapping new markets.

read the whole thing

A Church for the City

I have heard a great deal about the work God is doing in City Church San Francisco-- both through my interest in city-center church planting as well as friends of mine from Atlanta who are connected with Christ Church of Berkeley.

Therefore, I was intensely interested in this video in which City Church narrates their theology of urban church planting and describes the ministries they are involved with throughout their city.

Beyond being a great encouragement and testimony to God's faithfulness, it encapsulates my heart for a like-minded community in the heart of Kansas City.

__________
UPDATE
I removed this video because it was causing strange problems for my rss feed. You can still view the video by following the above link
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For more information about City Church, check out City Church online.

For more information about our efforts to plant a new city-center church in Kansas City, visit Reach Kansas City.

Kansas City: Modest Metropolis in Midst of Mighty Renewal

Kansas City: Modest Metropolis in Midst of Mighty Renewal (Gene Sloan / USA Today)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Reed Cordish has watched one city center after another make a comeback over the past two decades. Indeed, his family's firm, the Cordish Co., is credited with reviving several of them, including downtown Baltimore, where it developed the now-vibrant Inner Harbor.

But he has never seen a city blossom quite like this one.

"What's remarkable is it's all happening so quickly," says Cordish, looking across a sea of construction cranes from his company's 30th-floor offices. "What you see happening this year in Kansas City is what you'd see happening in other cities over 20 years."

Early next year, the Cordish Co. will cut the ribbon on the Power & Light District, a massive redevelopment of a nine-square-block chunk of Kansas City's long-dilapidated downtown. Like Baltimore's Inner Harbor, it will feature restaurants, bars, shops and live entertainment.

But the $850 million project is only one piece of a citywide makeover that is adding to the allure of a destination already well known for jazz clubs and barbecue... (read more)

For more information about our strategy to reach those living in Kansas City's rapidly changing urban core through church planting, contact me: kevin [at] reachkansascity.org. Or, check out our website, Reach Kansas City.

Technorati Tags: KansasCity

Piper's Message for Church Planters

Watch John Piper's message to church planters from the Global Church Advancement Conference

Technorati Tags: JohnPiper