Church Planting

Most leaders start out with passion, a sense of calling, and a focus on building ministry skills. Such things might get some results, but they are not enough to sustain a healthy ministry - or a healthy life. Beyond the vocational capacities every church planter needs, there's a range of capabilities more difficult to measure but even more essential: What veteran church planter Tim Morey calls spiritual competencies. Morey provides here a practical guide to spiritual formation geared to the unique needs of church planters.

The Honest Guide to Church Planting is for those toiling in the trenches, those about to bail out, and those considering jumping into the work of planting churches. Tom Bennardo writes candidly of the challenges so planters and sending agencies can embrace a realistic picture of church planting that leads to thriving, fruitful ministry.

Church planters generally are optimistic and enthusiastic about church planting for this generation. Many are launching or about to experiment with innovative approaches to plant churches that engage the marketplace. They are applying missional perspectives to reach this large mission field. This book documents and explores these innovative approaches to church planting.

Planting a church is one of the most exciting adventures you’ll ever embark on. It’s also one of the hardest. It requires initiative, leadership, strategy, systems, and a lot of prayer. In this second edition of Planting Missional Churches, not only will you find a completely redesigned book with new content in every single chapter but you will also find several new chapters on topics such as church multiplication, residencies, multi-ethnic ministry, multisite, denominations and networks, and spiritual leadership.

While much of church planting today is approached as an innovative new effort, church leaders can take comfort in the truth that they are simply stewards of what the faithful church has been doing for millennia. By rediscovering the foundations of our heritage, we are able to build healthier, more faithful, and more effective churches. At the same time, the act of planting new churches can breathe new life into these ancient traditions as they are applied to a variety of cultural contexts.

For too long, we’ve ignored the issues that plague church planting movements and church planters. Filled with practical, down-to-earth Biblical advice about church planting, leadership, and spiritual health, Leading the Other Way presents a thoroughly Biblical and principle-centered—not program-centered—approach to planting effective churches which focuses on the leader whom God has gifted and called. If you care deeply about the future of the church as a whole, JD’s book will encourage you, irritate you in a healthy way, and motivate you to lead for change.