Church Planting

Tag Archive - church planting

In The Chute church planting conference

December 8, 2009 in Jesus with 1 Comment

I’m currently attending In The Chute. It’s a conference run by the newly formed church planting network, The Geneva Push. The conference has been very well run. The Geneva Push is an impressive, well-thought out gospel-centred movement.

the geneva push

We’ve heard from Andrew Heard, Al Stewart, Mikey Lynch, Tim Baldwin, Paul Dale, Wayne Pickford, Jim Wallace, Mark Dever, Cathie Heard, Dave Sheath and Scott Parry-Jones. It’s all been great content and I’m praying that God would use this movement to plant 1000s of gospel centred, cross-driven, Christ-exalting churches throughout Australia. (What’s all the fuss about Jesus? Check this)

Mikey Lynch has been dominating the live blogging while we’re here. Seriously there’s like infinity posts. (If you’re reading this after the event – check the first post – and then keep clicking ‘newer post’ in the bottom left corner to work your way through them!)

Interested in Aussie church planting? Regardless of your denomination, check out The Geneva Push for a killer network.

Recruiting, Coaching, Unleashing Church Planters

November 11, 2009 in Jesus with 1 Comment

The Geneva Push are really starting to gain some momentum. In the Chute conference is less than a month away and they have just launched their new website. It’s a smart and functional site that should prove to be a valuable resource for church planters.

“The Geneva Push is an Australian church planting network. We aim to raise up a new generation of church planters dedicated to evangelising churches into existence across this great nation.

The Geneva Push is named after the city where the reformer John Calvin did most of his ministry. He raised up hundreds of missionaries and church planters to other cities and countries. Our goal is to have a similar impact on the number of churches being planted in Australia.”

For more info check out: the website | RSS feed | Email updates

GENEVA Interview with Andrew Heard

August 31, 2009 in Jesus with 8 Comments

Andrew Heard, Al Stewart and Mikey Lynch have recently announced the beginning of a new national church planting network, GENEVA. Here’s an interview with Andrew Heard.

GENEVA Interview with Andrew Heard

Why plant churches?

Because of the gospel imperative to keep proclaiming Christ to the world. We want to swamp Australia with healthy, energetic, theologically grounded churches that can turn our county upside down by reaching thousands more for Christ.

What’s the aim of GENEVA? What’s the idea behind the name GENEVA?

The aim of Geneva is to be a servant to the denominations and networks. It isn’t interested in being anything in itself. We want to be a tool that others use. The power of pooling our resources across the various denominations and networks from around the country is that we can do much more than we could do separately.

Auckland 2010

August 18, 2009 in Jesus with 2 Comments

Rowan Hilsden will be finishing at Moore College at the end of this year. In 2010 Rowan, his wife Sarah and their family will be moving to Auckland to plant an evangelical church. This is exciting stuff!! Check out their website for info on how you can partner with them in this venture… whether you’re in Auckland or not. Here’s a snippet from their site:

[...] Auckland is a city in dire need for biblically based teaching which is theologically grounded, focused on Jesus and seeking growth. [...] We would love to get in contact with anyone in Auckland: Who wants to see Auckland impacted by the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the historical Jesus; Who is thirsting for good teaching that leads to maturity in Christ; Who has not yet experienced the wonder of knowing Christ.

Check out their website to find out how you can get in on the action!

GENEVA Church Planting Australia

August 16, 2009 in Jesus with 19 Comments

Church planting is so hot right now! Good. Below is a letter from Andrew Heard and Al Stewart with further information about the new Geneva Church Planting Network.

GENEVA church planting

There is much happening at the moment in the world of church planting. It is exciting stuff! In all of this a number of people have asked for clarification regarding the new church planting network called Geneva. People have wondered what it will be doing and what it might offer.

Geneva will be run by a board of Australian church planters which will include Al Stewart, Andrew Heard and Mikey Lynch. Its purpose will be to help reformed/evangelical networks and denominations recruit, assess, train, coach and mentor church planters for placement back into their various networks and denominations. The passion of Geneva is to establish not just culturally relevant growing church plants but ones that are grounded deeply in reformed theology and so able to be kept from simple pragmatism and fads. This core value is critical for establishing churches that are best able to pass on a vibrant gospel to future generations.

Continue Reading…

RICE en:trust is launching with Chandler & Dever

August 6, 2009 in Jesus with 2 Comments

This is BIG news!! RICE have just launched their church planting arm. I’ve chatted briefly with Steve Chong and Eugene Hor and they have some exciting plans.

Check out their website and read all about it!

GENEVA Church Planting Network

June 29, 2009 in Jesus with 5 Comments

GENEVA is a new church planting network launching in Australia December ’09. Mark Driscoll will be speaking via satellite. I like the name. Stay tuned for more details.

Geneva church planting

(h/t Andrew Heard via Dan Godden’s twitter)

Independent Church Planting in Australia

March 11, 2009 in Jesus with 4 Comments

Steve Chong, Guy Mason, Mikey Lynch, Andrew Heard and Al Stewart are currently in Seattle at the Acts 29 Bootcamp/World Church Planting Summit. Here’s some exciting news from Mikey’s blog to follow up from the church planting conference last month:

Independent Church Planting in Australia

Room 338, Hotel Nexus, Seattle. It’s 12:20am Tuesday morning here. We’ve settled on something. Something that may, possibly, under God’s sovereign hand, define the next few decades of evangelical Christianity in Australia.

We will lead an independent, Australian church planting network, with warm friendship and support from Acts 29. We are building to a launch in Melbourne and Sydney in late November 2009. We’re agreed to move ahead with it and Acts 29 are keen to give their support to us.

It’s big and scary stuff. Next time we meet back in Australia, we’ve asked Al Stewart to lead a devotion with us on the topic of right, godly fear. (From here)

Uluru Church Planting Crew

February 20, 2009 in Jesus with 7 Comments

Al Stewart, Andrew Heard and Steve Chong hosted an Australian Church Planting conference yesterday with the aim of turning talk into action. Al kicked off in the Bible and described the job description of a church planter: Soldier; Athlete; Farmer. He also spoke about the nature of the gospel and why it’s worth suffering. Solid and challenging stuff. Chong, 1 year into a church plant in Kogarah, shared some reflections as a rookie with things they got right and things they got wrong. Heardy, 13 years into a church plant on the Central Coast, spoke about thing he wish he knew when he first started.

Represent!!

Some common threads: how hard it is plant churches; the urgent need to plant churches around Australia that will proclaim Jesus; the desire to get out there and do it! There are a bunch of networks currently planting churches around Australia and so the question is: what type of network of networks could be formed to help plant more? And what would its relationship be to the Acts 29 Network?

September 11, 2008 in Jesus with 29 Comments

I’ve been a bit discouraged by the number of nit-picking blog posts and comments during the last couple of weeks since Mark Driscoll’s visit to Australia. While the negative response of a number is discouraging, there is so much that’s encouraging!!

In the last couple of weeks I’ve spoken to so many people who are fired-up for living for Jesus and being on mission with Jesus. There is a infectious vibe amongst young guys who are keen to plant churches and grow up for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. For that I’m thankful to God for the way that he has used his servant Mark Driscoll in encouraging Australians in this regard. Here are Driscoll’s 18 points from the clergy conference, here’s the mp3 and here’s some stuff from Burn Your Plastic Jesus.

Who’s up for planting a church???

(pic from here)