Tomorrow I'm back preaching at Two Rivers Church in Nashville, TN. Then on Monday, on October 26th, I'll be up in Chicago teaching a course on Becoming a Missional Church at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (my class syllabus from the same class last year is here). My wife will be coming along which makes it an even better week!

On Thursday of my class week, the Wesleyan, Evangelical Free, and Illinois SBC folks are hosting me for a day on "missional leadership" while I am teaching my class at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Actually, I will be meeting with local E.Free. pastors for lunch, leading a conference for all three groups from 1:00-6:45p.m., and then having dinner with the Wesleyan pastors after the conference. Should be a great day. If you want to come, information is here, but note that the Wesleyans are having a two-day meeting of which I am only a part. But, if you want to come Thursday afternoon with me, the email is in that pdf file. (The venue is small so we can't take more than 75 people-- you will need to email if you want to come.)

Looking a bit ahead, I'm speaking at the National Outreach Convention in November. The conference is November 4th-6th in San Diego, CA. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you there!

Here is what is coming up this week... Lots of "SBC" in today's list. Thanks for praying for me and for the folks listed below.

Becoming a Missional Church

This Thursday, I'll be at Westmeade Baptist Church in Decatur, GA for a conference on Becoming a Missional Church. You can download the brochure here.

Thanks to the Alabama Baptist Convention for making it possible.

Speaking at the SBC (building)

On Friday, I am actually preaching to the Southern Baptist Convention. Well, sorta.

The Southern Baptist Convention only exists two days a year (most recently for two days in Louisville, KY). Between those annual meetings, the business of the convention is conducted by the Executive Committee. Technically, it acts "for the Convention ad interim in all matters not otherwise provided for."

I am guessing that I am only one of seven people to have read the history and role of the EC, but I find it helpful to understand how my denomination works. It is worth a read if you want to know how the denomination works-- lots of helpful resources in an easy to navigate site.

Also, while you are looking around at the site, let me encourage you to follow a link over to Morris Chapman's address to the SBC in 2004 called "The Fundamentals of Cooperating Conservatives." I found it a helpful call for cooperation in a (still unresolved) time of denominational conflict. I found it a great encouragement in 2004 and I am hoping people might listen today.

Here is a small part:

There's a road wrongly taken by many on our left, the road of liberalism. But there is also a road wrongly taken by many others on our right side. It may not be as treacherous as the road of liberalism, but it is just as disabling to the Convention.

What is this road? It is the road of separatism - an ecclesiastical methodology that devalues cooperation in favor of hyper independence. In the past, we have avoided this road as fervently as the road on the left. If Southern Baptists steer too sharply toward the right, we will end up on the road of separatism.

Southern Baptists have never embraced the methodologies of separatism. We can be both conservative and cooperative. It is our distinctive heritage. It is the genius of our success. It is our spiritual destiny.

Good words then. Good words now.

May the SBC have ears to hear that we can cooperate with different kinds of people who affirm they can work within our confessional framework: contemporary, rural, emerging, Calvinist, traditional Baptist, ethnic, etc.

Anyway, I will preach at the chapel of the Executive Committee that day. I look forward to it. These men and women work hard to serve our convention so it can be a tool to help our churches cooperate for the Great Commission. I have still not decided my text or topic, so please pray for me. Considering the days we are in, I will try to be on my very best behavior!

Both of these are driving distance... no airplanes this week! That makes it a good week.

And a Final Prayer Request

One final thought since I gave an SBC polity lesson: if you are SBC (and, for that matter, even if you are not), please click this link to learn about and to pray for the Great Commission Resurgence and the GCR Task Force. These are important days.

The Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches in Columbus, OH

Tomorrow, I am flying to Columbus, Ohio to speak there on Monday. I'll be speaking at the national meeting of The Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches. The meeting is called "Equip 09." My focus will be what it takes to see Church Planting Movements in North America.

The Grace Brethren are spiritual decedents of the Schwarzenau Brethren. Their history is here.

Wikipedia explains:

The Schwarzenau (German Baptist) Brethren, originated in Germany, the outcome of the Radical Pietist ferment of the late 17th and early 18th century. Hopeful of the imminent return of Christ, the founding Brethren abandoned the established Reformed and Lutheran churches, forming a new church in 1708 when their apocalyptic hopes were still unfulfilled. They thereby attempted to translate "the Philadelphian idea of love into concrete congregational ordinances obligatory for all the members." Unlike the Philadelphians, Brethren rejected Leade's embrace of direct revelation and emphasized early ("Apostolic" or "primitive") Christianity as the binding standard for congregational practices. The founding Brethren were also in conversation with Mennonites and influenced by Anabaptist writings.

In Germany the Brethren became known as Neue Täufer (New Baptists), in distinction from the older Anabaptist groups. In the United States they became popularly known as Dunkers, Dunkards or Tunkers, corruptions of the German verb tunken, to dip. Other religious groups related historically to the same Radical Pietist ferment as the Brethren are the Community of True Inspiration and the Moravians.

NAMB in Atlanta

On Tuesday, I will be speaking at the North American Mission Board State Summer Leadership Meeting in Atlanta, GA. I will be present the preliminary report on the spiritual receptivity of first generational immigrant groups. On Wednesday, I will be meeting with and co-facilitation NAMB's task force focus on how we might advance the work of the Great Commission.

Together for Adoption in Nashville

Later this fall I'll be speaking at the Together for Adoption Conference October 2-3.

The video of our Advance09 panel is up. Take a look.

Interestingly, John Piper's first answer led to this clarification. The clarification is well worth your read just to get a take on how we might view modern culture.

Also, several people have asked me about my comments about missions cooperation being the doorway to theological compromise. (I think that surprised some people.)

However, there is little question that this is an historic pattern. I wrote a bit about it a few years ago here. My answer in the video gives more details.

Today, I am in Garden Grove, California speaking to the Converge Worldwide / Southwest Baptist Conference. For those of you uninitiated to all things Baptist, there are about 431,034 Baptist denominations. This one descends from the Swedish Pietist movement.

Wikipedia explains:

The Baptist General Conference grew out of the great revival of the 19th century, but its roots can be traced back to Swedish Pietism. In 1852, Gustaf Palmquist emigrated from Sweden to the United States. Forty-seven days after his arrival, he and three others organized a Swedish Baptist church in Rock Island, Illinois. Frederick Nilsson, who was instrumental in leading Palmquist to Baptist views, arrived in America the next year with 21 immigrants. Some of these united with the Rock Island church, while others organized a church at Houston, Minnesota. Nilsson traveled widely, founding and strengthening churches. Anders Wiberg was another pioneer among these churches from 1852 until 1855, when he returned to Sweden as a missionary.

Christian experience was a major emphasis among these Swedish Baptists, and they prospered from the awakenings in the 19th century. Immigration, aggressive evangelism and conversion through revivals brought rapid growth to the denomination. John Edgren founded the Swedish Baptist Seminary in Chicago, Illinois in 1871.

In 1879, when the Swedish churches had grown to 65 in number, they formed a General Conference. The members of these churches assimilated into American society and gradually lost their separate ethnic identity. By 1940, most churches were English-speaking. In 1945, the Swedish Baptist General Conference dropped "Swedish" from its name and became the Baptist General Conference of America. Swedish Baptists had maintained an alliance with the American Baptist Publication Society, American Baptist home and foreign missions, etc., and later the Northern Baptist Convention. Some Swedish Baptists expected to merge with that body, but the groups moved toward different developments of theological emphasis. The conservative Swedish Baptists pulled back from growing liberalism of the Northern Baptists, and in 1944 formed their own Board of Foreign Missions. This moved them toward independent existence, which they have maintained to the present.

Today, they are a newly renamed group, now called "Converge Worldwide," and have almost 1000 churches in the U.S.

In 2006, the BGC had 194,000 members in 950 churches in the United States. These churches are also organized into 13 district bodies: Columbia, Florida/Caribbean, Great Lakes, Heartland, Iowa, Mideast, Michigan, Minnesota, Midwest, Northern California, Northwest, Northeast, Rocky Mountain, and Southwest. There are a further 105 churches in Canada organized into 5 district bodies. These congregations cooperate together nationally through the Baptist General Conference of Canada.

I have had the privilege of consulting with them as they merged their national and international mission boards a few years ago (focused on the idea that "one worldwide mission" requires "one mission board").

Based on a research project I did for Leadership Network, I have said that they are the leading mid-sized to large denomination engage in North American church planting. (I will unpack that more in a new and forthcoming book, our in 2010, on church planting.)

Great folks and honored to spend the day with their leaders today.

Yesterday and today, I'm at the Acts 1:8 SENT Conference in Houston, TX. This is a conference exploring the changing shape of mission and missions. Jerry Rankin and I are the keynote speakers and there are a number of amazing breakouts. Tiffany Smith is the brains behind the operation and, if you are on Twitter, you can follow at our #SENThou hastag. (And, I am quite pleased that I was able to "set" my first hashtag on Twitter.)

Then on Monday through Wednesday I'll be at the 2009 Exponential National New Churches Conference in Orlando, FL.

This week is a particularly good one because I am staying close to family and still able to encourage a few folks along the way.

Here is an email I sent out to denomination and network leaders in the United States and Canada. If you fit that description, you might be interested in reading the content below.

What's Coming Up This Week?

I am in Atlanta already and have Donna with me. She is coming along on this trip, but I bet she won't come to my sessions. Grin.

Here is where I am heading this week.

This is only the second of my "Saturday is for Seminars," a new weekly feature about upcoming seminars, conferences, and events.

The picture does not really have much to do with these two conferences, but I thought the backdrop was pretty amazing so I decided to include it anyway. It is from the Dwell Conference, hosted by Tim Keller in Manhattan (you can download the audio of that conference here).

Next week on the road:

I know it is Sunday, but I wrote this on Saturday! And, that is the name I plan to use for this new (and ongoing) feature.

Anyway...

I spend a good chunk of my life speaking at seminars, conferences, and retreats. And, some of them are amazing and encouraging. In most cases, I teach and speak to pastors and church leaders.

Typically, I do one seminar a week. So, with travel, that is about half my work week.

Often, my friends ask me to mention something on the blog about an upcoming seminar. At times, they want me to say where I am going... at other times, they just want to get the word out about their conference seminar.

I have, up till now, resisted (with the exception of one that was one of my most widely read blog posts of 2008). In that blog, I responded to an email from my new friend, Ben Arment, asking me to blog about his conference. And, I really did not want to so I tried to do so in a humorous way. I even said in the blog that I would not do it any more. I did not want my blog to be a commercial for my speaking. So, I have not "blogged" about seminars. But, now I have changed my mind.

I have greatly enjoyed the December-January break from travel. It has been a great time of refreshing with my wife and children. If you follow on Twitter or Facebook, you have heard much about my family, friends, and my new habit of exercise.

The break turned out to last longer than I expected. I had planned to speak at the Nazarene National Pastors Conference but the meeting was canceled due to the economy. I am hoping we can reschedule because I was excited about my time with the pastors of the Church of the Nazarene.

It's Saturday night and I am home working on my message for tomorrow. We are working through Ephesians and cover 1:7-14 tomorrow. I am taking a break from reviewing to share a little update from the last couple days.

First, let me say that the National Outreach Convention in San Diego was, as usual, well done and challenging.

It inspired me to write my Catalyst Monthly article on the need for "change" movements to work to convert people to Christ, not just to another (albeit perhaps important) agenda. If I publish it as written, I anticipate complaint mail from emerging, reformed, Baptist, contemporary church, charismatic, denominational, and missional people (except the ones in those groups who are actually reaching lost people-- they will forward it to those who are not which will then generate more mail.)

But, that is OK. I will probably tone it down a bit. But, honestly, I am tired of hearing about everything but evangelism from some movements. Or, when I do hear about evangelism, it is attacking, mocking, or criticizing how others do evangelism. So, bring it on. Send the mail. If saying that we need more converts makes people mad, I say, "Let's get 'em mad!" I am mad that people are going to hell.

Rant over...

Anyway, here are my presentations and other bits of info from the conference yesterday. From my church planting session early yesterday, I promised I would post all the research I cited. Well, you can find it here. Everything I mentioned (and much more) is there.

During my afternoon session, "Learning and Discerning from America's Largest and Fastest Growing Churches," I referenced this article about how we can learn from each other. And, here is the PowerPoint I used. Feel free to steal it and pretend you came up with it.

Just before Francis Chan spoke in the final session, they showed a couple of videos. I told some folks I would post them here. Unfortunately, I can't find the one for the Compelled By Love small group study (sorry), but I do have the one from Sent: Living the Missional Nature of the Church. You can see the video here:

By the way, if you want to follow along with all the videos from Sent (there are several more coming), you can do so by adding this widget to your blog (it is already on the right sidebar on this blog). The code to embed is part of the widget and it will automatically update with the new videos as the Threads Media people load them. The first of our Ed-vs-Al videos are already posted here. I promise you will enjoy the Al videos. It is funny how the name "Al" comes up in so many missional and theological debates, so you can expect to hear more.

You can follow Al on Twitter here and participate with the widget here:

Grab the Embed Code

Thanks for saying hello at the NOC. I hope it encouraged you to reach more people for Christ. It encouraged and challenged me.

Gotta' get back to working on my message now!

I am in my hotel room in Bentonville, Arkansas. It is late, but I am feeling a "blog urge" and wanted to post.

Tomorrow (at 5:30a.m.), I head over to Springfield, Missouri (and it is midnight here!). So, I better make this a quick post. I am speaking to two Baptist groups in two different states. I am in the heartland with Baptists in Missouri and Arkansas.

I recognize that most of my blog readers are not Baptists and thus do not necessarily speak "Baptist." Thus, a little explanation might he helpful.

Tomorrow, I am in Springfield, Missouri to speak at Baptist Bible College. Bible Baptist College is part of the Independent Baptist church movement. Wikipedia explains:

Independent Baptist churches (also referred to as Independent Fundamental Baptist, or IFB) are Christian churches holding to generally Baptist beliefs. Like all Baptists they are characterized by being independent from the authority of denominations and church councils. However, the reason for the distinction, "independent," is that they eschew even the Baptist conventions or associations in which other Baptist churches participate (although many Independent Baptist churches do belong to fellowships). They remain autonomous and congregationalist in nature and are generally fundamentalist in teaching. The IFB movement is not a denomination per se, but there are similarities that run throughout most Independent Baptist churches.

I am not IFB, so I am particularly blessed that they would invite me to share with their students and the pastors attending the conference. We will be talking church planting and evangelism and I look forward to it.

Tuesday, I am back in Bentonville where I will speak to the Arkansas Baptist Convention. They theme is Reaching Generation Next Now. I will speak just before lunch and will share some research and speak on engaging emerging generations. After I speak, I will meet with some contemporary church pastors over lunch (see below).

Part of what I help the International Mission Board is help them connect with innovative pastors to get them involved in global missions. During lunch on Tuesday, we are hoping to do that very thing. Jeff Noble, who came with me to Poland last week (see his interview here), is organizing a lunch meeting of innovative church pastors who might want to talk about engaging in church planting in Central and Eastern Europe.

Rob Brown, who oversees much of the work there, explained the opportunity this way:

Come visit the IMB teams serving in Central Europe to see what God is doing and prayerfully explore how their churches can serve alongside these teams in impacting peoples with the gospel through creative access venues and relational exchanges.

If you are interested, be sure to check out my recent Europe posts here and contact Jeff immediately if you can come to lunch on Tuesday in Bentonville.

Updated: Check out this article. It just came out and gives great info about the partnership.

Good night.

At each of my sessions at the Exponential Conference, I promised to share my PowerPoint and other resources with the attendees. Then, things got a bit backed up as we released some evangelism research, some SBC denominational commentary, and then an interview with Tim Keller.

Well, here are the promised PowerPoints and research. If anything is missing, please let me know below and I will respond as soon as I can. Tomorrow I will be in Springfield, MO with the North American mission and discipleship departments of the Assemblies of God and I will be unavailable.

First, the research I presented at the opening session on reproducing churches is here.

Well, today I was at First Baptist Church of Alexandria finishing up a weekend Bible conference. It was good to meet their pastor, Don Davidson, and visit with old and new friends. More on that soon...

Visits like this get me in an "historical" state of mind. Those of you who follow the blog know of my interest in history-- particularly when referring to "firsts."

Before blogging, I have:

Explore Ministry Opportunities in Western Europe at "The Gatherings"

As I have mentioned before, LifeWay shares part of my time with the International Mission Board.

I will be going to Spain in February to meet with the leadership and do some teaching. The IMB leadership will be doing some events in the states as well. Please connect with them if you can...

Here is the info:

The Western Europe region of the International Mission Board invites you to participate in The Gatherings, a two-day event designed to connect you and your church to the work God is doing in Western Europe.

Join IMB workers and other stateside church leaders/members at one of two locations in 2008: Stafford, Va. (March 3-4), or Atlanta, Ga. (March 6-7). During The Gatherings, we'll dialog about ministry among postmoderns and fast-growing immigrant groups in Paris, Barcelona, Zurich, Rome and other places in Western Europe.

Find out more information and register online: www.telleurope.org.

We hope to see you soon at The Gatherings!

Upcoming Church Planting Events

On January 28th, I will be leading a one day conference at the Global Church Advancement seminar in Orlando. (Drew Goodmanson throws me under the bus here, telling people to go to his seminar instead. Drew is probably right... he will do a great job.)

I usually do two days with the folks at Global Church Advancement, but my friend Steve Childers let me off a day early so I could speak at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for the Acts 29 Bootcamp on Tuesday, the 29th. I usually do two days at such bootcamps, but my friend Scott Thomas let me off a day early so I could go speak at Liberty University on Wednesday, the 30th. (We will be working with Liberty and Thomas Road on Thursday to talk about their church planting plans.)

Thanks to Ergun Caner for sharing his speaking platform. If I understand it correctly, I am speaking at the young adult ministry on Wednesday night. It is at this meeting where Ergun was "tazed for Jesus" (my description, not his). You can see it on YouTube here. (Promises have been made that no harm will come to this guest speaker.)

Coming up at Dallas Theological Seminary

The folks at Dallas Seminary sent this along for me to share about an upcoming conference.

On March 31 - April 1, 2008, the Center for Christian Leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary is hosting Beyond the Church Doors.

This conference is about more than programs and strategies; it's about igniting passion in your congregation to see God transform their community.

On Day 1, you will hear from Drs. Ed Stetzer and Alan Roxburgh as they discuss the theology and practices of a missional church and prepare you to lead your church toward a missional focus.

On Day 2, your ministry team will interact with Drs. Alan Roxburgh, Eric Swanson, and Bob Roberts and engage in group process time to formulate practical steps for developing a missional culture within your congregation.

For more information and to register online, please visit www.dts.edu/ccl.

Jonathan Edwards Looks at the Emerging Church

My friend Bill Henard raises Edwards from the dead to evaluate the emerging church movement. He presented the paper at the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education and graciously allowed me to post it here. It is an interesting read... it has to be with a title like "Sinners in the Hand of the Emergent Church: Jonathan Edwards Join the Conversation."

Can Michael Vick Be Forgiven?

Jon Walker asks and answers the question here and in a new e-book. It is a good and timely question.

Warren Bird Takes the Cake (and writes the books)

My friend Warren Bird recently had a celebration that included a cake. The cake looked remarkably similar to a book we had recently co-authored with Elmer Towns. The book, as the cake "clearly" shows, is 11 Innovations in the Local Church.

Warren is a freak of nature. He has written more books than any one man should (at his age, at least, since Elmer Towns has written many more). Warren now coordinates the reseach for Leadership Network in addition to co-authoring every other book in the universe.

Brandon Park studied 11 Innovations along with his church staff and made a great summary that you can download here.

Enjoy the book, even though you can't have any of the cake.