Church Planters

"Nothing in my life goes untouched by my husband’s calling." Christine Hoover’s words in the first chapter describe so well the life of a church planter’s wife, which is enormously difficult yet extraordinarily rewarding. To be married to a church planter is a calling of its own with a richness of its own. In The Church Planting Wife, Hoover explores and encourages the hearts of her readers while teaching what it means to have heart prepared for this unique ministry. She knows the challenges: A church planter's wife must develop a job description, be a wise helper to her husband, develop friendships within the church and community, deal with stress and discouragement, handle wounds, and more. Christine speaks candidly about these challenges while urging readers to grow a heart that wholly reflects Jesus. Spread throughout these pages are stories and interviews from church planting wives. Christine Hoover empathetically and pointedly builds from these testimonies to uplift the reader and offer lessons of hope in the midst of a challenging ministry.

Church planting has become a cottage industry. National conferences, hip planting organizations, and all-in-one resource kits celebrate the thrill of pioneering a church and inspire visions of glorious victories. Yet few who respond to the call are warned what they'll actually encounter: the relentless opposition they'll endure; the eventual scattering of their entire core group; the failure of their tried-and-true, field-tested system. Here's the dirty little secret of church planting: the roadside is strewn with casualties. Many have closed their churches. Some left ministry permanently. Others abandoned the faith altogether. Church planting is at once the greatest and most grueling ministry work on earth. This book is for those toiling in the trenches, those about to bail out, and those considering jumping in. It's for the church planters laboring and struggling, seeing little movement, and wondering what they're doing wrong or why God is failing them. It's also for mother churches, planting organizations, and denominations, as a challenge to rethink and re-calibrate the way they approach and measure planting endeavors. The Honest Guide to Church Planting is a fresh and candid conversation about the challenges and joys of planting new churches. Tom Bennardo speaks the truth so that those involved in church planting can embrace a more accurate and realistic picture of what planting a church is really like; one that not only enables them to survive, but to thrive in this wondrous work.

David Garrison, PhD University of Chicago, defines Church Planting Movements as rapidly multiplying indigenous churches planting churches that sweep across a people group or population segment. Garrison's Church Planting Movements: How God Is Redeeming a Lost World signaled a breakthrough in missionary church planting. After the publication of Garrison's book in 2004 it became impossible to talk about missions without referencing Church Planting Movements. Church Planting Movements examines more than two-dozen movements of multiplying churches on five continents. After presenting these case studies, Garrison identifies ten universal elements present in each movement. He then broadens the circle of examination to identify a further ten common characteristics, factors identified in most, but not all, of the movements. He concludes his examination with a list of "Seven Deadly Sins," i.e. harmful practices that stifle or impede Church Planting Movements. Important for evangelical readers, the author returns to his findings to see how they stand up to the light of Scripture. What he discovers is that Church Planting Movements are much more consistent with the New Testament lay-led house-church movements that swept rapidly through the Mediterranean world in the face of hostile opposition than today's more sedentary professional institutionalized Christianity. Learn more about Church Planting Movements from the book's website: www.ChurchPlantingMovements.com.

Planting Missional Churches is an instruction book for planting biblically faithful and culturally relevant churches. It addresses the “how-to” and “why” issues of church planting by providing practical guidance through all the phases of a church plant while taking a missional look at existing and emerging cultures.

Most books on church planting offer a model for churches to replicate--usually one that is tied to a particular style, generation, or demographic. But what churches really need is a process that is flexible, not bound to a particular time or current fad. In The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting, trusted author and church-planting expert Aubrey Malphurs shares the basic steps any church planter will need, regardless of his or her generation now or in the future. These steps include establishing values, mission, vision, and strategy reaching the community making disciples recruiting a team determining location and facilities raising money for the ministry With instant practical takeaway based on proven techniques, this book will be invaluable to any church planter.

The vice president of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network examines biblical criteria of the man, the message, and the mission behind every church plant. An invaluable resource for pastors and seminary students considering a church plant.

With nearly fifty years combined global church-planting experience, Craig Ott and Gene Wilson are well qualified to write a comprehensive, up-to-date guide for cross-cultural church planting. Combining substantive biblical principles and missiological understanding with practical insights, this book walks readers through the various models and development phases of church planting. Advocating methods that lead to church multiplication, the authors emphasize the role of the missionary church planter. They offer helpful reflection on current trends and provide best practices gathered from research and empirical findings around the globe. The book takes up a number of special issues not addressed in most church planting books, such as use of short-term teams, partnerships, and wise use of resources. Full of case studies and real examples from around the world, this practical text will benefit students, church planters, missionaries, and missional church readers.

"Starting a new organization is risky business. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, most startups fail; half of them do not reach the five-year mark. Protestant churches are not immune to these trends. Most new churches are not established with denominational support-more than 50% are actually non-denominational-and, therefore, have many of the same vulnerabilities other infant organizations must overcome. Research on both congregants and congregations has shown that millions of Americans are leaving churches, half of all churches do not add any new members, and thousands of churches shutter their doors each year. These numbers suggest that American religion is not a growth industry. Yet, more than 1000 new churches are started in any given year. What are the forces that move people who might otherwise be satisfied working for churches to the more risky role of starting one as a religion entrepreneur? In Church Planters, sociologist Richard Pitt uses more than 125 in-depth interviews with church planters to understand their motivations. First, he uncovers themes in their sometimes miraculous, sometimes mundane answers to the question: "why take on these risks?" Then he examines how they approach three common entrepreneurial challenges-recognizing opportunities, marshalling resources, and framing success-in ways that reduce uncertainty and lead them to believe they will be successful. The book combines their evocative stories with insights from research on commercial and social entrepreneurship to explain how these religion entrepreneurs come to believe their organizational goals must be accomplished, that they are capable of being accomplished, and that they would accomplish them over time"--