This post was previously written by Steve Pike on April 10th. Since Steve is out of town, we will be revisiting some classic posts and updating previous church planter stories over the next couple of weeks.

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In the interest of full disclosure and to be fair, this happened nearly thirty years ago, so I’m telling the story to make a point, not because I believe this is a wide spread practice. However, it does illustrate, in the extreme, what I believe might be a core measuring problem that is “dumbing down” our missional aptitude.

I once heard the pastor of a church advertising on the radio that he would actually live on the roof of his church until the number of people attending one of his worship services exceeded 1000 people. I’m not making this up. He was serious and he made quite a spectacle of himself. The newspaper picked up the story and he got a lot of free publicity. And if I remember correctly, he did end up with over 1000 people seated in a room listening to him preach.

This story is a dramatic illustration of what I believe is a core problem with our approach to starting new churches. We measure the wrong stuff. Let’s think about the story of the preacher on the roof for just a minute, by asking a few analytical questions. After all his efforts, what did he end up with? Who would be attracted by this type of gimmickry? What would be the reaction of the typical unchurched person to an invitation that went something like, “Please come to my church so my pastor can stop living on the roof!” ? What about the 25,000 other people living in the community? Why just live on the roof until 1000 came to church? Why not stay up there until everyone showed up? If all we are trying to do is get people to sit down and listen to a preacher preach, then I guess he succeeded. But a healthy church engaged in healthy spiritual formation is interested in way more significant outcomes than just getting people into pews. Read the rest of this entry »

Around 4:30pm CDT I’ll be walking out the door into two weeks of vacation. I’m not answering email. I’m not answering my phone. I’m not going to be posting any blogs (However, we will be running some vintage blogs with fresh content mixed in so keep coming back!). I’m going to give my full attention to my family. I guess James Dobson would say I’m going to “focus on my family.” (Sorry…I know that was corny).

The “main event” for my vacation plans will be this: My one, only and best daughter Lindsy is getting married on July 5, 2008 and I’m going to give her away with a tremendous amount of pride. It would be awesome of you think about it to pray for us and Lindsy during this time.

Thanks for your friendship, prayers and support! I’ll be back!

On Tuesday, I had the privilege of being with the executive leadership team of the South Texas District along with Pastor David Plank as they approved three new church planting teams.

Here’s a picture of me with the planters and Brother Joe Granbury (he’s the distinguished guy on the far left), Pastor David Plank (the South Texas District Church Planting Director and pastor of First Assembly of God, New Caney, TX.  You’ll find him on the far right of the picture). The planters (from left to right are Ryan and LeAnn Jones,  preparing to plant in New Waverly, Texas; Samuel and Nkechi Ukomadu originally from Nigeria, who are preparing to formally launch Firebrand Assembly in Houston ;and Joseph Garza, whose wife Ellenoa, would have been with him but she was imminently pregnant with their fourth child. Number Four arrived early the next morning after Joseph got home from this meeting! The Garza’s will be planting New Generation Fellowship in urban San Antonio.

The District Executive Presbytery team unanimously approved these planters to go build bridges to lost people! Congratulations planters and thank you South Texas District for opening doors for these new planters.