Follow the Unsanctioned 2010 Orlando COG General Assembly Twitter Feed

If you want to share what’s going on at the General Assembly and you’re on Twitter, use the #COGga hashtag. For instance, I just tweeted: Quote: Track along with what’s going on at the Church of God General Assembly in Orlando by using the #COGga hashtags. http://bit.ly/bHtg6I Anyone who includes “#COGga” in a Twitter comment will have their comments aggregated with everyone else’s. You can find all of those Twitter comments at: FOLLOW #COGga COMMENTS HERE http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23COGGA Also, if you aren’t following me, you can at: http://twitter.com/pastortrav (my personal account…most of my twitter comments are on this account) OR http://twitter.com/missionalcog (my missionalcog account which I haven’t really used…not a ton of followers. But, this is where most of my GA tweets are going to be found). A handful of other good Twitter accounts to follow are: JERRY LAWSON - http://twitter.com/daystarjerry TOM STERBENS - http://twitter.com/tomsterbens MATT BOYD - http://twitter.com/boydm JONATHAN MARTIN - http://twitter.com/renovatuspastor RICK WHITTER - http://twitter.com/rickwhitter RAYMOND CULPEPPER - http://twitter.com/rfculpepper

Church Planting Initiative QUESTIONSI

As you can see below, I have posted my church planting proposal to the Executive Council for consideration for the General Assembly 2010 Agenda. It will not be on the Agenda, but has been referred to a study commission headed by Tim Hill. I spoke with him yesterday and began some good dialogue that I have been asked to continue with the other members of the study commission.

I would like to employ the readers of this board in helping me “perfect” and “flesh-out” this proposal. Again, you can read the whole thing here.

Please respond to the following concerns (and any others you can think of):

1. Since we are only at the beginning of the TOT reduction, is this proposal premature?
2. Is the matching funds proponent (local and state) a positive idea?
3. Should the funds be designated for a church plant/satellite and then sent to the state office for distribution or should it simply be reduced out of the monthly TOT check?
4. Should there be a cap (financial or time) on how much (or how long) you can give to a particular church plant/satellite? The only reason I ask this is so that local churches do not end up diverting tithes to a church that is not in the “planting” phase.
5. Finally, should I wait to see if the Executive Council will put this proposal on the 2012 Agenda, or should I submit it to the floor of the General Assembly through the motions committee?

My only hope is to help re-engage the COG as a church planting organization. Please help me think through both what the best plan is for church planting and what plan has the best chance of being adopted by the General Assembly.

Jerry Lawson

North American Church Planting Initiative

Below is the proposal I sent to the Executive Council for consideration for the General Assembly 2010 Agenda. This was referred to a study commission and will not be on the Agenda this year. What are your thoughts?

BACKSTORY

Like so many others, I have long been concerned with the lack of commitment from the Church of God to effective church planting.  Even in times when designated church planting funds have been used for church planting, it appears that we do not have an effective model, so our efforts often fail.  There may be several reasons for this propensity to be unsuccessful:

1. Lack of proper training in church planting.
2. Lack of ongoing support: mentoring, resourcing, encouragement.
3. Lack of connection with a local Mother-Church.

Most people recognize that the most effective model for church planting is when a local church “has a baby” or plants a church out of itself.  It has been well observed: “Churches beget churches.  Denominations do not beget churches.”

I offer a recent Daystar Church plant testimony as an example.  About two years ago, our Student Life Pastor, Greg Davis expressed his desire to pastor a church.  So, we set out to birth a daughter congregation and send Greg out as the church planter.  We wanted to make sure that we didn’t just send out a preacher with some money.  We wanted to send out the Daystar DNA.  So, we provided the new pastor with the following:

1. A complete structure to run the ministries of the church.  About 50 volunteers with the new pastor.  Each of these had been trained and served in the various ministries of Daystar.  Literally, the day they started, they were a junior version of Daystar.  Ushers, greeters, children’s ministry, follow-up ministry, prayer teams, media, youth, etc…were all trained and ready to go.
2. Demographic research: the new pastor and I spent much time discussing where, how, and when this launch would take place.  Now, not only is he on board, but so am I.  If it is in both of our hearts, we are more likely to team together to make it all happen.
3. Support of $50,000 from the mother church as well as much more from other resources.
4. Resources: Every spare piece of equipment, furniture, signage, etc… that we could round up was given to him.

What is the result?  Eighteen months into the new church plant, Chelsea Community Church is averaging around 350 in attendance.  The pastor is full-time and the community is turning on its head in revival.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

It is my belief that an effective approach to re-affirming our pioneering DNA is critical to our future.  We must do this now.  We cannot afford, as an Acts 1 and Acts 2 Church to compromise our commitment to our Mission in favor of other good but, lesser priority activities or line items.

So, why don’t we allow local churches to take a portion of their tithe-of-tithe, in the range (20%) of our historical financial commitment to church planting,* and use it to birth new churches?  If we could forge a church planting partnership with the Church of God, we could exponentially increase our church planting efforts both locally and internationally.

Further, such an arrangement could undermine the structural flaw which has caused, over the course of decades, mandated church planting monies to be appropriated by the state offices to fund other activities.  Instead of this money going through the state office, 100% of the church planting monies would go directly into starting new churches.

Therefore, I am proposing the following motion to be considered for strong approval by this Executive Council for inclusion on the 2010 General Assembly Agenda:

PROPOSAL

That local churches be permitted to invest up to 20% of their monthly Tithe of Tithe of the State/Regional Office portion of funding in establishing a new church or a new campus of an existing church.  The church and/or church planter would be required to raise matching funds to be eligible to receive this percentage of Tithe of Tithe church planting funds.

STRUCTURAL NOTE

Please attach this proposal to the appropriate place in the new financial structure of the Tithe of Tithe or it’s most appropriate place.

Authored by Jerry Lawson

*It was in 1929, the year of the Great Depression when the Church of God rallied together to declare a mandated commitment level of denominational giving to North American church planting.

Concerns for The Church

Today, I shared out of Ephesians 3:1-13 where Paul shares what the main business of the Church is.  Unfortunately, the Church gets caught up in a number of side agendas and forgets or marginalizes the life and mission Christ instructs us to live.

Rather than the Church being radically committed to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, we often pick-up sidebar agendas and ram them to the front at the expense of our calling.  Below are some of the concerns I have for the church:

The Holy Spirit & Desert Roads

Crowds throng to the flash, the pomp, the explosive, the sensational. We want to see the explosive (dunamis) power of the Holy Spirit. We equate the Holy Spirit with explosive and immediate power. Well, we should. Holy Spirit power is explosive power!

But, it is not only the power to see the extraordinary or Acts 2 revival where thousands are ushered into the Kingdom of God.  Holy Spirit power is also the

Bartering Your Calling for Your Comfort

It’s funny how the goal posts have moved. We judge our faith quality by how God blesses us…as if God is the great cosmic pinata and our prayers are the stick that manipulates the candy out of the sky. Seemingly, gone are the days of conquest, spiritual adventure, raw Spirit-empowered engagement, pioneering, and the raising of Gospel outposts in spiritually barren frontiers.  Perhaps, we traded it away for a little more luxury, a little less trouble, and an absence of pain or resistance all for a predictable, non-circuitous journey.

I can’t imagine that God’s purpose is to save us to polish us up to make us his sanitized trophies to settle us as dust collectors on His heavenly mantle.

Remembering Our Heritage: What Happens When the Holy Spirit Saturates Our Souls

It’s easy for us to face off in different corners of the room advocating style preferences, etc… Styles change. Ministry flavor changes. God never changes. Neither does His calling on us as a people. Let’s not embrace style too tightly. In fact, throw style out the window…unless style alters solid doctrine (then we better have that discussion). Instead, let’s remember a beautiful heritage that God has called us to.