Take the Whole Gospel to the Whole World

JOIN US JULY 29, 2013

Indian Hills Country Club 

4001 Clubland Drive  •  Marietta, GA  •  30068

Noon Shotgun Start

(10 AM Registration and Driving Range Opens)

Planting the Gospel and Experience Missions International are 501(c)(3) non-profit ministries     designed to equip and mobilize the body of Christ to be gospel-centered and disciple-making                 locally and globally. All proceeds from this tournament will go towards catalyzing         “Gospel-Disciple” Movements around the world.

18 HOLES — SHOTGUN START — BOXED LUNCH — RAFFLE — AWARDS

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Find out more about sponsorship and golfing opportunities/pricing by clicking the link below.

If you want additional information please contact Rebekah Harrison: rebekah@plantingthegospel.com

The Gospel Planter Workshop  /  August 26-28, 2013  /  Acworth, Georgia

Join us for our Gospel Planter Workshop where you will develop:

• A contextual church planting strategy
• A plan for financing the mission
• A personal growth plan for preparing to plant
• Get connected with over a dozen church planting coaches and church planting churches committed to seeing you succeed
• Get connected with other like minded/hearted church planters
• Be introduced to the Planting the Gospel Network. A network committed to catalyzing movements of gospel-centered, disciple-making churches.

Gospel Renewal – God is doing something.  The church is awakening. It has something or everything to do with gospel renewal.  However, there is so much more to the gospel then we originally thought.  The gospel is everything.  The gospel impacts every area of our lives and ministry.  When we understand the gospel as an announcement of good news that God is redeeming, renewing, and restoring all things…it changes everything.

Planting the Gospel is about Rescue. We have lost our way.  We are in need of rescuing.  Jesus is standing at the door of our churches seeking entrance.  Planting the Gospel is about opening the door and letting him in.  God has so much more for his church.

Planting the Gospel is about planting Jesus. Jesus is the Gospel.  For too long we have planted churches.  Often these churches have looked more like Walmart, Starbucks, Disneyland, and The Apple Store than the “body of Christ”.   We are called to plant Jesus.

Planting the Gospel is a new way of planting.  Church planting is not about the weekend.  We don’t just launch weekend services, but we plant the gospel, make disciples, and then form the church around those disciples.

Planting the Gospel is about a missional tribe.  God is raising up a tribe of like minded and hearted people committed to planting the gospel.  Planting the Gospel is about planting a movement of gospel-centered churches.  We are compelled by his story.  We are committed to letting him write his story on our hearts and through our lives. We are a missional tribe committed to planting Gospel-centered churches.

Planting the Gospel is about movements. Imagine with me for a moment not about planting a movement, but planting 100 movements.  That’s right, 100 movements that plant 100 Gospel-centered churches.  Ultimately we believe God is calling us to plant 10,000 churches. Planting the Gospel is a network of likeminded, gospel-centered leaders committed to planting churches that make disciples.

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One of the stories I often tell is the story of a church planter I coached a couple of years back.   One of the things I had him do was visit church plants in the area.  One particular day he came to our meeting most enthused.  As I listen to him he told me how wonderful the experience was.  He went through the entire experience describing how they did parking, greeting, hosting, singing, preaching, and caring perfectly.  He was so excited.  As he paused, I asked him, “What about Jesus?”  He looked puzzled, “What do you mean?”  I went on, “What about the role that Jesus played in the whole experience?  How was he lifted up?  How was the Gospel clearly communicated?”  Once again he paused.  Finally, he looked up with tears in his eyes and said, “There was no Jesus.”

“The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” The thief is often so subtle.  There is a passage of scripture in Rev. 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Here Jesus is outside the church.  Here Jesus is outside our lives.  This is the condition we find ourselves in.  “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.” I’m convinced that the church is need of rescuing.  I’m convinced that we are in need of rescuing.  I’m convinced that I am in need rescuing.

As a disciple, our lifeline is the gospel.  Everything flows out of the gospel.  Yet I’m not even sure we can articulate what the gospel is.  Disciples are people of the Gospel and when we get this, it changes everything.  Recently, I was at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis speaking on discipleship.  There were some antagonist among the crowd and at the end I had the blessing of a question and answer time.

I was asked by one student, “What is the gospel?” I responded, “The gospel is the kingdom of heaven at hand.”  Historically, it is an announcement of good news.  Something has changed.  The king has come and the battle is over.  The kingdom is at peace, and because the kingdom is at peace, I can now be at peace.  Something radically has come and changed my pitiful condition.  Another way to look at it, a new king has come.  The old dictator (sin) of my life is no more.  This new king is a kind and benevolent king.  He has shown his grace toward me.  He is renewing his kingdom.  Old laws and regimes are being toppled.  All things are becoming new.  The old is going, going, gone.  The new is arriving, arriving, arrived.

This past year I have focused on following.  I was teaching a sermon when I made a statement, “We believe, but are we willing to follow!”  I know God spoke to me and said, “What about you?”  For the last year, I have been following.  Here is one thing I have learned, what we believe is crucial to how we follow, specifically what we believe about the gospel.  However, following is essential to apprehending the truth behind our belief.   You can believe and not follow.  This often happens.  You can follow and not believe, but in reality the two are intertwined and together they perform a sacred dance.

What you believe about the Gospel is going to determine how you follow as a disciple.  The gospel is good news for all.

First, it is good news for all in that we are redeemed.  Jesus redeemed my life with his death.  He redeemed my despair by giving me his hope.  The King has come.  The kingdom is here.  He fought my enemy, and won my battle independent of my participation.  We call it grace.  Jesus did for me what I couldn’t do for myself.  In doing so he extended a great invitation of grace to me.  Come as you are.  He knew my condition.  He knew my worth.  He saw me as someone worthy of redeeming.  He purchased my redemption by paying the price for all of my sins.  The penalty for my sins has now been paid in full, never to be paid again.  This includes all of my past, present, and future sins.  Nothing I do can separate me from the love of God.  It is impossible.  “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8)”.

Religion requires for me to earn God’s approval.  Therefore, I obey or do good in order to get his approval.  The gospel is about receiving his approval as a gift.  I recognize that I am approved.  I have been redeemed.  Therefore because I am approved, I obey or do.  This is the great reversal.  The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. The thief has been defeated.  I have been redeemed, never to be lost again.  I have been redeemed with a great price.  I am of great value.  In Matthew 13: 45, Jesus is speaking in parables about the kingdom when he says, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for a fine pearl.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” We are the fine pearl.  Jesus left Heaven selling everything he had to redeem us.  We are bought with a great price.  This changes everything and motivates me to love and serve the king.

Second, it is good news in that the gospel doesn’t only redeem us, but it renews us. Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.  The old is gone and new has come.” This is the great reversal.  He brings life to the dead.  The thief comes only to kill, steal, and destroy.  I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Jesus began his ministry with this same proclamation.  A new king has arrived.  The old order is gone; the new has come and is coming.  God is renewing all things.

This renewal begins with a single seed.  Jesus puts it this way in Matthew 13:31, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in a field.  Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” You see that?  It begins as a seed and grows beyond its’ own capacity, even to the point of renewing creation.  What begins as a seed becomes a tree.  What begins with a spark becomes a fire.  What begins with a drop becomes a flood.  What begins with a single volt lights an entire city.  What begins as an idea cures HIV!  What begins as a meal feeds five thousand others.

The gospel finds its’ beginning in renewing us, and without the renewing of us there is no making of all things new.

The gospel changes us from within through the renewing of our mind.  He gives us his Spirit.  Like a seed it grows, and grows, and grows.  “The thief only comes to kill, steal, and destroy.  But I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

I’m not the man I use to be.  I have changed from within.  The Spirit has worked out this truth in my life.  As I become more and more aware that Jesus is my provider, I have less and less need to seek after materials things.  As I experience more and more of his forgiveness, I find it easier and easier to forgive, even forgive my enemies.  As I become more and more aware of my position in Christ, I have less need for status and recognition.   As I become more and more aware of how blessed I am, I am more apt to bless others. As I become more and more aware that God is in control, I have less and less need to be controlling.  As I become more and more aware that God is to be trusted, I have less and less need to not trust him or others.  I am not there.  I am in process, but I am being renewed.  “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.  But I have come that they may experience life and experience it to the full.” There is this fountain flowing up within me.

Finally, It is good news in that we are part of God’s restoration plan. We are restorers. The plotline is simple:

• God created the world,
• Sin entered and the world falling into sin and decay,
• Jesus came to redeem us from our sins creating a new people, and now a new kingdom is being formed.
• We are a kingdom of priest with the responsibility of redeeming, renewing, and restoring.

He is setting all things right.  We are now active participants in the incredible story.  We are part of the gospel narrative. The things that Jesus began doing he continues to do through us.  We are the ones who do greater works then even he has done.  We are the ones that God makes his very appeal through.  When Jesus prayed, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9-10).” He was praying for you and me.  Jesus is coming, but he’s coming right now through you and me. When he redeems us, then he renews us, he restores everything around us.

This indeed is the great reversal.  When I was a child my dad abused alcohol.  When evening came, if he wasn’t home by a certain time my mother would gather us up and take us to a hotel.  The next day she would take us to her in-laws where she would call my dad.  My dad would come over, have to face his parents, and then we would go home.   By the time I was a young teenager, we were hanging on by a thread.  That’s when the Gospel showed up in our house.  Thirty-five years later my mom is 71 years old and has leukemia.  She is not doing so well.  She’s a fighter, so she continues to fight the good fight.  My dad spends his every waking moment caring for his beautiful bride.  He is a caring father, a devoted husband, and a passionate follower of Jesus. He’s the dad every son longs for.   Why? It’s because that’s the power of the gospel.  It restores.  “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

The gospel is indeed good news.

Are You Ready To Plant?

June 4th @ 2pm

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By David Putman & Chad Hunt

We work with all types of churches.  They range from organic house churches to mega churches.  We believe it takes all kind.  However, regardless of your size or model we all share the same disciple-making mission.  If you only gather in a house and fellowship, you miss the mark.  If you have a large weekend gathering with the bells and whistles and fail to make disciples, you miss the mark.  Our matrix for success no matter what approach is are we making disciples that make disciples.  For churches that have a gathering, a disciple-making assimilation process is a must if this is to happen.

Let’s face it; it’s possible to move people from attendance to church membership and fall far short of our ultimate disciple-making mission.  Church membership or church activity doesn’t always equate disciple.  However, it should and more important it can.

Here are some practical steps for ensuring that your assimilation process is a disciple-making assimilation process.

Disciple-making is a culture, not a program.

The church is going through a radical reformation.  The body is returning to our core ancient mission of making disciples.  Disciple-making addresses three essential questions; 1) What is the gospel? 2) What is a disciple?  And, 3) What is the church?  Take a few moments and answer these questions.  Make sure you answer them in this order.  What we believe about the gospel will determine the very nature of our disciple making mission and what we understand about our mission will determine how we approach church.  In this context church becomes a means to an end, not an end in of itself.  It’s here that we come to understand that our church has a mission, not our mission has a church.  This is a radical difference.  Here is how we state it at Planting the Gospel:  plant the gospel, make disciples, and form the church around those disciples.  This is how you create a disciple-making culture.  When this happens discipleship permeates every fiber of your DNA.  Now you have a disciple-making culture.  As a disciple your focus is on living like Jesus, loving like Jesus, and leaving what Jesus left behind.  The starting point for making disciples is by being the disciple you want others to become.

Apply the parable of the sower.

Gospel making assimilation involves a different starting point.  Most assimilation processes focus an inordinate amount of energy into first time guest.  Creating a Christ-centered environment is important.  However, Jesus taught a parable that gives us great insight into disciple-making assimilation (see Matthew 13: 1-9).  In this parable a farmer sows seed on four types of soil; only one of the soils produces lasting growth by multiplying 30, 60, and 100 times.  Using simple mathematics 75 % of the seed died.  Our tendency is to focus on the seed that simply isn’t going to remain. Disciple-making assimilation understands these principles and focuses energy and resources on the 25% that often is overlooked.  Our churches are like so many businesses that focus all of their resources on attracting new customers, only to ignore them once they become customers.  When this happens it’s just a matter of time until they’re out the back door.  I see this happening over and over again in our churches.  We spend 90 percent of our energy and resources on the weekend.  Try focusing your resources and energy on those who are hanging around and demonstrating spiritual openness and growth in their lives.  Don’t worry about those that show up today and are gone tomorrow.  Unless the Spirit is drawing them into a relationship they simply won’t remain.  In today’s religious culture first time guest come to our churches for many reasons, including looking for a church of their preference.  We aren’t in the preference business; we are in the gospel business.  When the gospel takes hold of their lives the spirit will draw them back.  This is the essence of disciple making assimilation.  We cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit in drawing people into a relationship with the Father.  We must have spiritual discernment to do this.

Flip your assimilation model over.

In my experience as a pastor we encourage new comers to attend a workshop designed to introduce them to our church and to invite them to become a member.  Without doing the hard data, it seemed as if about a third of those would indicate a real interest in becoming a member.  This class included a covenant that included a commitment to the things we felt important for them to do.  It usually involved volunteering in our church, participating in a small group, and giving a regular offering.  In spite of their signing off on our covenant very few of them actually fulfilled their commitment.  More importantly none of this guarantee they’re becoming a disciple.

In reality, this is like inviting those who visit a military recruitment office to sign up and ship off to the battlefront on the same day.  Flip your assimilation process upside down by removing your membership class.  Remove membership language all together. It is unbiblical. Members imply that we are joining some kind of organization and we have certain rights.  The church is the body of Christ and Jesus is the head of it.  We are followers of Jesus.  Instead of focusing on a cultural driven membership mindset, invite people to partner with you in becoming followers of Jesus on mission together.  Now, that’s what church is all about.  However, only invite them to partner after they have begun to follow.

Replace paper with people. 

If you really want to assimilate people around disciple making, connect them to people.  Disciples are made relationally in the context of community.  This is what happens at Caveland Church, where I pastor (Chad Hunt).  We dropped our membership class and invite people to New to Caveland.  Only New to Caveland isn’t a class or a workshop, it’s a relationship-centered approach to assimilation (see our disciple-making assimilation model in the appendix).  At the end of each service, I encourage those who are new to Caveland or who have been attending for a while to drop by the lobby and meet me.  After a very informal meet and greet, I connect them to one of our trained volunteers, who get’s their name and information with one objective, to connect them to a relationship with a group leader.  That group leaders gives them a call the following week and sets up a time to get to know them.  That usually means meeting them after a service and taking them to lunch.  We are committed to replacing paper with people.  The result has been life changing for our church and many others.  Our goal is to get them in a group.  Why?  This may seem like an odd first step, but we do it because we are committed to making disciples and we understand that in order to do so we must connect people to relationships with other disciples. This is Jesus’ model for assimilation.

Simplify your process. 

In my day we have seen some complex assimilation systems.  Most of these systems focus on first time guest and seldom work.  Simplify your process by focusing on getting connected to relationships through small groups and/or volunteerism.  Put all of your energy into connecting them to relationship rich settings.  Imagine the difference it would make to get rid of all the clutter and focusing all of your resources on getting people into a group where they can build significant relationships in the context of a disciple making culture. To do this you may want to focus on different small group models. We don’t believe a church should have just one approach if they are serious about disciple making assimilation.

Think partners, not members.

Now that you eliminated those membership events you do on the frontend and people are assimilating by connecting relationally to a small group and an area of service, now you are ready to invite them to a partnership event.  You will never have to chase after your so-called members again to get them involved in a small group or a volunteer area.  Only those who are involved get invited to partner.

Now they are ready to hear your vision and actually partner with you.  In your partnership event focus on how they can help accomplish the vision and mission, and what it means to partner financially.  Chances are they are already doing some of both, but now its time to get intentional.  For those who can’t partner financially, encourage them to start somewhere and point them to your financial ministry.  This approach will also explode your financial discipleship ministry.  People will be more open and even eager to address the things that are keeping them from generosity.

At the end of the day you have a fully assimilated partner, but more importantly you have a disciple that can begin reproducing themselves and others who are finding their way into your context.  This is what a disciple making culture is all about!  You will never need a discipleship department, program or course again.

David Putman, founder of Planting the Gospel a network of gospel-centered churches committed to making disciples (www.plantingthegospel.com). Follow him @davidputman.

Chad Hunt, Lead Pastor of Caveland Church, Cave, KY (www.cavelandchurch.com).  Follow him @chadhunt.

I planted my first church coming out of seminary in 1988.  At that time, I was aware of one book on church planting, Planting New Churches by Jack Redford.  For me, it was the Holy Grail of church planting simply because it was the only book on planting I was exposed to.  In addition to this book, Peter Wagner did a set of audiotapes on How to Plant a Church and Bob Logan created a self-bound version of Church Planter’s Toolkit called Church Planter’s Checklist.  That was it.  Since then, there has been a proliferation of church planting resources with similar nominal results.  Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird suggest in Viral Church, the average church plant after four years runs 87 people in weekend attendance.

I think it is fair to say that doing the same old thing, the same old way, produces the same old results.  However, today things are changing.  I recently did a study of the major church planting networks in the US.  Most networks employ a relational approach to developing church planters.  They often offer some kind of residency, apprenticeship, or internship.  These networks have seen phenomenal results.  The average network church plant after five years runs approximately 300 people in weekend attendance.  This is nearly four times the result of the non-networked church mentioned earlier.

Why?  I believe the key is relationships.  In order for leadership transformation to take place, training has to run congruent with intentional relationships.  That’s why we don’t talk about training church planters or simply running church planters through a curriculum.  It is our core conviction that planters must be discipled in the context of a healthy church planting environment.  Our formula is simple; relationship plus training in the context of an effective church or church plant equals the discipling of church planters.

This is why every church planter should speed up their effectiveness in planting by slowing down and spending a year in the right residency.  That’s why we don’t train church planters, we disciple them.