Archive for the ‘Church Planting’ Category

Posted on September 3, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip

Two days to go before Robin and I fly off to New York City. We’re going to use this blog as the base of our communication with people all over the place, giving you daily (or at least every second or third day) updates from our trip. We’re heading to New York primarily to take part in the church planting intensive programme run by Redeemer Church Planting Center. The bulk of our time will be spent on this (first 6 weeks).

Our second reason for the trip is to establish partnerships with US-based church plants and to raise awareness amongst US churches of the church planting opportunities that lie before us in Cape Town and South Africa in general. So we’ll be heading down to Knoxville, TN in early October for a weekend and then we’ll be heading to St Louis, MO, after the intensive, to spend a few days with friends and peeps at the Journey where I camped out a bit last year.

Follow us on this trip by checking the blog regularly, praying for us that God would teach us a ton and that he’d help us establish strategic partnerships to further his kingdom in Cape Town. Plus if you’re reading this and you’re anywhere near any of those places while we’re there then give us a shout and we’ll try hook up.

Here’s our itinerary:

Arrive in NYC on the 7th of September

Head to Knoxville from the 9th to the 12th of October (then back to NYC)

On the 16th of October we fly to St Louis and then head back to Cape Town on the 21st (we only get back to Cape Town on the 23rd – 36 hours of travelling!)

Posted on May 29, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

Preaching to the Heart

Acts 29 Quarterly: Preaching to the Heart

Tuesday, June 02, 2009, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Host
JD Senkbile

Location
Jubilee Community Church

Jubilee Community Church Jubilee Centre 21 Nelson Road Observatory 7925 Cape Town, South Africa Cape Town Other

Phone: 082 818 1222

Purpose

To advance church planting in the Western Cape, through bringing church planters,pastors and leaders together for shared encouragement and learning from each other.

Format

We will meet from 11 am to 1pm. The first hour will be content and round table discussion. The second hour will be lunch and fellowship.

Content

Preaching to the Heart

Al Barth, from Redeemer Church Planting Center, will be coming to share with us about communicating the gospel in a way that transforms peoples hearts.

Who should attend?

All pastors, current or potential church planters, and other leaders interested in initiating a gospel-centered, missional movement in their area. You are free to bring your team or other leaders.

Cost

R35 – R50 for lunch.

Directions

PLEASE RSVP JD Senkbile (ASAP) jd@acts29network.org

Posted on April 8, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

Being Missional Down on Earth

Discussing all things missional can bring with it a certain amount of guilt as we face up to the fact that often its just so much easier to talk about being missional than it is to actually go out and just do it. We get excited about getting together with some missional thinkers (as I’m hoping to do next week) at the local pub discussing missional theory and drinking beer, we read books, blogs and attend conferences and then we turn around and realise that for all the theory there really isn’t all that much missional activity going on in our own lives. The guilt sets in.

My wife and I experienced this a lot last year as we planned and talked about  the church plant - we got so caught up in the experience of dreaming missional that when we woke up from the dreaming we realised that there wasn’t anything particularly missional going on in our lives. The guilt set in.

We’ve since taken steps to rectify that and make being missional part of who we are as a family and as we live out our life in the city of Cape Town. We haven’t really stopped dreaming, and I hope we never do, but we’ve started to earth a lot of what we’ve been dreaming about in the past. The guilt has subsided.

Jonathan Dodson seems to be a guy who knows what down to earth missional activity is and looks like. He also seems to know how to engage in it without bringing along a sack of guilt that just ruins the experience. Go read his ‘8 Ways to Easily be Missional‘ and be liberated and missional at the same time.

Posted on March 23, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

Praying Over Your City

We’ve got a team of theological students with us for the week as we prepare for the first preview service at Point Community Church this weekend. After spending the day talking through demographics and ministry philosophy we took the group up Signal Hill to look out over the city of Cape Town and spend a few moments in prayer about the impending week and the plant in general. What’s weird is the feeling that seems to come over me when I’m in high vantage places looking down over the area I preparing to minister in. I almost always have an overwhelming compulsion to pray, pray and pray desperately for this city (and also about my own sin as I look at the task ahead). I was just wondering if any of you other budding church planters out there ever have similar experiences?

It’s just amazing how when I get that visual view of the city and can take in the size and magnitude of the task the Lord just seems to compel me to pray. I pray that he’ll continue to burden me with the task of prayer throughout this endeavour.

Posted on March 7, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

Point Community Church Blog Goes Live

Bit by bit things are coming together for our little church plant. There’s a whole world of practical things that need to get done that no seminary will ever teach you about. Anyway, one more of the pieces in the puzzle is now available to the public: Our church’s blog. So pop around and check us out.