Last week I spoke at the Innovation3 Gathering in DFW. I have already posted my main session notes here.

I also co-led a breakout session with Matt Wilson who is the Executive Director at The Message Trust, a youth and community ministry based in Manchester, England. We talked about European church planting, a subject on which he is far more of an expert that I would ever claim to be.

In preparation for my session, Larry McCrary, Caleb Crider, and I prepared this paper (handed out at the conference). It tells some of the European story. I have posted it in its entirety below.

I've been blogging about The Upstream Collective and their Jet Set Tours happening this Spring over the last few months. In case you missed it, here's an explanation from Upstream Collective.

The Jet Set Tour isn't your typical mission trip. Then again, the people you'll meet won't be your typical missionaries.

Jet Set Tours, hosted in various cities in Europe, provides a week-long opportunity for you to experience a European culture, not only through tourism, but by learning about the people. Prayerwalk the streets of Barcelona's Gothic neighborhood. Meet with artists in Rome. Talk to a Christian businessman about what church is like in Zurich. Ask a professor in Madrid about the worldview of the students he teaches.

Continue reading The Beauty and Brokeness of Rome.

As many of you know I am on vacation, out of reach, and having a great time. But I want you all to have some food for thought as it relates to the need for strategic partnerships bringing the gospel to Europe and the upcoming Jetset Tour to Europe via the Upstream Collective.

The following is piece written by Caleb Crider and Larry McCrary.

Faces of starving children.
Warrior faces.
Goat herders.
Men on camels.

These are the typical images one sees at any given missions event. People wearing traditional clothing from African or Asian countries who smile as you pass their booths, beckoning you to come and sample the life of adventure. "Are you willing to reach the most unreached with the Gospel? Are you willing to live a lifestyle so radically different than your own that your mother won't even come visit you? Are you willing to reach a people group that has been resistant to the Gospel for centuries?"

And those are important questions and there is great need.

What most people don't know is one does not have to travel to Cairo or Tehran or Timbuktu to go where there is great need. We need MORE people to go to those contexts, but it is interesting that the statistics tell us about a great need in Europe.

From May 22-May 30, 2009 I will be hosting a vision trip with Darrin Patrick and some of my friends with the Upstream Collective to Rome, Italy and Marseille, France.

While each of our vision trips are unique we want to incorporate the following elements into each tour:

Here is the final video put together by the Central and Eastern Europe team. I do hope you will considering partnering with the folks there in church planting. Here is the link where you can find all the info about the ministries there.

While I was there in Europe, I also spent a couple of days in Rome. I will be talking more about this later. Darrin Patrick and I will be leading a group to Europe (Rome and Marseille) May 22 through June 1, 2009. More on that soon, but here is an interview at the Vatican talking with Chris Watts about church planting in Rome.

You can learn more at the Upstream Collective.

Here is a Wordle of my recent Twitter activity while in Europe. I'm wrapping up my blogging series by providing all the links in one place and sharing and few more things (including some downloadable resources) that may interest you.

You can get some background information here in an excellent story written by Natalie Kaspar.

On to Europe...

First, here are my Central and Eastern Europe Mission Posts (in order).

Why We Are In Europe
Vision and Video from Europe
Planting Churches in Budapest and Beyond
OneApp
More from Poland
Teaching English and Telling the Gospel
When the Mission gets Lost in the System
Planting Churches in Moravia with Steve Brown

Second, here are some Central and eastern Europe Videos.

Church Planting in Europe
Vision for Budapest: Trey Shaw
Mission Strategy for Churches in CEE
Interview with Trey Shaw and Ed Stetzer
On Global Missions
Interview with Jeff Noble: Krakow
Interview with Polish Professor of English
Interview with church planter Steve Brown

And here is a pretty neat new video to add to the bunch:

Fourth, here are some links to help you connect with the people working in CEE:

Sebastian and Erin Vazquez

Shea and Rachel Massengale

Doyle and Karen Fletcher

Allan and Sue Weaver

You can find several on Facebook as well.

And, be sure to follow Natalie Kaspar and Larry McCrary on Twitter as well. If you want more information, be sure to interact with them.

Finally, are are some "Concept Papers" for Europe Planting
This is from Leadership Network's European church planting strategy teams. All are worth downloading.

Preparing to Plant
Midsized Missional Groups
Models of Missional Engagement - Europe
Church Planting within Historical Reformation Churches in Europe

I will be discussing these papers and other things at Leadership Network's Innovation3 gathering which, as best I can tell, has more speakers than 10 normal conference combined. It looks pretty amazing, so click the link above and register.

Anyway, back to Europe: thanks for following a long. Thanks for all of you that have expressed an interest. And, I hope you will consider it a place you can partner in church planting!

Good early morning from Krakow, Poland.

Today's post is about God's mission in Europe AND YOU NEED TO READ IT AND WATCH THE VIDEOS. I just wanted to get out of the way-- God wants you to pay close attention to the blog this week. He told me so.

But seriously, we shot some video on our trip. I hope you will take a moment to read the posts, watch the video, and learn about engaging Central and Eastern Europe with the gospel.

Larry McCrary is a dear friend who has been involved church planting in the United States and in Europe. There are few who have planted on two continents so his comments are worth hearing. I asked him to tell me about missiology in Western Europe and he wrote:

I like to think of Western Europe as a river with three major cultural streams affecting it right now. Each stream is a spiritual challenge in itself, but combining the three makes for extra-difficult navigation when it comes to engaging people with the gospel.

The first stream - which is decreasing in size - is that of the institutional church's decline. This may be the Roman Catholic Church in some countries, the Church of England or the Lutheran church in other parts of Western Europe, but as a whole the churches are declining in attendance. What makes this stream interesting is that, while it is decreasing in size and influence, the veneer of the institutional church still has an impact on the culture.

Continue reading Missiology in Western Europe.

TellEurope.Org

On Thursday, I presented on the characteristics of effective church planters and asked what unique competencies were needed for missionaries in Western Europe. This led to some fascinating conversation.

It was good to finish up and head back from Barcelona. (I am writing this in the airport without a spell checker so please ignore any typos!)

Make sure you visit TellEurope.Org and learn more about what these church planters and missionaries are doing in Western Europe. I brought several innovative pastors with me and I think this will lead to some positive partnerships for the future.

Exponential Conference

If you have not already registered for the Exponential Conference (the National New Church Conference), be sure to do so this week. The Early Bird rate ends Feb. 15th.

If you don't already know, this is the largest church planting gathering in the U.S. each year. Here are some quick facts:

1. 12 Pre-conferences (including one that I lead for movement leaders wishing to connect for best practices).
2. Over 40 national speakers including keynoters Tim Keller, Andy Stanley, Steve Andrews, Dave Ferguson, Alan Hirsch, and myself.
3. 7 main tracks

Go to www.exponentialconference.com for more information.

Yesterday, I presented on "The Changing Church.�?

Today, I presented on "Principles of Church Planting.�? The response of the mission leaders was particularly focused on the need for peer support.

(I am just a small part of the program and many other activities are taking place.)

In our church planting research (click here a list of downloaded research projects), we found that mentoring, supervision, and peer relationships correlated with more effective church planting in the States. It would appear that the same thing is true here.

Many American church planters struggle with cultural adjustment, but the issues are magnified greatly here. Even though Europeans are dressed like Americans and buy our cigarettes, their worldview is distinct.

Last night, I broke from the group and walked the city. (I was looking for some hair product... no mocking please... and to grab some dinner.) I always make a habit of doing this when I am overseas--to listen, pray, and learn. And, I did. In two hours, I was clearly a fish out of water and needed someone to help me have a basic conversation.

When I got back to the hotel, I was watching the news... CNNInternational. When I saw the tornadoes in Tennessee, I called home. They had a tornado warning in place, the radar showed a supercell over our county, and Donna had the kids sheltered in the bathtub till the storm passed and they felt safe again. (Seven people died in our county.) And, I thought--I am far from home when my wife and kids need me.

Yet, these missionaries live both these situations every day--they are in a cross-cultural situation and far from the people they love. When in a culturally dissimilar setting, with little contact from family, this is remarkably taxing work (not mine, I go home on Friday). It is stressful work for these wonderful missionaries--and that became the focus of the conversation today. The big question: how can missionaries develop support systems that enable them to nurture, project, and deploy missionaries?

When I wrote Planting Missional Churches, I shared this about culture fatigue and shock:

Culture shock and fatigue

Every planter needs to prepare for culture shock, a feeling of disorientation (think: fish out of water) while relating to so many unchurched people during the start-up phase of a new church. These people think, talk, behave, and react to life in a way that may seem foreign to the church planter, especially one who is fresh out of seminary or another setting that could be described as the comfortable cocoon of Christianity.

And it can get worse. Culture fatigue is a nagging weariness from culture shock. The constant feeling of working as a "stranger in a strange land�? wears down the optimism of the planter, who - at worst - finally feels worn out, maybe even overcome with emotional exhaustion, thinking, I keep telling them the right message, and they just don't get it.

Continue reading More from Barcelona.

Now that I am on break sitting in a Starbucks in Barcelona, I thought I would catch up a bit on non-meeting stuff.

This is sort of my "Friday is for Friends�? from the last week or so.

Billy Hornsby (Not Bruce Hornsby)

As I mentioned, I had a good week last week at Liberty University and had the opportunity to visit with Billy Hornsby. (No relation to Bruce and he does not have a "range.�?)

He says some nice things on his blog, but he made me promise to say something nice about The Association of Related Churches (ARC). I am glad to do it!

He tells the ARC story on his blog:

Started seven years ago with two church plants, today the Association of Related Churches, (ARC) has planted 53 relevant, life-giving churches across the country, many of them now effective mega-churches. We are a non-denominational church planting engine that offers coaching, assessment and financing to young church planters and church networks. Because of the partnership of vision minded pastors like Greg Surratt, Chris Hodges, Dino Rizzo, Rick Bezet and Scott Hornsby, the ARC is poised to make an even bigger impact in the next few years. Great new friends have come along side of ARC to make the potential even greater...Guys like Matt Fry, Craig Altman, Craig Groeschel, Stovall Weems and many others have put the MO in the organization.

ARC is looking for planters and has resources for them... so check out their site for more info.

Rick Warren

Tonight (this afternoon in the states), I will interview Rick Warren for an upcoming podcast. More soon...

Ergun Caner

Though this will get me in trouble with some folks, I must admit that I enjoy Ergun Caner.

He is bombastic and sarcastic, traits that for some odd reason I can understand. He is also concerned deeply about evangelism and missions. And, as he puts it, he may have the greatest job in the world. Every Wednesday he speaks to 5000 young adults and challenges them to follow Christ to reach and change the world. (And, I am exceedlingly grateful he let me have a week with them.)

Now, Ergun is not what you expect in a seminary president. He drives a Ford Expedition that is tricked out with new rims, bullet holes, and a bumper sticker that says, "My Dean could beat up your Dean.�? Now, I know the Deans of about 20 different seminaries and I am quite certain that is true.

Most importantly, he appreciates 80's hair band music. While driving his Expedition, I was entertained by Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime�? playing on "Hair Nation of Sirius radio. (If you don't know, I can't explain it to you--it was an odd few years in rock and roll.)

I hung out with Mark Driscoll on Tuesday night and Ergun Caner on Thursday morning-- and I think they would like each other. Not sure who would win the fight... but it would be close.

Monday is for Missiology

I must confess that I have done a terrible job finishing my Meanings of Missional series. It is not a dead project--just a delayed one. I have found adjusting to my new roles to be more difficult that I expected.

Not bad things, just too many things, and I need to get back to writing on missiology.

I will soon.

To my Evangelical Free Friends on the Emerging Church

I will post those resources on understanding the emerging church soon. Sorry I am delayed.

Now, back to missionaries in Barcelona...

I am in Western Europe today and the internet connection is not good... I hope to post some tonight.

Update 1 Monday Night:

Five Hours later... finally, Internet. Ahhhh.

We met tonight in a cramped apartment in urban Barcelona. There were about 20 of us shoulder-to-shoulder talking about how to plant churches in Western Europe.

I brought a group of pastors with me that are passionate about reaching U.S. contexts-- and there was some great dialogue and mutual learning.

Earlier today, we walked the city and saw some of its cultures.

I am impressed with these missionaries-- they could easily be planting churches in gentrified U.S. cities and it would be a lot easier.

I do not intend, by any stretch of imagination, to call U.S. urban church planting easy. But, to take that cultural context and place it in a post-Christian European city, is quite a challenging thing.

I read unChristian on the plane over. A worthwhile read about the move of emerging generations away from historic Christianity. It was challenging and sobering--but sitting in Barcelona reminds me that these people were post-Christian for generations. It is a different world... and I wonder if North America will look similar in the next generation.

Here is what I posted recently about the Western Europe leadership team:

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!

Update 2:

Scott McConnell, the brains behind LifeWay Research, alerted me to recent Gallup Research that deals with Spain's spiritual views, among other things. You can find the full story here.