Church Planting Meeting At LifePoint

Today was a great day at LifePoint. Twenty some folks gathered, some as far away as Oklahoma, to pray, worship, encourage, and discuss church planting. Jonathan McIntosh, from the Journey in St. Louis, spoke to us today about the centrality of the Gospel in church planting and exhorted us to make sure we were keeping the Gospel front and center in our churches. Jesus is the hero of every sermon, and the point of every passage in the Bible. All of the Old Testament and the New Testament point to and expound upon Jesus. If we lose Jesus, we lose the church.

Over lunch, we had the opportunity to do some Q & A and talk about how the theology of the Gospel fleshes out in practical terms such as giving, growing members to maturity, reviving passion in our congregations, and seeing our church folks truly grasp how the Gospel plays out in their entire lives. We talked about the importance of the folks in our churches grasping that all of life is worship and not just the hour we spend together on Sunday.

The cool thing about this meeting was that it was the first we have done in the Southwest Missouri region and we had a good turnout. Prayerfully, as we move forward, we can build this network to serve as a support, encouragement, and help to men who are in church plants, looking to plant churches, or thinking about church planting and discerning whether it's for them. Lane did a good job of laying out what the objectives of such a meeting were and challenged us to consider our own pride, arrogance, and insecurities as church planters when we come together and to really pray to see this network be all it can be. We're looking at getting together again in January. I would suspect maybe January 8^th? Stay tuned…

It was a great meeting with great men. I look forward to continuing the friendships that were started today.

In his message to us, Jonathan McIntosh referenced Tim Keller quite frequently. For all things Tim Keller and more resources from Him than you can shake a stick at, you need to go here and check it out.

Thank you to everyone who attended today and to the folks who helped serve and make it happen. I'm grateful for a church like LifePoint who has a heart to see the movement grow.