We are all in this together!

Anglican 1000 is helping Anglicans across the continent, jurisdictions, and ministry partnerships to raise up congregations and communities of faith through encouraging, networking, and resourcing everyone who is part of this exciting missional movement.  Summit 2011 is a chance for everyone who is in this together to come together to build relationships, be renewed, gain fresh insights, and network with others who are out in the field planting. 

This year, we are pleased to welcome Tim Keller (plus some of the Redeemer City to City Team) and Bishop Todd Hunter (among others) as our plenary speakers.  Both Tim and +Todd are Gospel-centered leaders who are leading church planting networks on opposite ends of the United States!  Summit 2011 is January 25-27, 2011 in Plano, Texas.

You are invited to come to Summit 2011!  Sign up now for our Early Bird rate of $150/person. 

Bring yourself, your spouse, your staff, your planting team, your apprentices, or anyone else committed to Anglican church planting and interested in this unique time of resourcing, fellowship, and worship.  If you are an active church planter or a seminary student, please contact us to find out more about special rates for the summit.  E-mail for more information before you begin the registration process.  Details about hotels and other information will be sent to you in a confirmation e-mail after registering.  By the way, you’ll want to get your flight and hotel lined up soon.  Summit 2011 is a few weeks before the 2011 NFL Super Bowl comes to town.  So, stuff will book up pretty quickly!

Senior leaders don’t want to let go. They realize too late that they’re slowing down, a process that begins in many cases around age 60. Various aspects of the church’s vision become neglected, and the church stagnates. The senior leader’s gifting and experience mask underlying structural weaknesses, as in the case of Spurgeon. Meanwhile, younger leaders don’t want to wait around to take charge. Many capable young leaders know the long odds of a successful succession. So they prefer to plant their own churches or invest in smaller ones they can grow by God’s grace. ... Even before the senior pastor steps down, generational tension may be evident as a warning sign that succession will be a struggle. The senior pastor with a long tenure may surround himself with leaders around his same age. Preaching load, administrative tasks, writing commitments, and even personality traits may inhibit him and his colleagues from investing in younger leaders who can eventually take their place. Conscious or not, Hezekiah syndrome sets in, and older leaders leave major problems for the next generation to tackle. “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?” (2 Kings 20:19) 

In a refreshing exception to this trend, he profiles the Succession without a Successor plan underway at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan under Tim Keller’s leadership.  (Shameless plug - Tim Keller is one of the plenary speakers at the 2011 Anglican 1000 Church Planting Summit ... Register here today for early bird rates! ... end of commercial)  Since it is always difficult for a successor to follow a tremendously gifted leader, Redeemer isn’t even going to try it!  Instead, they announced this past June a decentralization plan to “eventually divide into four distinct but networked congregations, each of which will try to plant another church. Redeemer leaders selected four pastors—David Bisgrove, John Lin, Scott Sauls, and Leo Schuster—to lead these neighborhood-based congregations. But for now these men will share preaching and leadership responsibilities with Keller, who will mentor them closely.”  Tim Keller said: “My ‘successors’ are a new generation of a half-dozen to a dozen pastors ... The difficulty is that to even talk of this as a ‘succession plan’ gives the impression I’m stepping out of my job and retiring soon, but I’m not. I’m 59, and we expect the transition to take eight to ten years. So we don’t call it a succession plan, but that’s what it ultimately is, among other things.”

How is your church preparing for pastoral succession?
Is their intentional mentoring and leadership development?
What are your thoughts on this?

We want to help catalog these churches and tell their stories. We want to know why they were planted, who is planting them, and who are they reaching. We want you to see what is possible and to connect with them if you are looking for a place to plug in.

We have been listing each of these new congregations individually, but we have just released a plant finder, as well.  This will help to give a visual of the flurry of planting and help you find a plant near you! 

If you are planting a church and want to be listed under our latest plants or on our plant finder, we want to connect to you! E-mail daniela@anglican1000.org so that we can pray for you, encourage you, and tell your story.

Click here to see the new Plant Finder!

I’m so excited about all of the upcoming regional church planting events this fall that Anglican 1000 is helping provide across North America.  We’ve been working behind the scenes this summer in partnership with Anglican church planting leaders in about a dozen cities to create events that will encourage and equip people who want to be on the frontline of Anglican church planting. The enthusiasm of leaders across Canada and the United States for starting new Anglican churches is staggering. Bishops, rectors and regional leaders are eager to work together to plant churches everywhere we go. Planters are ready to gather with one another to share what’s working and learn from one another how to deal with the inevitable challenges of planting.  And there’s so much to celebrate, because new churches are launching everywhere almost very week.

Why is Anglican 1000 coming to you?  Because all church planting is local. If that seems too self-evident, remember Einstein said that genius is the ability to scrutinize the obvious. Think about it for a moment All church planting ultimately begins in the heart of God and flows from the local church.  Church planters come from local churches and local ministries, who lead them to faith in Christ and help shape them as disciples who are ready to answer the Lord’s prayer for more workers. People like you and churches like yours are our focus at Anglican 1000. You don’t exist to serve our needs and agenda.  Instead, Anglican 1000 exists to be a catalyst for you to plant Anglican congregations and communities of faith across North America.  Anglican 1000 doesn’t plant churches; you do. That’s why we are so eager to come to you and support your church planting dreams and work through these regional events.

Every regional event will be unique, because the events are designed around the specific needs, contributions and opportunities of the leaders, churches, people and opportunities in each area. Some events are full-day intensive workshops, while others are shorter introductory events.  The events schedule is listed below.  You can for information about them. 

I am so thankful for all of you who are working hard in your local area to offer a regional event where you live. Your receptivity to partnering with Anglican 1000 is overwhelming.

Regional Events Schedule

Vancouver |  September 9

Cascadia Diocese |  September 10-11

Montreal |  October 1-3

Toronto |  October 15-16

San Joaquin Diocese |  October 22-23

Diocese of Mid-East & Mid-Atlantic (REC)  |  November 5-6

Chicago (Urban Multiplication Focus)  |  November 13

Anglican District of Virginia |  November 20

Dallas - Ft. Worth |  December 4

Pittsburgh Diocese |  February or March 2011

It makes the problem of individualism worse

It’s too much about rebellion

For another snapshot, you can check out McCracken’s Wall Street Journal Article “The Perils of ‘Wannabe Cool’ Christianity.”  He reminds us of the work of David Wells, who says:

The born-again, marketing church has calculated that unless it makes deep, serious cultural adaptations, it will go out of business, especially with the younger generations. What it has not considered carefully enough is that it may well be putting itself out of business with God.  And the further irony is that the younger generations who are less impressed by whiz-bang technology, who often see through what is slick and glitzy, and who have been on the receiving end of enough marketing to nauseate them, are as likely to walk away from these oh-so-relevant churches as to walk into them. 

I have a close friend that has been involved with Anglican Church Planting for the last few years.  He contends that he has seen many Anglican plants go out of their way to be cool in an attempt to attract people to the church.  After watching this play out for awhile, he has come to the conclusion that Anglicans are not cool - being cool or “hip” is not compatible with Anglican identity and ethos. 

What do you think?  Can Anglicans be cool?  Should they be?

By: Nate Beasley

“That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you”  (John 17:21).  How Jesus must have been rejoicing as he saw a packed room of church-planting leaders, representing 32 organizations and 23 denominations gather together to share visions, ideas, and strategies the last few days together in Nashville, TN!  Ed Stetzer (speaker at the last Anglican 1000 conference) organized top church-planting Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Pentecostals, Wesleyans, and other denominations at the Church Planting Leadership Fellowship (CPLF) to dialogue about how to raise up, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a church-planting movement in North America.  Among other great speakers and teachers, Ed Stetzer asked Father (both by ordination, and well… he’s also my Dad) William Beasley to speak on Monday night about how the Anglican Church is raising up lay leaders from the harvest to plant congregations.  If anyone knows Fr. William – this was a soft ball. 

As Fr. William shared the Spirit-filled story of the East African Revival and the East and West African Anglican Church’s rapid growth through lay-catechists and evangelists from the harvest planting churches connected to ordained clergy, he envisioned what it would look like for the American Church to contextually follow suit.  Of course, he not only shared it in vision, but by the example of what the Lord is doing right now in the Upper Midwest with the expansion of Anglican congregations.  These Church-Leaders were truly blown away by Fr. William’s words.  They were both encouraged and challenged:  encouraged to see what the Lord is doing in the Anglican church by restoring orthodoxy, raising up leaders from the harvest to plant, and seeing an example of how multiplication of the Church and the Historic Order are not at odds; and yet challenged to think through new models they had never before considered. 

In fact, Ed Stetzer added an extra Q & A session in the conference for Fr. William because these leaders of church planters hungered to learn more about what the Lord is doing through Anglican 1000.  The questions for Fr. William ran the gamut of “How do you credential potential lay-church planters” to “Why is it that so many people are moving toward the Anglican Church”?  On the latter question, not only did Fr. William answer, but Rick Warren decided to chime in on how the Anglican Church is so important to reaching our generation.  I’ll write that again.  At a multi-denominational church-planting gathering of leaders, Rick Warren spent about 5 minutes explaining why Anglicanism is essential to reaching North America today.  Brothers and Sisters, the Anglican 1000 initiative is being noticed as a work of the Spirit by the greater church of America.  The Lord is moving. Keep praying.  Pray both for Anglican 1000 and all the other church-planting movements of faithful denominations.  May we support each other, united together on common mission by multiplying churches bearing much fruit and so giving glory to God (John 15:8)!

“Glory to God, whose power working in us can do more than we can ask for or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen” (Eph. 3:20-21)!

Twenty year-old Nate Beasley is a junior at University of Illinois, majoring in Communication.  An active leader in Campus Crusade for Christ, he served six weeks this summer with them in East Asia.  Last summer he ministered 4 weeks in Idaho, helping a new Anglican Church plant.  When not out-of-state on missions or in school, Nate runs a small business, performing with Catch This! Juggling, to earn money for college.

UPDATE: Details about the event and downloads from the various presentations are now available on Ed Stetzer’s Blog.  Click here to access the info!

Here’s a description of this great (and FREE!) resource:

Why would someone risk his safety, destroy his schedule, and become dirty and bloody to help a needy person of another race and social class? And why would Jesus tell us “Go and do likewise”? Like the wounded man on the Jericho road, there are needy people in our path—the widow next door, the family strapped with medical bills, the homeless man outside our place of worship. God calls us to be ministers of mercy to people in need of shelter, assistance, medical care, or just friendship.

It goes without saying that a church multiplication movement will be fueled by a variety of resources – including money.  Leadership Network has found that just over 25% of protestant churches in the United States have been involved in helping to fund a church plant (or planter) in the last year.  Some of the most aggressive churches “tithe” to church planting through assigning 10%+ of their overall budget to domestic church planting.  Also, most church planters do receive some denominational funding, but more money from a national denomination/agency actually results in less money from churches at the local level.  In fact, most denominations are spending more time in recruiting parent churches to support church planting directly, rather than in direct fundraising.  These parent churches are giving more money to church planting, but the most aggressive are giving that money to more planters.  Rather than large investments in just a few places, aggressive churches seed many projects to help church plants start alongside denominational funds, personal fundraising and tithing by the planter and church planting team.  One church, Hill Country Bible Church, takes the approach of providing a paid residency for church planters and then encouraging the planter to enlist 10-12 families as “missionaries” to help start the new church with a commitment to fund the new work through their tithes.  Across the board, “a multi-stream approach to securing income for the church plant seems to be the most effective.” Research indicates that agencies and denominations should provide well-trained planters with a modest funding package over a short period of time.  This will help the church plant get started, but will encourage the planter to aggressively develop the church without becoming overly dependent on outside funding.