URGENT: TIME TO SHIFT FROM ADDITION TO MULTIPLICATION

“…and the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem…” (Acts 6:7)

Did you know there are at least 1.35 million people in the Charlotte Metro area who would slip into an eternity in hell if they were to die at this very moment?  I have not been able to shake that number out of my head and heart, and have been asking “What can we do to reach them and introduce them to God’s peace through Jesus?” 

So often many methods and strategies involve getting more people in a room or to an event.  Getting more people in the room and to an event is not a bad pursuit, but it simply is not enough to reach the next generations and the 1.35 million with the gospel.  

A Better (Biblical) Strategy

Our eternal God, in His sovereign purposes, has ordained patterns of discipleship that would lead to the exaltation of His name among all nations and peoples.  

The goal is not getting more people in the room through some attractional means, but unleashing everyday disciples to make disciples who make disciples.  This is how the early church multiplied.  Multiplication is how the church has grown throughout Christendom, but too often we rely on additive measures.  We desperately need a movement where disciples are making disciples, leaders and training leaders, and congregations are multiplying congregations.  

We are fully aware that a church planting movement or disciple making movement is the work of the Holy Spirit, and prayer and action are both needed.  

Here are three things to begin to pray:

  • Ignite a fresh love for Jesus in my heart and stir up affection for the Lord Jesus.
  • Show me where You are already at work.
  • Help me to recognize and be attentive to those opportunities.  

God often uses and takes the initiative to choose unlikely people to pioneer movements that lead to renewal, revival, and expansion to the church in its mission.  If you have a heart for reaching people who are far from God and would love to see a church planting movement in Charlotte then we would love for you to join us at one of our upcoming Multiplier Labs.  This is one easy step you could take.

Charlotte is in desperate need of a spiritual harvest, and here we are 2,000 years after the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, and millions of people are still like sheep without a shepherd.  Their pitiful cries on the way to eternity in hell continue to reach the heart of God.    The urgency of the hour calls for a disciple making and church planting model that will saturate the entire city of Charlotte with the love of Jesus.  

Do You Love Me?

Do You Love Me?

Yet, if we listen closely, the question they ask most often and in innumerable ways is: “Do you love me?” Every other question comes in a distant second.

Maybe that should not come as a surprise. We have become aware that history’s most technologically connected generation paradoxically shows signs of being the most disconnected from personal relationships.

It’s not that this generation lacks face-to-face human contact. It’s that the ubiquitous microchip technology shapes their understanding of reality. It simultaneously connects them online while tending to disconnect them from one another.

Five Core Principles of the New, New Testament Church

Five Core Principles of the New, New Testament Church

Here are some ministry principles undergirding healthy forms and structures:

  1. All ministry is local in origin.
  2. Disciple-making communities follow Jesus by His Word and through His Spirit (to the glory of God).
  3. A healthy church is where disciples make disciples, leaders train leaders, and disciple-making communities birth disciple-making communities.
  4. The essential characteristics of disciple-making communities (congregations or “Clusters”) include: it identifies itself as a congregation, spiritual gifts function, biblical leadership emerges.
  5. These disciple-making communities are networks of networks interconnected organically and often principally through their leaders.

German Wisdom for Old “Soles” Platform

German Wisdom for Old “Soles” Platform

Sometimes wisdom comes from unexpected places. Those of you who know me also know that I tend to be awake in the middle of the night or early hours of the morning. Years ago, I would spend that time DXing across the shortwave bands listening to Radio Moscow and trying to figure out what would be in the news before the New York Times or Washington Post hit the streets. That radio world changed with the internet.

Now I listen to podcasts and YouTube educational instruction videos ranging from NancyPi’s tutorials on solving calculus differential equation problems to the Crazy Russian Hacker’s mind-numbing life-hacks. What can I say? I don’t always sleep through the night.

WANTED: “Wisdom” of Old Soles

WANTED: “Wisdom” of Old Soles

I usually find myself having to explain why we spell our name “soles”—the bottom of our shoes—instead of “souls.” For the record, it is a play on words to highlight both the fact that I am forever dressed in my Converse Chucks and the fact that our ministry tagline is “walking God’s path together.” If you still don’t get it, just think about it.

This time in the title I enclosed “Wisdom” not “Soles” in quotation marks, not as an intentional misspelling, but to highlight the fact that as we are walking God’s path together, we are not meandering aimlessly. We are hacking through jungles and picking through brambles while trying to avoid life’s many potholes and pitfalls, wisely charting our way. Being a Christian is not a proverbial stroll through the park but a spiritual warfare survival course where the enemy uses live ammunition. That life course takes wisdom and a lot of it.

The Church Is About to Change

The Church Is About to Change

We are called to do what has never been done before. We don’t even have a vocabulary or common set of terms to describe it. Sooner or later, I am sure we will look back with the confidence that only the future brings, but we move along through the fog of faith for now.

We are on sure historical footing to know what it means to be the church, but we walk in a fog of new forms and structures rolling in. They look like a return to the organic, decentralized forms of the early New Testament church. But they are uniquely shaped by globalism—characterized by interconnected relationships defined by technology that realigns every aspect of our lives from how we communicate to how we build and maintain friendships, how we buy and sell goods and services, to how we shape culture.

It’s an Ark!

It’s an Ark!

It’s 1977. Commodore, Tandy, and Apple introduce personal computers collectively known as the “1977 Trinity.” At that time, many thought of the personal computer as a way to balance a checkbook, play a video game, and stop a door from slamming closed in the wind. Who would have imagined that a small personal computer would forever change the world? No one had seen one before.

“EVANGELSHIP”

“EVANGELSHIP”

“Evangelship” is a made-up word desperately needed to correct a misunderstanding at the core of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. The term combines “evangelism” and “discipleship” to reunite what we’ve separated as two different activities with great ramifications.

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