Welcome…
Welcome to ChurchPlanting.com!
There is a tremendous, widespread hunger in our day to expand God’s kingdom. The question remains, “How is this expansion best done?”
Much of what is termed “church planting” sadly has become the mere shuffling of people from one facility / group to another one. Even a casual reading of scripture makes it plain this pattern is not pleasing to God’s heart and certainly is far from the concept of the increasing God’s kingdom that Jesus spoke passionately of in the numerous Great Commission texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts.
This site is all about giving encouragement, practical help and a point of connectivity to those who dream of organic ways to extend Jesus’ kingdom, not lateral moves of "church-tasters" on the fine dining of church "smorgasbord."
A couple of clarifications:
1. We are constantly in “Under Construction” mode as a site.
Some sites post an ‘Excuse our mess’ alert on their site while they ‘get ready to be ready’ for viewers. For many reasons we take the ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ approach to much of what we do. If we waited until we had things just right we would likely remove the ‘Under Construction’ page about five minutes before Jesus returns!
2. As someone has said, we abide by the motto, “Embrace the chaos!”
Any living, vital movement of God’s Spirit is going to be by definition fairly messy. Plan, yes, but be ready for our plans to be messed with by both the imperfections of life on ‘Planet Fear’ and, on the other hand, the great things God is up to. As we launch new churches, there is an especially strong need to willing to flex with change coming our way.
3. We quite possibly need your input!
This site is all about the practical application of church launching wisdom. Those who are gaining wisdom as they live it out have much to share. Between this site and others, at the time of this writing, approximately 150,000 are reading these postings, blogs, articles. If you have something worthwhile to say, send it our way!
4. As the sage guru who preceded even Yoda, Pah on the Beverly Hillbillies, “Ya’ll come on back now!”
Check in to this site as well as several of the sites that grab your attention on the side margins - at least weekly. We update each of these several times a week if not daily.
A Bit About Steve Sjogren
Steve & Janie Sjogren have been planting churches throughout the US and Europe for the past 25 years. They have planted / helped plant successful churches in Los Angeles, Oslo, Norway (yes, they speak fluent Norwegian – that comes in pretty handy on a regular basis in Tampa!), Baltimore, Cincinnati and now Tampa. Their primary focus, upon reflection, has become clearly the establishing of a large church or two then the rolling out of a cluster of churches in the general area.
ChurchPlanting.com is designed to assist the pioneers, self-starters, and called people who will regenerate the church in the coming years by planting new churches. It is designed to nurture, support, resource and encourage church planters.
