Video and my personal notes from Session 3 of our Church Planters Equipping Retreat.
The New Testament was written by apostles who were church planting during one of the greatest church planting movements.
When Constantine “made” everyone Christians all that was needed was pastors- apostolic leaders faded out.
Apostles- emissary sent by a king to take new territory.
1 Corinthians 9
Paul’s proof of his apostleship is he built the church. The church is the fruit of Paul’s labor and evidence of His apostleship. Metaphors for apostle in 1 Corinthians 9:
- Soldier
- Planter
- Shepherd
- Ox
- Plowman
Side note: Today we often give the least experienced guys the least resources, the hardest job, and then wonder why they struggle.
Planting Like Jesus…
- Prepare like Jesus. Jesus placed himself under his parents’ authority. He obviously submitted Himself to the Father’s authority. If we don’t know how to submit to authority, we won’t know how to exercise authority.
- Build a crew like Jesus. Crews work, teams play. Jesus came into town with a crew of twelve “full time” staff- His apostles were 100% all-in leaders. He built his crew on the field and while on the move- he began building in John 1. He took this crew on a few “short term mission trips.” He was building His crew as He was building His funnel through high challenge + high commitment. He asked them to reorient everything else in their life around planting (these are guys with careers and families- Peter had a mother-in-law).
- Gather crowds like Jesus. Funnel. Begin gathering people who are open yet don’t know Jesus.
- Discover, develop, & deploy disciples like Jesus. Most received large group teaching about how to live out the gospel. Out of the crowd of disciples, He discovered those with apostolic potential, developed them (apprenticing), and deployed them.
- Appoint planters like Jesus. We need to keep reproducing churches- continuously deploying.
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