Audio: Exponential Church Planting Conference

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I've also posted Ed Stetzer's notes on the conference below. Ed Stetzer is a missiologist with a bog well worth reading on all things missional. You can view the original post here.

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Exponential in Orlando

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Wednesday May 4, 2011   ~   4 Comments

I spent most of last week at the Exponential Conference in Orlando, Florida. As I went from meeting to meeting, I often would say, "I will post this on the blog." Well, it is here... though a bit late. For those of you who were not there, these things may be a help to you as well... so here it is: files and links in narrative form!
Best Practices in Denominations and Church Planting Systems
My pre-conference intensive was on Best Practices in Denominations and Church Planting Systems. I had some help in this session over two days. John Shepherd and Lewis McMullen shared about assessment practices, and Lizette Beard shared the results of our new church planter assessment project. Then, Rick Fountain and William Beasley talked about churches planting churches. Finally, I shared the information discovered in the project focusing on the top issues church planters face. I am happy to share with you some of the handouts and slides that we used in this workshop:
John Shepherd -

• Best Practices in Church Planter Assessment Presentation

Lewis McMullen -

• Getting the Most Presentation

Rick Fountain -

• Church Multiplication Ministries

Finally, here is my PowerPoint presentation -

• Top Issues Church Planters Face

On Wednesday after the Pre-Conference Intensive, I participated in three events.
Panel: Missional and Missionary
I led a panel discussion at a luncheon hosted by the Upstream Collective. As always do, I mention those on the panel so you can find more information about them and their ministries. Since I tend to move a panel along, there is never enough time to share everything that we would like... so click at their webpages here:

• Caleb Crider, co-founder of The Upstream Collective
• David Putman, founder of Planting the Gospel
• Gary Aston, church planter with Acts 29 Western Europe
• Phil Kingsley, Greater Europe Mission
• Christine Osgood, Christian Associates International

Church Planting Systems in the Pre-Launch Track
My first workshop on Wednesday afternoon was on Church Planting Systems. Here's my presentation -

• Key Systems in New Churches

Panel on Church Planting Movements
Finally, I led another panel on Church Planting Movements. Participants were:

• David Garrison, Church Planting Movements
• David Watson, Vice President of Global Church Planting with CityTeam Ministries
• George Patterson, co-author of Church Multiplication Guide
• Steve Addison, Director of Church Resource Ministries Australia
• Felicity Dale, co-author of The Rabbit and the Elephant and Simply Church (Felicity has guest blogged for me on Simple Church Principles)

Main Session on John 20:21
On Thursday, I was on the main stage talking about Being the Living "Sent" as laid out in John 20:21. I used a PowerPoint Presentation that was pretty elaborate, but this is the basic idea in one slide:

Here is the slide in a PDF.
You can see me giving the actual presentation here, but it misses the full impact without the narration. ;-)
Thursday evening, I participated in two After Hours events. I must confess they worked me hard that day, but I was glad to connect with the Evangelical Free Church and the folks at NCM Fathom.
Sticky Teams with the Evangelical Free Church
First, I was part of a panel that asked the question "Is Your Leadership Team Sticky?" and focused on keeping your team on the same page. I spoke about ecclesiology and congregational systems with elders that "lead" rather than "rule." I suggested a book by Mark Dever on the subject, entitled A Display of God's Glory.

Here were the panel members that I sat alongside:

• George Klippenes, National Church Planting Director for the Evangelical Free Church of America
• Larry Osborne, President of North Coast Training Network
• Ron Sylvia, Director of NEXT Networks
• Dave Page, Director of Church Planting for EFCA West

Theater Church with NCM Fathom and Church on Wheels
After that, I headed straight over to the local Cinemark Theatre to help answer the question "How Can My Church Reach the Un-Churched Via a Post-Modern Marketplace Location?" This session was sponsored by NCM Fathom and Church on Wheels (both of which we use at Grace Church). I was particularly excited to be a part of this session as I am currently planting a church in a local movie theater. I shared what we are doing at Grace Church and how you can use the marketplace location to reach the community. One slide showed a picture of our recent Easter event.

Here is my portion of the presentation. The content is mine, but the exclamation point at the end was added by NCM Fathom. ;-)
Assuming things continue to progress as well as they are, you will hear more from about the value of meeting in a theater.
Also presenting on that panel were:

• Byron Bledsoe, C3 Church
• Eric Geiger, Christ Fellowship Miami
• Mike Gardner, Church on Wheels
• Barry Brown, NCM Fathom

Finally, on Friday I talked with leaders and church planters from the Evangelical Free Church in America about Viral Churches, and I shared ideas on church multiplication. (I have written about this before on the blog.)
It was a great week. I hope these resources give you much to consider in your church planting and mission efforts.

Posted on May 4, 2011 at 1:19 AM   ~   4 Comments