BitterSweetLife

A Tentative List...

If you've read this blog carefully for more than a few weeks, you may be aware of my interest in church planting, urban church planting in particular. Having said that, this post may turn out to be off-topic for some of you--or who knows, you may realize that it pertains to what you're doing, or should be doing, after all. Keep reading, I dare you.

By way of explanation: Starting tomorrow, I'll be attending an immersion-style seminar on North American Church Planting. As part of the prep work for that course (which also involved reading and reviewing three books!), I had to do some online research. This included casing out some web sites designed with church planting in mind. I hate reading bad copy, and I like good design, so I was picky.

My favorite sites combined action-oriented methodology with rock-solid theology, and I thought I'd pass some on to you. (If you're aware of any great sites I missed, please point me to 'em.)

My top three sites:

1. The Movement - Global City Church Planting: Sponsored by Tim Keller’s church, the site offers articles, mentoring, assessment, with a focus on major urban centers. Highlight: Ministry in the New Global Culture of Major City-Centers, by Keller, whose approach to integrating church with the postmodern mindset is exceptional.
2. Acts 29 Network: Founded by Mark Driscoll, the network stresses orthodox theology and cultural contextualization with articles, media, and assessment tools. They also suggest that a little entrepreneurial blacktop-hoops swagger in a church planter can't hurt. Highlight: Driscoll's article on "The Ox: Qualifications of an Acts 29 Church Planter."
3. NewChurches.com: This is Ed Stetzer’s polished site, featuring discussion forums, links, research and dissertations. There's a wealth of material to explore. Highlight: The Missionary Strategy of the Early Church (pdf), by Stetzer.

1. Missiology.org: Gailyn Van Rheenen’s site offers articles that address practical church planting issues with theologically sound suggestions. I'm a big fan of Van Rheenen's take on methods (and not just because our last names have the same first syllable)--theological reflection needs to drive praxis.
   
2. Church Planting Village: A formidable array of resources from the North American Mission Board (Southern Baptist) marred by some nonfunctioning links. There's a lot here, but I didn't explore too far because of maintenance issues.
   
3. Faithmaps.org: A large collection of articles, many related to church planting, which hone in on “theology and postmodernity.” Authors are diverse (both Mark Driscoll and Brian McLaren appear), with an “emerging” flavor. Based on the dozen or so pieces I read, I'd say you'll have to take the good with the bad--lots of provocative thinking, though.
   

1. Stadia - New Church Strategies: This network provides assessment and funding, working toward a national, collaborative church planting movement. I like their vision.
   
2. Church Planting Solutions: Founded by church planters, this site provides services, advice, and training opportunities for church planters, focusing on logistics and marketing solutions. This site isn't too useful to me at the moment, but who knows, down the road... Anyone need some swank new business cards?