5. November 2009 by David Alexander.

1. Overchurched people - they’ve been there, done that, are spiritual and want nothing with the church.

2. Changing demographic landscape - new frontiers of unreached peoples are in segment niches and in later gen population segments. WASP churches have reached most of the people like themselves there is to reach.

3. Unrealistic expectations - So you want full funding and great facilities? Nice dream. Get lots of partners.

4. Marketing fads - this can’t take the place of doing the work of an evangelist. What will you do to make your bit of spam unique.

5. Biblical membership - commitment, what’s that? Accountability? Uh-huh.

6. Biblical leadership - elders and deacons meeting biblical standards. Differentiating between cultural norms and God’s standards.

7. Missional church - whatever today’s definition of missional is. . . Can we truly live sent amidst the American dream?

8. Challenge of ecclesiology - so what does the church look like for my community right now?

Posted in Missional Thoughts | No Comments »

29. July 2009 by David Alexander.

Taken from Bobby Dean  address to NAMB SSLM09

1. PLACE - Who does God want to reach next?

2. PRAYER - Who is praying for this work?

3. PARTNER - Who is God inviting to obey?

4. PLAN - How should we do this?

5. PASTOR - Who will lead this work?

6. PURSUE - How will they hear the gospel?

7. PROTECT - How do we support long-term success?

The missionaries are encouraged through Team Huddles. Team Huddles consist of

Celebration - How has God been at work in your ministry?

Communion - Pray and focus on the union with Christ and each other.

Coaching - Study a missionary topic for personal and group development.

Collaboration -  Work together to identify unreached people groups and design specific strategies for Gospel saturation and church planting.

Posted in Missional Thoughts | No Comments »

13. June 2009 by David Alexander.

from Jeremy White - church planter/pastor Stonewater Church, Grandbury, TX

1. Ride your ride.  Be whom God has created you to be.

2. Kingdom minded not Competition minded. Other churches are not your competition. Prince of darkness and powers are your competition. Lift up the ministry of other churches in your town.

3. Fight the tendency to turn inward. Maintain the external focus and continually remind the people to be externally focused.

4. What makes your church unique? Define this and stick to it as your core values.

5. Be content with where you are but not content staying there. Have a passion for where God wants to lead you, but rejoice about where God has brought you thus far.

6. Pray that God will send the right people and that He will protect you from the wrong people. The right people are the lost and the leaders. The wrong people are those that want to hijack the vision.

7. This is a marathon not a sprint.

8. You’ve got to take care of momma. Do not neglect your wife. She will make or break your ministry. Love on her, take care of her, spend quantity and quality time with her. Fill her love tank. Talk about your love for her in front of others. Encourage her in front of others.

9. Staff kids are God’s kids. Have special parties for the staff kids. Thank the kids for letting their parents serve the church. Staff kids sacrifice a lot so their parents have the time to do what they do for the church.

10.  The Holy Spirit transforms lives not your church. People are on fire and prideful about the church, but don’t let them worship the church instead of worshiping God. Shine the light on God and the Holy Spirit, not the church. Let the people take ownership of the church, but not worship the church.

Posted in Missional Thoughts | 1 Comment »

3. June 2009 by David Alexander.

By John Piper June 3, 2009

I see two kinds of response to social Internet media like blogging, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and others.One says: These media tend to shorten attention spans, weaken discursive reasoning, lure people away from Scripture and prayer, disembody relationships, feed the fires of narcissism, cater to the craving for attention, fill the world with drivel, shrink the soul’s capacity for greatness, and make us second-handers who comment on life when we ought to be living it. So boycott them and write books (not blogs) about the problem.The other response says: Yes, there is truth in all of that, but instead of boycotting, try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can.Together with the team at Desiring God, I lean toward response #2. “Lean” is different from “leap.” We are aware that the medium tends to shape the message. This has been true, more or less, with every new medium that has come along—speech, drawing, handwriting, print, books, magazines, newspapers, tracts, 16mm home movies, flannel-graph, Cinerama, movies, Gospel Blimps, TV, radio, cassette tapes, 8-Tracks, blackboards, whiteboards, overhead projection, PowerPoint, skits, drama, banners, CDs, MP3s, sky-writing, video, texting, blogging, tweeting, Mina-Bird-training, etc.Dangers, dangers everywhere. Yes. But it seems to us that aggressive efforts to saturate a media with the supremacy of God, the truth of Scripture, the glory of Christ, the joy of the gospel, the insanity of sin, and the radical nature of Christian living is a good choice for some Christians. Not all. Everyone should abstain from some of these media. For example, we don’t have a television.That’s my general disposition toward media.Now what about Twitter? I find Twitter to be a kind of taunt: “Okay, truth-lover, see what you can do with 140 characters! You say your mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things! Well, this is one of those ‘all things.’ Can you magnify Christ with this thimble-full of letters?”To which I respond:

The sovereign Lord of the earth and skyPuts camels through a needle’s eye.And if his wisdom see it mete,He will put worlds inside a tweet.

So I am not inclined to tweet that at 10AM the cat pulled the curtains down. But it might remind me that the Lion of Judah will roll up the heavens like a garment, and blow out the sun like a candle, because he just turned the light on. That tweet might distract someone from pornography and make them look up.I’ve been tweeting anonymously for a month mainly to test its spiritual and family effects on me. In spite of all the dangers, it seems like a risk worth taking. “All things were created through Christ and for Christ” (Colossians 1:16). The world does not know it, but that is why Twitter exists and that’s why I Tweet.By his grace and for his glory,Pastor John

Posted in Missional Thoughts | 1 Comment »