Okay, before I answer this question, I have to say that this mission is about more than a neighborhood.  It’s about reaching the world.  God may call us to do similar work in other cities or countries after we’re done here.  But for us, it simply starts here in East Hollywood.

—WHY EAST HOLLYWOOD?The faith-driven answer is: God brought us to East Hollywood. (Yes, there’s a story there.  And I personally like to hear my fellow Way of Lifers tell it!) The common-sense answer is: East Hollywood is a very strategic place to make a city-wide and world-wide impact!

Show me more… »

Categories: stories
1 Comment »

(These principles were gleaned from an extensive study of successful and failed church planting movements in multiple countries around the world over several decades.  Thank you to church planting expert David Watson for teaching me these principles at the Dallas workshop in June.  More of David Watson’s material can be viewed here.) 

— 

Counter-intuitive things you must do when starting a church planting movement…  

ž      Go slow to go fast

ž      Focus on the few (or one) to win many

ž      Share only when and where people are ready to hear

ž      A new/inexperienced insider is more effective than a highly trained, mature outsider

ž      Start with creation not Christ

ž      It’s about discovery, not preaching or teaching

ž      Obedience is more important than knowledge

ž      Let the lost lead the Bible studies

ž      Disciple to conversion, not convert to make disciples

ž      Prepare to spend a long time but anticipate miracle accelerations

ž      The best time for a church to plant a new church is when it is new

ž      Buildings kill church planting

ž      Paid local leaders kill church planting

ž      No personal evangelism so that masses will hear

ž      No mass evangelism so that the masses will hear

ž      Focus on ordinary people not professional or vocational Christians

ž      Expect the hardest places to yield the greatest results

ž      Small for-profit projects often yield much higher long-term access and goodwill than charity or free services  

—

Okay, some (all?) of this goes against my traditional church experience.  The way some of them are stated as absolutes even rubs me wrong.  But this apparently is the difference between planting churches and starting church planting movements.  Is the Western world really ready for this view of “church” and this kind of approach to missions?  I argue yes, but it’s going to be difficult!

Some of these principles obviously need a bit of explanation precisely because they are counter-intuitive.  As I have time, I will unpack the ones that are resonating most deeply with me and our experiences so far in East Hollywood. 

But that will have to be in a week or so from now.  In the coming days I’ll be sharing photos and descriptions life in East Hollywood.

Categories: the how
Comments Off

I hope we don’t plant a single church in East Hollywood.  

That is, I hope we don’t plant a church. 

If all goes well, we will equip others to start multiple churches themselves.

Show me more… »

Categories: the how
Comments Off

We have a sweet elderly neighbor who was born in China and doesn’t know a lick of English.  Strangley, our only means of communicating with each other is in broken Spanish, which she speaks with a heavy Chinese accent.  I love LA!

—–

Right now I’m revisiting some material by David Garrison in his book Church Planting Movements: What God is doing to redeem a lost world. Very good stuff!  Check it out if you are at all interested in the wonders God is doing around the world.  A must-read for missionaries, church planters and sending churches who want to join God in what he is doing! 

Categories: stories, the why
Comments Off

If you have not already seen the “Shift Happens” video, you need to watch it.  As House2House founder Tony Dale recently commented on it, “This is the world that each of us is now a part of, whether we choose it or not!  No wonder the Lord is allowing the church landscape to change at such breathtaking speed.” 

When my church planting coach Larry Deal shows this to churches, he likes to ask, “What are your personal responses to these shifts in our world?  According to God’s Word, what do you think ought to be the response of Jesus’ followers?”  How we react (with fear of change or inner peace, with feelings of preparedness or inadequacy, etc) can reveal a lot about us. 

What are your reactions? 

Categories: stuff to pray for, the why
Comments Off

Continuing from yesterday’s post, here are six more places where Way of Life Village has been meeting people in need of salvation and the joys of a Jesus-centered life.  (Again, spiritual hot spots change as often as people do.)

Show me more… »

Categories: stories, the how
Comments Off

Several of you have asked us where we are meeting people, especially since we intentionally don’t have a church building to invite them to and “worship services” are not our primary contact point. 

As a result of much harvest prayer (Luke 10:2), God has been creating divine appointments with His treasured, missing ones in MANY places.  Here are six of our hotspots (they change as often as people do).

Show me more… »

Categories: stories, the how
Comments Off