Earlier today, I was one of 70 leaders who shared an idea or ideas (in 9 short minutes!) at The NINES. I streamed the presentations here at my blog and there was a robust discussion in the blog comments. As I hoped, there was good discussion around theology, mission, and ministry.

Now that the program has ended, I am sharing my presentation here at the blog.

Ed Stetzer - The 9s from LifeWay on Vimeo.

Here is my outline:

Mission, Self, and God's Mission

Mission is the opposite of self. We have to remember to make it about God and not about us.

Even pastors struggle with the reality that the heart is an idol factory. Your heart is an "Idol Factory" constantly creating things other than God to worship.

We must resist the pull of idols and live the mission-- to make it about God's Glory and His agenda.

We pastors too often consider ourselves as "religious professionals who can put on a show" rather than people transformed and sent on mission.

1. Those on mission focus on God's glory and His agenda
(Isaiah 6:1-8).

2. Those on mission reflect being with God
(2 Corinthans 3:16-18).

Trying to get people on mission who haven't been transformed by the gospel is a fool's errand.

3. Those on mission no longer live for themselves
(2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

It's not about thinking less of you; it's about thinking of you less.

I hope it is an encouragement to you.

Thanks to all who came to my presentation at the International Christian Retail Show. As I promised, here is the data I presented on trends in the church and culture.

Also, here is a link to the economy data I presented as well.

Yesterday, I spoke in Saint Louis, Missouri at the Acts 29 Regional Quarterly Gathering.

If you want to see "loose" quotes of what I said, you can see them using the Twitter hash tag, #a29midwest. Nowadays, most speakers leave a Twitter-trail that is, at times, accurate. ;-)

Below is a picture from of the meeting at a former (and now renovated) Catholic Church.

I presented around my recent co-authored book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and Churches that Reach Them. I promised to post the presentation I did and you can find it below.

As you will recall, the numbers are those who agree, somewhat or strongly, with the statement listed. I have only listed the agree percentages. You can download a pdf of the presentation I used here.

Also, if you are interested in more information, you can check out a podcast where Jason Hayes and I discuss the younger unchurched generations and the churches that reach them.

Thanks for coming to St. Louis!

I forgot to post some promised notes from a recent conference!

Here is the explanation of the Lost and Found presentation and the actual presentation.

For the dropout research, click the the LifeWay Research archive page and scroll down to the dropout study.

Here is the trends PowerPoint.. It was based on my Innovation3 Presentation. (BTW, Leadership Network published the Innovation3 materials this morning.)

Thanks for having me!

To my Nazarene pastor friends:

Thanks for having me at your conference yesterday. Here is the church planting information I promised to upload here today. I look forward to seeing out at the national Nazarene Pastors Conference in San Diego in January!

The "State of Church Planting" reports I referred to yesterday are listed below for your convenience. You can download them from the Leadership Network website at the links below.

The Christian Post reported on the research.

If you haven't seen them already, check out:

Church Planting Overview
Funding New Churches
Improving the Health and Survivability of New Churches
Who Starts New Churches?

You can also access all the Leadership Network downloads at www.leadnet.org/churchplanting.

The NAMB research I mentioned was done at the Center for Missional Research.

You should visit their site-- you can download over 2000 reserach presentation on a myriad of topics. The CMR web portal is one of the things I was most excited about when I worked at NAMB. (PeopleGroups.info was another).

Here is a rundown of what church planting research you can download.

First, is the full report of the Church Planting Survivability and Health study, a study involving 11 denominations and networks. You can download a presentation of that study here.

Second, are four articles that came from that study.

Part 1: The Survivability and Health Study
Part 2: How Many Church Plants Really Survive--and Why?
Part 3: 10 Factors for Higher Attendance in Church Plants
Part 4: Higher Baptisms in Church Plants

Third, is a research that looked at denominational "best practices" that led to higher church planting survivability and health. To do this, we did more in-depth analysis of several denominations to look for best practices. When we found a practices that was "statistically significant," we reported it and then I asked representatives to present what they did at last year's National New Church Conference in Orlando.

So, you can find the full report here and a PowerPoint of that data here.

Finally, you can find my presentation of the best practices research that I recently gave at the NAMB State Summer Leadership Conference. It is a big download, but you can get it here.

In that presentation, I combined the presentations of 4 denominational leaders who shared their best practices in the areas we found statistically significant. Each network or denominational leader presented their overall church planting system, then presented their specific best practice as determined by our research. Each of them gave their permission to share their presentation. The presenters were:

Steve Childers presented the Presbterian Church in America assessment system.
Rod Koop presented the Foursquare peer support / mentoring system.
George Klippenes presented the Evangelical Free team approach and funding system.
Steve Pike presented the Assemblies of God community minsitry approach.
Tom Nebel and Gary Rohrmayer presented the Baptist General Conference training for local church giving.

I hope they are a help!

It just struck me...

Today, I present on Calvinism and then stay two days to hear lots of talks on Calvinism related issues. This is an important event for my denomination.

On Thursday, I will be in Arizona speaking at the Assemblies of God chuch planting summit. Their summit may be the most significant denominationally focused church planting conferences in a long time. It is a quite a gathering. (My Assemblies of God friends will rebuke me for calling them a denomination... so please forgive me.)

That is quite a dichotomy. Wonder which one will be more exciting? Grin.

Note to self:
Don't mix up the presentations...
Don't mix up the presentations...
Don't mix up the presentations...