The Apostolic Movement in the Emerging World Part Two
Monday, August 18th, 2008
In Part One of this post I took a quick look at the Apostolic Movements I see coming together in the emerging world. I promised to share some examples in the next post. Well, here they are.
GlocalNet http://www.northwoodchurch.org/glocal/glocal.html is an organization founded by Bob Roberts, pastor of NorthWood Church http://www.northwoodchurch.org in Keller, Texas. This church has planted over 70 churches in the last decade. Now, instead of focusing on planting churches, GlocalNet is establishing church planting centers all over the U.S. Robert’s goal is to resource these centers so that far more churches can be planted than if his church continued to focus on church planting. Whether he likes to admit it or not, Roberts is a form of 21st century apostle.
Example Two:
Dave Ferguson, pastor of Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois http://www.communitychristian.org, has developed New Thing http://www.newthing.org/index.htm, whose purpose is “to be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches relentlessly dedicated to helping people find their way back to God.” Dave is partnering with Todd Wilson, pastor of New Life Christian Church in Centerville, Virginia http://www.newlife4me.com and founder of Passion for Planting http://www.churchplanting4me.com to form a plan whereby a church can partner with three other churches to plant a church every three years for as little as $16,000 a year http://www.leadingedgeministries.org. I suspect you will be hearing a lot more from this group in a short time.
Example Three:
Wayne Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu http://enewhope.org, has established New Hope International http://www.enhi.org for the sole purpose of raising up 21st century church planters. As of April 2005, they have planted 80 churches, with 7 in Japan, 17 in the Philippines, 13 in Myanmar, 23 in Hawaii, 6 on the Mainland, 12 in Nepal, one in Australia, and one in Kenya.
Example Four:
Todd Wilson, pastor of New Life Christian Church in Centerville, Virginia and founder of Passion for Planting http://www.churchplanting4me.com has joined with Dave Ferguson from Community Christian, founder of New Thing Network to form Leading Edge Ministries (www.leadingedgeministries.org). Leading Edge is not in itself an organization, but rather an alliance of many leading organizations whose purpose it is to make it feasible for any church to take part in the church planting movement. They will offer all of the supporting resources and coaching.
