Cool Ideas
February 04, 2011
January 22, 2011
July 07, 2010
Local Newspaper Covers Baptismal Service
Mark Bjorlo of Journey North Church in Brainerd, MN has the local Brainerd Dispatch covering the baptism service with over 100 entering the waters of baptism publically declaring the alliance to Jesus.
Check out all the great baptism pictures
Consider inviting your local newspaper to your next baptism service.
March 29, 2010
January 19, 2010
What If? - Ignite 2010 - March 24-26 in Phoenix, AZ
ConvergeUSA is a network of organizations and churches that has seen over 500 churches planted in the last 20 years, thus making us one of the few fellowship of churches that has a positive growth rate.
- What if every church that was planted in the last 20 years gathered in one spot?
- What if every church that planted a church in the last 20 years were in the same room?
- What if all these leaders joined for worship, prayer and fasting?
- What if all these leaders gathered together to hear God's voice?
- What if all these leaders declared a dream...a multiplication dream?
It would be explosive! It would be historical! It would be life changing! So this is a call to every leader within Converge to gather March 24-26, 2010 in Phoenix, AZ for Ignite 2010 as we kick off our new five year multiplication campaign: Ignite a Church: Transform the World.
- Are you a pastor with a multi-site dream? This is for you!
- Are you a planter looking to launch a new church? This is for you!
- Are you a pastor looking to start your first daughter church? This is for you!
- Are you a leader looking to build a church planting network? This is for you!
- Are you a pastor seeking to become a Church Multiplication Center? This is for you!
Register Here
Scholarships are available through your regional leaders
November 29, 2009
Perry Noble to Speak @ Ignite 2010 - March 24-26
Perry Noble is the founding and senior pastor of NewSpring Church with campuses in Anderson, Greenville, Columbia and Florence, South Carolina. At ten years old, the church averages over 10,000 people across all campuses.
Perry is a gifted communicator and teacher, convicted about speaking the truth as plainly as possible. God has given him a vision and a passion for helping people meet Jesus, and each week he shares God’s word and its practical application in our daily lives.
Perry, his wife Lucretia and their daughter, Charisse, live in Anderson, South Carolina. You can read all of Perry’s unfiltered thoughts about life and leadership at PerryNoble.com, and don’t worry, he holds nothing back.
Ignite 2010 will be a gathering of church planters, parent church pastors and church multiplication champions who will be issuing and responding to a call to start more churches in the next five years than we have in the last 20 years. We are calling each of the 500 churches that were planted in the last 20 years to gather in Phoenix, AZ, March 24-26 for the IGNITE 2010 National Church Planting Conference and to declare their multiplication dream for the next five years.
Mark your calendars NOW and prepare your hearts to be inspired by Perry Noble and some of the best multiplication leaders in Converge Worldwide.
Register Here
November 18, 2009
Generosity Sermon Series from GenerositySummit.com
Week One | Week Two | Week Three | Week Four | Week Five
Generous church ministries strive to help churches maximize their potential by helping leaders create a generous culture in their local church. The generous church strategy is simple:
Expose church leadership to generous living principles from God’s word
Coach them in developing plans and practices that create a generous culture in the church
Resource them through partnerships with organizations that add value to their ministry
Reproduce generous cultures in other churches through intentional mentoring in local church peer groups
Our goal is to help each local church maximize the generosity potential of their congregations while creating a network of local church generosity and stewardship teams that share best practices, resources and ideas which result in greater kingdom impact locally, regionally and globally.
Scott Ridout, Director of Generosity for Converge Worldwide, facilitates the Generosity Summit. Scott has been Lead Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church in Gilbert, AZ for 10 years and serves on the Boards of Vision Arizona (www.visonarizona.org), a local church planting movement, and Vision Abolition (www.visionabolition.org), which is committed to the prevention, rescue and restoration of victims of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation worldwide.
Generous Church Summits are a ministry of Converge Worldwide. (HT)
November 09, 2009
Free Church Planting Webinar: Networking and Gathering Principles
In a desire to get critical training materials into the hands of church planters earlier in the process, I have taken up the challenge of providing a one hour, free, webinar each month that will bring some of the key principles found in the FirstSteps to Planting a Missional Church manual.
We will go through the Six Stages of a Missional Church Plant.
- FirstSteps Overview - Recording Available
- Stage One - Relating with God and Your Supporters - Recording Available
- Stage Two - Networking and Gathering - November 11th @ 2pm CT
- Stage Three - Building a Launch Team
- Stage Four - Designing Your Public Worship Services and Initial Ministries
- Stage Five - Launching Your Public Worship Services
- Stage Six - Establishing the New Community
October 30, 2009
Ignite 2010: National Church Planting Conference - March 24-26
What would happen if every church that was planted in the last 20 years gathered together to seek God for a new multiplication dream? It could be explosive!
We are issuing a call to each of the 500 churches that was planted in the last 20 years to gather in Phoenix, AZ, March 24-26 for the IGNITE 2010 National Church Planting Conference.
Mark your calendars NOW and prepare your hearts to be inspire by some of the best multiplication leaders in Converge Worldwide.
Register Here
October 14, 2009
Vision Casting - Capturing the Heart of God by Gary Rohrmayer
Vision casting in a new church is critical! Casting a compelling vision with clarity and conviction will help you with fundraising, launch team recruitment, motivating, focusing your team and even evangelism!
Vision casting from a biblical perspective is capturing God’s heart for your community. It involves communicating it is a way that connects with people hearts and moves them towards enthusiastic commitment. In fundraising you want people to invest generously. In recruiting your launch team you want people to be sold out to this idea, committing their time, talents and their treasures. In keeping your team motivated and focused you must discover ways to drive the vision deeper into the hearts of your people. Finally, if you are going to seriously see the gospel spread into the hearts of people far from God, you will need to creatively communicate God’s desire for their lives and the part they will play in His great redemptive mission.
I found these five tips online at www.castyourvision.net; they are great tips on creating a compelling vision.
Tip #1 - Think through your vision very well before you begin to share it. If you can't think through your vision yourself, others won't be able to think through it with you!
Tip #2 - A vision is like an iceberg...there is much more to it than what is seen on the surface. You've got to discipline yourself to share just enough - and yet not too much! Show your viewers the 'tip' of the iceberg- and when they are ready, they'll begin asking you about all the details! Just when you think it is short enough - look at it again and see if you can shave it down some more. If you've really thought through it - you'll be able to communicate it in a concise way.
Tip #3 - Remember - you might be the only person excited about your vision at this point. It's hard to believe, but it is true. As you communicate your vision, focus on those points which are the MOST exciting to you and leave the rest out...for now! People generally have to 'warm up' to a vision, which takes time. Be careful not to bore viewers with the details.
Tip #4 - Gradually release your vision to select viewers. Find 3-5 of your closest friends or mentors and ask them to preview your Vision Site. Give them permission to provide you with constructive criticism. They may identify some areas that need more (or less) information. Their input will be invaluable to you. Sometimes visionaries 'release' their vision prematurely, which can often be detrimental to the vision in the long run. Be patient, and wait for some quality feedback from your closest advisors - they'll be far more forgiving than others!
Tip #5 - A vision is something you see in your mind's eye - it's something you 'see' which doesn't yet exist. The paradox of this is that when you communicate a vision, other's aren't looking through the same lenses you are. You MUST visually present your vision to others to be most effective. You must transfer thoughts from your mind's eye to pictures in your listener's eyes. As you build your Vision Site, spend time looking for images that really depict what you are trying to say. They'll be worth a thousand words!
Here are five reflective questions to consider in creating a vision statement:
- What is the specific vision that God is planting in your heart?
- How is the great commission reflected in your vision statement?
- How compelling is your vision statement to the churched as well as unchurched?
- What does success look like specifically?
- Could you describe what your church would look like ten years from now?
Solomon wrote, "Where there is no vision, the people perish...." Proverbs 29:18 (HT)
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