For those of you who came to my talk yesterday, here are the notes I promised. This is from the message I gave at Catalyst church planting lab.

In Matthew 16, Jesus' relationship with His disciples takes a dramatic turn. Until now, the disciples were expecting a front row seat as Jesus fully ushered in His Kingdom. And on the surface, that made a lot of sense.

We have a King... check. We have a Kingdom... check. Let's get this show on the road and restore the Kingdom, right?! Not exactly.

At this time, Jesus introduces a new element. He tells them about you and me-- the church. What in the world is that?

Continue reading Keys to Kingdom Church Planting.

I've been talking on the blog the last couple weeks about Sent, the Threads Bible study resource I'm releasing that walks churches through some key ideas about how to live missionally together. You can read the previous posts here and here. In Session 2 of Sent, we talk about the hot-button and often divisive issue of the kingdom of God. What is it? What is it not? And what does it mean to be kingdom people? One of the key ideas we try to grab onto here is the "already but not yet" nature of the kingdom of God. Here's a couple of excerpts from the session: