Today, June 3, 2008 at about 2pm in the afternoon, the Executive Presbytery of the Assemblies of God voted to launch the new Church Multiplication Network. Over the next five years, the Network will emerge as a service organization deployed from a national platform to resource, catalyze and facilitate all manner of planting new churches in America.

Initially, the Church Multiplication Network will be deployed in the form of seven systems laser focused on resourcing all manner of church planting in every “corner” of the fellowship. When the Network is fully deployed, Districts, parent churches and planters will all find relevant and substantial support for every aspect of their efforts to multiply communities of disciples in America. The systems that will be developed by the Church Multiplication Network plan include: Read the rest of this entry »

I just got a note from Daniel McNaughton, planting pastor of Spring Valley Community Church in Royersford, Pennsylvania. He recently returned from leading a BootCamp in Zambia, Africa. You can read about it by clicking here. (The Zambia BootCamp posts were uploaded on April 21-24, 2008). This is not the first BootCamp in another country. Certified AG BootCamps have been held in Mexico, Scotland, South Africa and Romania. In April, two teams, one from Sweden and one from Germany attended the Potomac District BootCamp to investigate the possibility of adapting the BootCamp process for their countries. As a result, we are actively planning to assist our German friends in making the BootCamp a part of their process for facilitating new churches.

One myth about BootCamp is that it is a “training” event. That probably used to be the case, but not any longer. BootCamp is now a strategic “discovery” event built on an adult learning model that is dynamic and totally adaptable to absolutely any style or model of church. As a result, the BootCamp process is a “state of the art” tool for any church planter planting a church anywhere. If you haven’t already gone through the process, now is the time to do it. The price of BootCamp has never been lower. Check out the Church Multiplication Network website to find out more and view a schedule of upcoming BootCamps.

For the second time in a week I’ll be landing at DFW, but this time I’m not just passing through. I’m headed to the North Texas District/Gulf Latin District Church Planting BootCamp to connect with over 100 participants who are planting new or leading existing churches toward vigorous health. I’m looking forward to seeing a ton of great friends. More later…..

OK…it’s later now…actually it’s early on Thursday morning. I’m getting ready to spend about 4 hours with a very energized bunch of planters and revitalizers helping them think about “finding the money” to finance the vision that God has birthed in their heart. Looking forward to it.

Yesterday was stellar. I hung out with US Candidate Missionaries Tim and Rachel Ware (that’s Tim and Rachel in the picture on the left). They’re heading to Dallas to work with Clay and Barbara Wallace at the Dallas Metro Dream Center. We all had lunch together with Rick Dubose (North Texas District Superintendent, church planting advocate and all around good guy) along with Gaylan Claunch (Assistant Superintendent and Missions Director). All these great folks are in the picture to the right… from left to right… me, Gaylan Claunch, Barbara Wallace, Clay Wallace, Tim Ware, Rachael Ware and Rick Dubose.

After lunch I headed down to the North Texas Lakeview Camp and Conference Center. In my humble opinion, they probably should drop the word “camp” from the title. This is not camping. Besides really nice “Hampton Inn” quality guest rooms, excellent meeting facilities and great food, they’ve just opened up a fitness club complete with weight room, cardio room, pool, full size gym, etc. It’s really incredible.

The BootCamp is being held at the conference center. This edition of the North Texas BC has over 130 participants. I was able to jump into a few minutes of the sessions happening in each room. Contagious atmosphere…I’m ready to go plant again!

Last night, US Missionary Duke Edwards (that’s Duke in the picture to the right…Russ Weaver is the guy with the hat) bought dinner for all the facilitators and anyone else he could talk into coming out. We went into downtown Waxahachie to a restaurant that serves down home super good bar-b-que Texas/cowboy style. It was awesome stuff. Then Duke showed us startling stats that indicate if nothing changes America will have NO rural churches 18 years from now. He then threw out a God-sized compelling vision to plant 16,000 churches in rural communities. He got some help from the legendary Russ Weaver who pastors Shepherd’s Valley Cowboy Church, one of the first cowboy churches in America. He’s also got a show on RFD TV. Between Russ and Duke there wasn’t a dry eye in the place and we all left with lighter wallets and a new appreciation for the incredible challenge of the mission field of America.

We left there and went for a quick tour of The Oaks Fellowship pastored by Scott Wilson (That’s Scott in the foreground of the picture to the left. Dr. Tom Wilson is at the far end of the model and Anthony Scoma pastor of a great church in Austin, Texas and one of our BootCamp facilitators is on the left). This is an amazing story. The church is 80 years old and Dr. Tom Wilson became the pastor in 1988. They started a Charter School back in 1998 and in 2003, Tom realized that Scott could pastor the church and Tom could give his full attention to the school. The Charter School has given them a very positive open door to thousands of folks who were completely disconnected from church. As I listened to Dr. Tom I realized that the Charter School approach is yet another incredible possibility for incarnational ministry. The Oaks is now an exploding church and is about to complete a building that will seat 1800 in the first phase and be able to expand to include another 1800 by just knocking down a wall and adding some chairs.

Thursday was awesome. The North Texas BootCamp is the longest running annual BootCamp in the Assemblies of God. Superintendent Rick Dubose and US Missionary Dave McNaughton (that’s Dave talking to Scott Wilson in the picture to the right) are an outstanding team providing leadership, inspiration, resources and strategy for multiplying the disciples and churches of their district. As I mentioned earlier in this post, this edition of the BootCamp had over 130 participants (including coaches and staff) and three main track options…English language church planting track, English language church health track and a Spanish language church planting and health track. I facilitated the segment of the camp that deals with finances. We had a great time of interaction and I came away encouraged and impressed by the caliber of the church planters in the room.

This weekend, I’m headed off to Portland, Oregon to speak at two Slavic churches…more later