Categories: stories
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O how I long for everyone to discover our God and what he is like!  Surely we will all fall in love (all over again?) with him who first loved us, and fall down before him, choosing to completely obey the King of kings, the only One worthy of our allegiance.  Come on, let us join our Creator in his mission to re-create this precious world back to its original beauty and intended purpose!  Let’s join him now! 

Categories: the why
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“CPM is a result, not a cause.”  – David Watson

Continuing my earlier thoughts on the role of obedience-based discipleship and the myth that church planters can “cause” growth with a great missions strategy, I want to point our supporters and the missions committee members who oversee our work in East Hollywood to a recent blog entry by David Watson, who has been a great source of training for me and (vicariously through me) my team. 

Here is an excerpt:

God began to teach me through many failures that I had to focus on making Disciples of Christ, not followers of my church or denomination, and teach them to obey all the commands of Jesus, not my church/denominational doctrines or traditions.  And this is what led to the breakthrough that has resulted in more than 40,000 churches among a people who were once considered unreachable.

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Categories: the how
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Church planting begins with the church planter. A typical week for us must include accountability. We meet regularly with our mentors Daniel and Jeanette Rodriguez. And I meet by phone with a church planting coach Larry Deal every other week. We devote several hours each week to prayer and Bible reading. We sometimes say “no” to ministry stuff to keep our marriage and kids first. We do a weekly Way of Life Village gathering (team huddle). During the week we also meet with men and women in gender-specific groups for mutual accountability and confession of sins.

Categories: the how
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We’ve been reading up on what it takes to “cause” a church planting movement. I don’t buy it. There is no denying the evidence that how church is structured makes a difference in the spiritual development of Jesus’ followers and the spread of the good news. You’ll hear us talk a lot about why we’re taking this less traditional approach to starting new churches. Still, it is Jesus Christ who builds his church (Matt 16:18), not human ingenuity!  From what I’m gathering from the Bible, church history, and current-day church planting movements, I am convinced total obedience to Jesus is more likely to lead to a movement than any so-called knowledge about missions strategy.  That’s why Way of Life Village keeps returning to obedience.  We’re no super Christians.  We are recovering addicts to sin.  So please pray for this work, but also pray for the workers, that we will love and obey Him who first loved us.

Categories: the how
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The more we live out Jesus’ mission here, the more we find ourselves thinking and behaving like foreign missionaries on U.S. soil. 

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Categories: the how
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God is teaching us how to share Jesus as a way of life during the holidays.  Please keep the following holiday plans in your prayers…

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Categories: stuff to pray for
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