September 22, 2025 • 17 mins
Summary
In this conversation, Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner discusses the essential elements of church planting, emphasizing the importance of gathering a core team and shaping a launch community. He dispels the myth that only extroverted personalities can successfully plant churches, highlighting that success is measured by faithfulness rather than numbers or personality. The cross is presented as the central theme, serving as the foundation for identity, community, mission, and future hope in church planting.
Takeaways
The measure of success in church planting is faithfulness.
Church planting is not limited to extroverted personalities.
The cross must be the center of any church plant.
A core team is essential for shaping the church's DNA.
The launch team supports the church's initial growth.
Community in church planting is forged through grace.
The mission of the church is anchored in sacrificial love.
The future of the church is gathered around the cross.
Church planting embodies the future kingdom in the present.
The cross shapes our identity as sons and daughters of the King.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/echoes-through-eternity-with-dr-jeffery-skinner--5523198/support.
Echoes Through Eternity Guiding church planters and pastors to plant seeds of prayer, holiness, and courage that outlast a lifetime. contact drjefferydskinner@protonmail.com
In this conversation, Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner discusses the essential elements of church planting, emphasizing the importance of gathering a core team and shaping a launch community. He dispels the myth that only extroverted personalities can successfully plant churches, highlighting that success is measured by faithfulness rather than numbers or personality. The cross is presented as the central theme, serving as the foundation for identity, community, mission, and future hope in church planting.
Takeaways
The measure of success in church planting is faithfulness.
Church planting is not limited to extroverted personalities.
The cross must be the center of any church plant.
A core team is essential for shaping the church's DNA.
The launch team supports the church's initial growth.
Community in church planting is forged through grace.
The mission of the church is anchored in sacrificial love.
The future of the church is gathered around the cross.
Church planting embodies the future kingdom in the present.
The cross shapes our identity as sons and daughters of the King.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/echoes-through-eternity-with-dr-jeffery-skinner--5523198/support.
Echoes Through Eternity Guiding church planters and pastors to plant seeds of prayer, holiness, and courage that outlast a lifetime. contact drjefferydskinner@protonmail.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Marcus Abrelius said, what we do in life echoes through eternity.
What is your life echoing through eternity? Welcome to Echoes
through Eternity with doctor Jeffrey Skinner. Our mission is to inspire,
engage and encourage leaders from across the globe to plant
missional churches and be servant leaders. So join us and
(00:22):
hear the stories of servant leaders reverberating lives as God
echoes them through eternity. Brought to you by missional church
Planting and Leadership Development and Dynamic Church Planning International.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome in that goes through eternity. I am your host,
Doctor Jeffrey D. Skinner. What is God echoing through your
life today? Today? I want to talk about one of
the most important moments in church planting. That is gathering
a core team, is shaping the Locks community. If you've
ever been part of a new start church, you know
(00:57):
the excitement and the wight that comes with the early days.
It feels like you're stepping into something bigger than yourself
because you are the Kingdom of God is always bigger
than us. But you're also dreaming of a future that
doesn't yet exist, but you believe God is calling it
(01:18):
into being. Now, there's a myth that will clear up
right up front that only outgoing personalities can plant churches.
People assume that church planning requires a NonStop extrovert who
thrives on evangelism and networking. But I've seen all kinds
of personalities succeed in church planning, introverts, extroverts, reflective leaders,
(01:43):
serving hearted quiet times, and bold visionaries alike. Why Because
the measure of success in planting is not personality. And
as we walk about, as we talked about last week,
the measure of success is not money. It's not the
amount of people that are in the church plant The
(02:04):
measure of success in any type of ministry is faithfulness. Now,
it's not to say that numbers don't matter at all.
They are certainly a measure, especially when you're building that
core team and a launch team, because you've got to
have a you gotta have a fair number of people
to launch with, you've got to have some momentum going
(02:25):
into it, you want to have some widespread awareness there.
But the idea that you've got to have this great
extroverted leader to do it, it's just not true. Now,
that's why there is a danger in building a church
around the pastors a pastor's personality. Sometimes new churches are
launched with all the energy revolving around one charismatic figure.
(02:49):
But one of the primary rules of church planting is
what I call the boss principle. Christ is the Lord,
the boss of church planting. The church is not built
on any one person. If it is, it will collapse
when that person is gone. Even in church planting, you've
got to plan for succession, even if you're planning on
being the pastor of that church forever and not appalline
(03:12):
type personality that goes in plants and moves on to
another area. You never know what guy is going to
call you to in three, four, five, ten years down
the road. The goal is always a plant. A church
that is independent is sustainable within three years of launching.
If it's still dependent upon a single personality, it's not
(03:32):
independent and it's not sustainable. That means you don't build
around a pastor, a musician, or any singular figure. The
pastor is but a vessel a Moses to you are
a Joshua figure pointing people to the voice of the Lord.
And that's the entire purpose of the first phase of
planting a prayer retreat to discertain the will of God
(03:54):
where he's calling you? What I call the who? What? When? Where? Why?
And how? Of the plant there? Who is God calling
your reach? How has God calling you?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Do?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
It is you know the uh? And then what you
know is God calling you do? Once you get there
your mission, you're in the vision. The win was your timeline,
your launch date. Where where is God calling you? So
I say who? What? When? Where? How? And then how
much you got a budget in there as well? So
(04:25):
that's all part of that first phase that God to
you face. The second phase is where you're gathering your team.
That's the the you to the team phase. And so
here you want to be sure that if you're not
planting around personality, that you're going to plant around the cross.
The cross is a gathering point, not charisma, not personality,
(04:48):
not even the pastor's gifts. The Cross is the only
center strong enough to sustain the birth of a church.
Why because the cross is where Christ is part one
the Cross as a center of God's life. When you
begin the journey of planning a church, the temptation is
to start with strategy, demographics, location, marketing, social media, all
(05:12):
of that matters. I'm not saying that doesn't matter, but
it can never be the center. The Cross must be
at the center. The Cross shows that that God is
not a distant deity watching from above. God entered into
our brokenness through Jesus. He bore the way of our sin,
our shame, our failures, and he did so out of love.
(05:33):
The life of God, father, son, and Spirit poured itself
out at Cavary to redeem us. This is the primary
principle that we recognize when we begin the church plan.
When we begin to gather our core team, the question
is not just who has the right skills, but who
has been shaped by the Cross. Do they understand that
(05:57):
leadership is servanthood not? Do they know that greatness in
the Kingdom comes by laying down one's life. I remember
when my daughter was little. One of my favorite memories.
She dressed up as a princess with her sparkly little
shoes and a tiara slightly too big for her little head.
She twirled around through the living room. She hadn't even
(06:19):
even had a little magic wand it was absolutely confident
in who she was. That's the kind of identity that
the Cross gives us. At the Cross, we are crowned
as sons and daughters of the King. Our worth isn't
in what we do, but in what Jesus has done.
Our worth is not in how much are how many
(06:40):
people attend our first gathering at launch. Our worth is
not in how many people, how many small groups we
have going. Our worth is in Christ Jesus alone. That's
the starting point for any launch team. People secure their
identity shape by sacrificial love, and they're willing to serve
(07:02):
Part two, the Cross as a foundation for community. Once
the Cross has shaped their identity, it begins to shape
our relationships. A church plant is not a collection of
lung rangers. It's a community forging grace. It Efesians. We
read that Christ is our peace, who has made the
(07:22):
two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing
wall of hostility. At the Cross, God reconciled not only
individuals to himself, but also people to one another. That
means a church plant isn't about finding everyone who looks alike,
thinks alike, or even votes alike. It's about people from
(07:45):
different backgrounds, different gifts, even different perspective finding unity in Christ. Again,
the Cross is at gathering spot, not a personality, not
even a building. After the prayer retreat, which is at
first and most critical phase, you move into this second
phase of pre launch, the gathering people. This is where
(08:08):
the difference between a core team and a launch team matters.
The core team is your inner circle. These people are
people who will pray with you. They carry the vision
with you and help you shape the DNA of the
new church. They don't just show up. They sacrifice, they give,
they serve, and they lead by example. They are the
(08:28):
spiritual backbone of your plant. They think of them like
the twelve Disciples who walk most closely with Jesus. Sometimes
the core team will even include missionaries from the mother church,
the church that is sponsoring your new church. A mother
church doesn't just provide money or resources, It can also
(08:48):
send trained leaders and disciple makers who walk along the
side the planter investing in the new work. These missionaries
help disciple the launch team prepare them for ministry. The
launch team is larger, as a name implies. This is
the group that helps you actually launch the church. They
(09:11):
include those who serve in hospitality, his ministry, worship, and
set up in teardom. Some will be family and friends
who will join to help you get started, but may
not stay long term. That's okay. They can be missionaries too,
and consistent missionaries and often do. Sometimes they're just friends
that come for the launch service just so you have
(09:32):
a good crowd there to launch. Others will come from
those who've been gathering at preview service. It's interest means
in small groups. These are the ones that are your
true launch team. These are the ones that will sustain
you week after week. These are the ones that you've
been discipling throughout the timeline there, throughout preparation and all
(09:52):
the four faces there. Both are vital, but they are
not the same, confusing them crigs frustration. The core team
must be deeply cross shaped, committed, prayerful, and aligned with
the vision. The launch team must be equipped and in
power to serve well, even if they're involvement is temporary.
Think about Jesus ministry. He had his three closest friends, Peter, James,
(10:16):
and John his core. Within a core, then he had
the twelve who walked with him daily. Beyond that, there
were the seventy two he sent out, and then the
larger crowds who followed each group mattered, but not every
group carried the same way of responsibility. In your plant,
let the Cross to find these relationships. The core team
(10:37):
should be people who understand sacrifice, who are willing to
lay down their preferences for the sake of the mission.
The launch team should be people willing to serve and
to help establish the church in the infancy. But it
must be built both on humility, forgiveness and love. These
are the virtues of Calvary. The second phase of pre
(10:58):
launch is where community really means the shape take place
and take shape. If it's shape at the Cross, the
community will not just survive, it will thrive. Part three.
The Cross has the anchor for mission planning. A church
is never just about gathering your group of people, is
(11:18):
about joining God's mission, and the Cross is the mission.
The Cross is magnetic. It pulls people in not through
clever marketing, but through the sheer power of sacrificial love. Again,
marketing is a part of it that will gain interest.
Meeting with the pastor There's all kinds of practices that
we will do in the process of gathering the team
(11:41):
and preparing for launch, But we understand that when we
launch a new church that the mission is not there
to create a better brand of religion. Our mission is
to point people to the Cross, where love and justice meet,
where forgiveness is free, and where hope is born. That
(12:01):
means your core team needs to be cross shaped in
its mission. The question isn't how do we attract a crowd,
but how do we embody the Cross in this neighborhood.
Sometimes that looks like feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely,
mentoring the next generation, or simply showing up in people's
(12:22):
life with grace. In church planting, you'll face discouragement, people
will leave, Finances will often be tight, The enemy will
whisper it's not worth it. In those moments, remember the Cross.
Jesus didn't quit when it got hard. He endured the suffering,
sporting its shame, and triumphed through love. That is the
(12:44):
kind of perseverance a launch team needs. The Cross anchors
us to a mission that is bigger than us, more
enduring than our struggles, and more glorious than we can imagine.
Part four the Cross as a gathering place of the future. Finally,
the Cross doesn't just shape our present, it pulls us
(13:05):
into God's future. The Book of revelation gives us a
vision of the end. People from every tribe, language, and
nation gathered around the throne of the lamb who is slain.
Notice what gathers them is not style, personality, or marketing,
is the Cross. It is a slain lamb, a slaughtered lamb.
(13:28):
There's nothing pretty about death, and if you've ever seen
a slaughtered lamb, there's certainly nothing pretty about a slaughtered lamb.
That doesn't mark it well, Hey, come and die. That's
not something that necessarily gathers a team. So you have
to understand that love is a motivating factory of cross.
The vision is what church planting is about. Every new
(13:49):
plant is a preview of eternity, a foretaste of the
day when the nations are gathered in worship. When you
gather a courteen, you're not just starting a program, You
are embodying the future kingdom in the present. This perspective
keeps us humble. It's not our brilliance that will launch
a church, is the spirit drawing people through the Cross.
(14:11):
It also keeps us hopeful, even if the launch is
smaller than we dream, even if setbacks come, the future
is already secure. The Cross guarantees that Christ's mission will
not fail, and it causes us to courage. The world
doesn't need another entertainment venue. It needs communities where the
(14:33):
Cross is central, where forgiveness flows, where burdens are shared,
where hope is real. So when you gather your launch team,
remind them we are stepping into the future together. We
are joining the eternal echo of confering in conclusion, the
echo of the Cross. Let's bring this together. Church planting
(14:56):
isn't just about vision, statements, logos, or strategies. Those things matter,
but they are not center. The center is the Cross.
A personality is not in the center. A person is
not the center. At the Cross, we find our identity.
Like a child who twirls in her princess dress, secure
in who she is. We stand confident as sons and
(15:19):
daughters of the King. At the Cross, we find a
community different people reconciled into one family. In the second
phase of pre launch, that means carefully shaping both a
core team and a launch team, sometimes straightened strengthened by
missionaries from the Mother Church, all gathered in the shadow
(15:40):
of the Cross. At the Cross, we find a mission
anchored in sacrificial love, non human ambition, and at the
Cross we find the future gathered into a kingdom that
cannot be shaken. So if you're planning a church gathering,
a core team, or dreaming of a launch let the
crosst be your gathering place. Let it shape your leadership,
(16:03):
your relationships, your mission, and your hope. Because the Cross
is not just the end of a story, It's the
beginning of eternity. Song thank you for joining me today,
and that goes through eternity. Please share this with your
friends and family, and if you know church planters, be
sure you share this with them. If you know people
(16:25):
that are on a church planting team, a core team,
or launch team, even just a regular pastor who's in
the process of revitalizing church, these principles are key for
that as well. This at goes through eternity, and the
Cross is the echo that never fades. Christian leaders everywhere
are talking about Revitalized Plant, written by doctors Desmond Barrett
(16:48):
and Jeffrey D. Skinner. Revitalized the Plant is more than
a philosophical approach to church planting and revitalization. The authors
have experienced the crucible of leading in the trenches of
ministry is Gretty, and most of all, recasts Our Vision
and Understanding of Church Planting and Revitalization. Revitalizes to Plant
now lable on Amazon, or revitalizes the plant dot com
that's revitalized to plant dot Com. The last research
Marcus Abrelius said, what we do in life echoes through eternity.
What is your life echoing through eternity? Welcome to Echoes
through Eternity with doctor Jeffrey Skinner. Our mission is to inspire,
engage and encourage leaders from across the globe to plant
missional churches and be servant leaders. So join us and
(00:22):
hear the stories of servant leaders reverberating lives as God
echoes them through eternity. Brought to you by missional church
Planting and Leadership Development and Dynamic Church Planning International.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome in that goes through eternity. I am your host,
Doctor Jeffrey D. Skinner. What is God echoing through your
life today? Today? I want to talk about one of
the most important moments in church planting. That is gathering
a core team, is shaping the Locks community. If you've
ever been part of a new start church, you know
(00:57):
the excitement and the wight that comes with the early days.
It feels like you're stepping into something bigger than yourself
because you are the Kingdom of God is always bigger
than us. But you're also dreaming of a future that
doesn't yet exist, but you believe God is calling it
(01:18):
into being. Now, there's a myth that will clear up
right up front that only outgoing personalities can plant churches.
People assume that church planning requires a NonStop extrovert who
thrives on evangelism and networking. But I've seen all kinds
of personalities succeed in church planning, introverts, extroverts, reflective leaders,
(01:43):
serving hearted quiet times, and bold visionaries alike. Why Because
the measure of success in planting is not personality. And
as we walk about, as we talked about last week,
the measure of success is not money. It's not the
amount of people that are in the church plant The
(02:04):
measure of success in any type of ministry is faithfulness. Now,
it's not to say that numbers don't matter at all.
They are certainly a measure, especially when you're building that
core team and a launch team, because you've got to
have a you gotta have a fair number of people
to launch with, you've got to have some momentum going
(02:25):
into it, you want to have some widespread awareness there.
But the idea that you've got to have this great
extroverted leader to do it, it's just not true. Now,
that's why there is a danger in building a church
around the pastors a pastor's personality. Sometimes new churches are
launched with all the energy revolving around one charismatic figure.
(02:49):
But one of the primary rules of church planting is
what I call the boss principle. Christ is the Lord,
the boss of church planting. The church is not built
on any one person. If it is, it will collapse
when that person is gone. Even in church planting, you've
got to plan for succession, even if you're planning on
being the pastor of that church forever and not appalline
(03:12):
type personality that goes in plants and moves on to
another area. You never know what guy is going to
call you to in three, four, five, ten years down
the road. The goal is always a plant. A church
that is independent is sustainable within three years of launching.
If it's still dependent upon a single personality, it's not
(03:32):
independent and it's not sustainable. That means you don't build
around a pastor, a musician, or any singular figure. The
pastor is but a vessel a Moses to you are
a Joshua figure pointing people to the voice of the Lord.
And that's the entire purpose of the first phase of
planting a prayer retreat to discertain the will of God
(03:54):
where he's calling you? What I call the who? What? When? Where? Why?
And how? Of the plant there? Who is God calling
your reach? How has God calling you?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Do?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
It is you know the uh? And then what you
know is God calling you do? Once you get there
your mission, you're in the vision. The win was your timeline,
your launch date. Where where is God calling you? So
I say who? What? When? Where? How? And then how
much you got a budget in there as well? So
(04:25):
that's all part of that first phase that God to
you face. The second phase is where you're gathering your team.
That's the the you to the team phase. And so
here you want to be sure that if you're not
planting around personality, that you're going to plant around the cross.
The cross is a gathering point, not charisma, not personality,
(04:48):
not even the pastor's gifts. The Cross is the only
center strong enough to sustain the birth of a church.
Why because the cross is where Christ is part one
the Cross as a center of God's life. When you
begin the journey of planning a church, the temptation is
to start with strategy, demographics, location, marketing, social media, all
(05:12):
of that matters. I'm not saying that doesn't matter, but
it can never be the center. The Cross must be
at the center. The Cross shows that that God is
not a distant deity watching from above. God entered into
our brokenness through Jesus. He bore the way of our sin,
our shame, our failures, and he did so out of love.
(05:33):
The life of God, father, son, and Spirit poured itself
out at Cavary to redeem us. This is the primary
principle that we recognize when we begin the church plan.
When we begin to gather our core team, the question
is not just who has the right skills, but who
has been shaped by the Cross. Do they understand that
(05:57):
leadership is servanthood not? Do they know that greatness in
the Kingdom comes by laying down one's life. I remember
when my daughter was little. One of my favorite memories.
She dressed up as a princess with her sparkly little
shoes and a tiara slightly too big for her little head.
She twirled around through the living room. She hadn't even
(06:19):
even had a little magic wand it was absolutely confident
in who she was. That's the kind of identity that
the Cross gives us. At the Cross, we are crowned
as sons and daughters of the King. Our worth isn't
in what we do, but in what Jesus has done.
Our worth is not in how much are how many
(06:40):
people attend our first gathering at launch. Our worth is
not in how many people, how many small groups we
have going. Our worth is in Christ Jesus alone. That's
the starting point for any launch team. People secure their
identity shape by sacrificial love, and they're willing to serve
(07:02):
Part two, the Cross as a foundation for community. Once
the Cross has shaped their identity, it begins to shape
our relationships. A church plant is not a collection of
lung rangers. It's a community forging grace. It Efesians. We
read that Christ is our peace, who has made the
(07:22):
two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing
wall of hostility. At the Cross, God reconciled not only
individuals to himself, but also people to one another. That
means a church plant isn't about finding everyone who looks alike,
thinks alike, or even votes alike. It's about people from
(07:45):
different backgrounds, different gifts, even different perspective finding unity in Christ. Again,
the Cross is at gathering spot, not a personality, not
even a building. After the prayer retreat, which is at
first and most critical phase, you move into this second
phase of pre launch, the gathering people. This is where
(08:08):
the difference between a core team and a launch team matters.
The core team is your inner circle. These people are
people who will pray with you. They carry the vision
with you and help you shape the DNA of the
new church. They don't just show up. They sacrifice, they give,
they serve, and they lead by example. They are the
(08:28):
spiritual backbone of your plant. They think of them like
the twelve Disciples who walk most closely with Jesus. Sometimes
the core team will even include missionaries from the mother church,
the church that is sponsoring your new church. A mother
church doesn't just provide money or resources, It can also
(08:48):
send trained leaders and disciple makers who walk along the
side the planter investing in the new work. These missionaries
help disciple the launch team prepare them for ministry. The
launch team is larger, as a name implies. This is
the group that helps you actually launch the church. They
(09:11):
include those who serve in hospitality, his ministry, worship, and
set up in teardom. Some will be family and friends
who will join to help you get started, but may
not stay long term. That's okay. They can be missionaries too,
and consistent missionaries and often do. Sometimes they're just friends
that come for the launch service just so you have
(09:32):
a good crowd there to launch. Others will come from
those who've been gathering at preview service. It's interest means
in small groups. These are the ones that are your
true launch team. These are the ones that will sustain
you week after week. These are the ones that you've
been discipling throughout the timeline there, throughout preparation and all
(09:52):
the four faces there. Both are vital, but they are
not the same, confusing them crigs frustration. The core team
must be deeply cross shaped, committed, prayerful, and aligned with
the vision. The launch team must be equipped and in
power to serve well, even if they're involvement is temporary.
Think about Jesus ministry. He had his three closest friends, Peter, James,
(10:16):
and John his core. Within a core, then he had
the twelve who walked with him daily. Beyond that, there
were the seventy two he sent out, and then the
larger crowds who followed each group mattered, but not every
group carried the same way of responsibility. In your plant,
let the Cross to find these relationships. The core team
(10:37):
should be people who understand sacrifice, who are willing to
lay down their preferences for the sake of the mission.
The launch team should be people willing to serve and
to help establish the church in the infancy. But it
must be built both on humility, forgiveness and love. These
are the virtues of Calvary. The second phase of pre
(10:58):
launch is where community really means the shape take place
and take shape. If it's shape at the Cross, the
community will not just survive, it will thrive. Part three.
The Cross has the anchor for mission planning. A church
is never just about gathering your group of people, is
(11:18):
about joining God's mission, and the Cross is the mission.
The Cross is magnetic. It pulls people in not through
clever marketing, but through the sheer power of sacrificial love. Again,
marketing is a part of it that will gain interest.
Meeting with the pastor There's all kinds of practices that
we will do in the process of gathering the team
(11:41):
and preparing for launch, But we understand that when we
launch a new church that the mission is not there
to create a better brand of religion. Our mission is
to point people to the Cross, where love and justice meet,
where forgiveness is free, and where hope is born. That
(12:01):
means your core team needs to be cross shaped in
its mission. The question isn't how do we attract a crowd,
but how do we embody the Cross in this neighborhood.
Sometimes that looks like feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely,
mentoring the next generation, or simply showing up in people's
(12:22):
life with grace. In church planting, you'll face discouragement, people
will leave, Finances will often be tight, The enemy will
whisper it's not worth it. In those moments, remember the Cross.
Jesus didn't quit when it got hard. He endured the suffering,
sporting its shame, and triumphed through love. That is the
(12:44):
kind of perseverance a launch team needs. The Cross anchors
us to a mission that is bigger than us, more
enduring than our struggles, and more glorious than we can imagine.
Part four the Cross as a gathering place of the future. Finally,
the Cross doesn't just shape our present, it pulls us
(13:05):
into God's future. The Book of revelation gives us a
vision of the end. People from every tribe, language, and
nation gathered around the throne of the lamb who is slain.
Notice what gathers them is not style, personality, or marketing,
is the Cross. It is a slain lamb, a slaughtered lamb.
(13:28):
There's nothing pretty about death, and if you've ever seen
a slaughtered lamb, there's certainly nothing pretty about a slaughtered lamb.
That doesn't mark it well, Hey, come and die. That's
not something that necessarily gathers a team. So you have
to understand that love is a motivating factory of cross.
The vision is what church planting is about. Every new
(13:49):
plant is a preview of eternity, a foretaste of the
day when the nations are gathered in worship. When you
gather a courteen, you're not just starting a program, You
are embodying the future kingdom in the present. This perspective
keeps us humble. It's not our brilliance that will launch
a church, is the spirit drawing people through the Cross.
(14:11):
It also keeps us hopeful, even if the launch is
smaller than we dream, even if setbacks come, the future
is already secure. The Cross guarantees that Christ's mission will
not fail, and it causes us to courage. The world
doesn't need another entertainment venue. It needs communities where the
(14:33):
Cross is central, where forgiveness flows, where burdens are shared,
where hope is real. So when you gather your launch team,
remind them we are stepping into the future together. We
are joining the eternal echo of confering in conclusion, the
echo of the Cross. Let's bring this together. Church planting
(14:56):
isn't just about vision, statements, logos, or strategies. Those things matter,
but they are not center. The center is the Cross.
A personality is not in the center. A person is
not the center. At the Cross, we find our identity.
Like a child who twirls in her princess dress, secure
in who she is. We stand confident as sons and
(15:19):
daughters of the King. At the Cross, we find a
community different people reconciled into one family. In the second
phase of pre launch, that means carefully shaping both a
core team and a launch team, sometimes straightened strengthened by
missionaries from the Mother Church, all gathered in the shadow
(15:40):
of the Cross. At the Cross, we find a mission
anchored in sacrificial love, non human ambition, and at the
Cross we find the future gathered into a kingdom that
cannot be shaken. So if you're planning a church gathering,
a core team, or dreaming of a launch let the
crosst be your gathering place. Let it shape your leadership,
(16:03):
your relationships, your mission, and your hope. Because the Cross
is not just the end of a story, It's the
beginning of eternity. Song thank you for joining me today,
and that goes through eternity. Please share this with your
friends and family, and if you know church planters, be
sure you share this with them. If you know people
(16:25):
that are on a church planting team, a core team,
or launch team, even just a regular pastor who's in
the process of revitalizing church, these principles are key for
that as well. This at goes through eternity, and the
Cross is the echo that never fades. Christian leaders everywhere
are talking about Revitalized Plant, written by doctors Desmond Barrett
(16:48):
and Jeffrey D. Skinner. Revitalized the Plant is more than
a philosophical approach to church planting and revitalization. The authors
have experienced the crucible of leading in the trenches of
ministry is Gretty, and most of all, recasts Our Vision
and Understanding of Church Planting and Revitalization. Revitalizes to Plant
now lable on Amazon, or revitalizes the plant dot com
that's revitalized to plant dot Com. The last research
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