WIGTake?

WIGTake (What’s It Going to Take) to move us from “the present reality of (spiritual) darkness” that pervades our community to the fulfillment of “the vision that all have the opportunity to be saved”?

A change in motivation for daily living, from self-serving to Kingdom-focused? Sacrifices in our lives and adjustments in our calendars that reflect Kingdom priorities? Changes in the way we think of, understand, and “do” church?

What’s It Going to Take?

(WIGTake publishing publishes Church Planting Movements: How God Is Redeeming a Lost World by David Garrison and T4T – A Discipleship Re-Revolution by Steve Smith and Ying Kai.)

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Every Picture Tells A Story – CPM Graphics

As I read about Church Planting and Church Planting Movements, I come upon some pretty interesting diagrams, illustrations, and graphs. These graphics help us understand biblical teaching about evangelism and missions as well as strategies for entering mission fields and reaching the “unreached and unengaged” of the world for Christ through the multiplication of disciples and churches.

One such graphic has to do with Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, or the Soils. In this teaching, Jesus teaches about four different kinds of soil (hearts) on which the seed, the Word of God, falls and the respective results. This teaching of the Lord and its explanation can be found and read in Mark 4: 1-20.

This Parable encourages me to be about the abundant sowing of the Seed of God’s Word. I never know what kind of “soil” it is going to fall on. It just might produce fruit …  some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold.

Church Planting practioners and researchers tell us that abundant sowing of the Word is a characteristic found in all Church Planting Movements that are taking place around the world.

The Parable of the Soils can be read on-line here.

The graphic above was found on the blog site of “Bible Opia – Thinking Through the Bible.”

Rapidly Multiplying Communities Of Faith

If you are looking for a great one stop, overall introduction to Church Planting Movements, you cannot do much better than the March/April 2011 edition of Mission Frontiers magazine. In this issue of the U.S. Center of World Missions’ magazine you are introduced to CPMs in general, what the Lord is doing through the multiplication of disciples and churches among Hindu and Muslim people groups, and the Lord’s activity through CPMs in the United States.

This issue of Mission Frontiers, Church Planting Movements: Rapidly Multiplying Faith Communities, has articles written by men who have seen, been involved in, and have researched and know Church Planting Movements. Some of these men include Bill Smith, David Garrison, Jim Slack, and Jeff Sundell.

I have found this issue of Mission Frontiers to be very informative and encouraging as I pray and dream about reaching, through evangelism and the start and multiplication of authentic faith communities, the students enrolled at Texas A&M University for Christ.

You can read the entire issue here.

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Texas A&M University, located in College Station, Texas, is one of the largest universities in the United States. A&M has a student enrollment of 50,000. This includes 4,750 international students from 123 nations of the world.

It’s Worth It

“The worthiness of a task is what counts, not its difficulty … The glory of God in all the Earth is worthy of the sacrifices we will have to make.”

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 (Rick Wood, Mission Frontiers, March/April 2011, pp. 4,5 )

David Garrison On Church Planting Movements

If you have visited my blog in the past, you have probably read posts about church planting and Church Planting Movements (CPM). In them, you have heard me make reference to David Garrison and his book, Church Planting Movements – How God Is Redeeming A Lost World. Even if you have never read my blog but are interested in CPMs, you certainly know about the book.

Garrison is an International Mission Board (Southern Baptist Convention) missionary and Church Planting Movements researcher. His book, published in 2003, defines CPM, identifies characteristics found in most CPM, and reports on CPM occurring in the world at the time of the writing of the book. Garrison is perhaps the foremost “authorities on CPM today.

Below is a short video of David speaking at the VERGE conference. I hope you will enjoy it.

You can read the Church Planting Movements – How God Is Redeeming A Lost World booklet here.