Vineyard Church Planting Conference October 2008

This past weekend Susan and I got a chance to go to the Vineyard Eastern Regional Church Planting Conference with our friends Justin and Barb, who are in the process of starting up a church in Wilmington, Delaware.  It was seriously awesome.  We got to meet a lot of like minded people that are interested in expanding the Kingdom and doing the work of Jesus.


They had a lot of great speakers who had planted churches all through out the northeast.  Here are a few notes from John Elmer of the Syracuse Vineyard.

Why plant?

• There is a need for more churches.  
• Only 30% of people in any given area go to church in a given week.
  
• 2/3 of more people in your community don't go to church.
• More churches..... more flavors!  
• 1 Corinthians 12 5 There are different ways to serve but the same Lord to serve.6 And there are different ways that God works through people but the same God. God works in all of us in everything we do.
  
• More churches, more spheres of connection.  
• More churches.. the more places to unleash the gifting of people
  
• 1 Corinthians 12 4 There are different kinds of gifts, but they are all from the same Spirit. 
• More people can get in the game with more churches.  
• More people grown when more people are involved.
  
• Church planting is God's Heart
  

John also noted that the first 5 years of a church, there are more salvations than at any other time in the church's history.

 

I'm probably going to start talking more and more about this on this blog.  We've committed to being part of the Wilmington Church Plant team with Justin and Barb and I'm excited to see whats going to happen there.  I feel that my heart is still ultimately pointed towards central Maryland and Baltimore, but right now, God has convinced Susan and I that we are to work here and now where we are at and not to sit around waiting until he calls us back there.