Mike Breen of 3dm wrote a VERY timely post on this dilemma.

I challenge you to read Breen’s post and record these things in two columns.
1) The names of servants in your church
2) The servants who could be released from the church walls for greater Kingdom impact

Challenging? Indeed.

Cross Training Church- Jay & Del Vigil, a current Frontline resident couple, are seeing people come to know Christ through physical training. They are their core team have been meeting in a home for months and have seen God adding to their number through relational evangelism. Their core team has outgrown their home and will now use the Vanguard facilities to gather with their core team.

Several weeks back at the Vanguard baptism we witnessed Jay baptizing a couple who have come to know Christ and begun the process of training them to be multipliers. They shared how much God had changed their lives and how they understood that He wants to use THEM to bring others to know his name. Wow!

Frontline Leadership Team- Over the past season I have been praying for God to help us assemble a team of the right godly men to help Frontline grow in strategy & sustainability. God has brought two of these men to our team. They will serve as directional support and help us effectively implement new ideas.

MULTIPLY Conference- We are VERY excited about our MULTIPLY Conference Nov 2&3 here at Vanguard. Our theme this year is “Making the Shifts.” We will unpack the shift from STATIC TO SENT CHURCH and from ADDING TO MULTIPLYING CHURCH. We aim to create an environment that can both network & equip churches to multiply disciples > leaders > churches more effectively. Alan Hirsch, Caesar Kalinowski & Hugh Halter will come in as specialists from the West in addition to a great list of local practitioners. Sign ups will be out soon right here on our site.

Cultivate Learning Track- We continue to grow each month from the depth of our times together in Cultivate. One weekend a month we hear from a local practitioner in a key area of life & ministry. The last few months we have unpacked Missionary Evangelism, wrestled with failure in our Epic Fail Roundtable, heard very practical processes for conveying vision & this month we will hear from 3 different churches on varying group discipleship strategies.

Shift starts when people move from one reality or status quo to another. Theory is not enough. We must hear victory stories from those who have lived out the good news and seen it not only stick but multiply. There are a handful of shifts we could focus on but we, as Frontline Church Planting, want to focus on 2 of these in 2012.

STATIC to SENT & ADDITION to MULTIPLICATION

To see a shift to a sent church we must both celebrate the reaching power of our churches and re-create adaptable systems for this to be lived out in all areas of our churches. To see a shift to a multiplying church we must celebrate multiplication of disciples on all levels and build it into our church structures at every level.

Our high water mark for this momentum toward SHIFT in 2012 will be our MULTIPLY Conference November 2nd & 3rd in Colorado Springs. We will gather in various venues during these two days to talk on both the theory & practicality of how these shifts can happen.

Our speakers come exclusively from the West as they speak into how they are part of the SHIFTing process.
Alan Hirsch will bring his extensive experience with the study of movements and implementation of shifting back to more adaptable forms of Church in search of that movement here in the U.S. Alan is the author of many books including The Shaping of Things to Come and The Forgotten Ways which have been reality-shifting pieces for the church in the last 10 years.

Hugh Halter is a church planter in Denver and gives voice to the church as both a gathered and sent organism. His evangelistic heart calls churches back to the reality that disciple-making should set our eyes on those who don’t know Jesus yet. Hugh has authored several books including The Tangible Kingdom (and the accompanying Primer) & The Gathered AND Scattered Church.

Caesar Kalinowski is a missional strategist for Soma Communities in Tacoma, WA and consults for churches all over. He pipes out the message of a DNA of discipleship and helps leaders implement a culture of discipleship in their church communities.

Local practitioners from the Front Range will talk practically about how their faith communities have gained traction in these shifts.

Mark your calendars for these two days of networking with leaders & learning from practitioners. More info & sign-ups to come very soon!

When I say missional communities I am referring to “mission-based communities of the Church focused on bringing the gospel through Word and deed to a place or people group”.

Here are a few of the takeaways from our discussion on missional communities…

THEY TAKE TIME & ENERGY. We like the right here and the right now, but mission-based communities take time. They are a paradigm SHIFT for those who have grown up in the Church and this takes time to experience and grow into. If we we about community transformation then we must expect to be rooted in this area for the long haul in order to see systemic change.

THEY NEED TO FOCUS ON DIFFERENT NEEDS. Those who have been in the local church might have more of a need to be launched into “doing mission” instead of just “talking mission” while those who have never been discipled might have more of a need for biblical study. These different needs require a constant balance and an understanding of the seasons.

INTIMACY AND MISSION CAN BE A TOUGH BALANCE. There is no clean way to mix existing intimacy and group dynamics with the reality that new folks in that community will bring a different vibe. This is not necessarily oil and water, but it will require a different mix for each group. Mission brings us closer but hopefully not unreachably close.

MULTIPLICATION OF GROUPS MUST BE INTENTIONAL. If groups are intended to multiply it must be built into the DNA from the start, talked about often and celebrated when it happens. Most church small groups perceive new groups as division instead of multiplication. If this goal is talked about from day 1 the reality of multiplication can involve a momentary grief that births a long-term victory.

We will be having more learning discussions on missional communities a few times each year. Contact us if you are interested in joining these.

This weekend we are gathering to see what it looks like to be people who are Kingdom investors. A few months ago our intensive focused on personal stewardship while this intensive will focus on imparting this theology of money to the faith families that we are part of.

If you are interested in attending this weekend you can contact us through the ‘contact’ tab at the top.

Roughly 60 spiritual leaders gathered this past weekend to hear stories of God’s redemptive work, discuss how their lives have been shaped, pray for one another & ask God to redefine our faulty views of success.

Here are the key reasons that I believe this weekend was glorifying to our Father & encouraging to those attending.

BRUTAL HONESTY You cannot talk about failure without talking about the accompanying emotions. Let’s face it; these emotions can be brutal. The presenters courageously shared their stories and, maybe even more courageously, shared the emotions and thoughts that they processed during these times. There were no pleasantries, no fluff- just real stories of faith through the struggle.

GODWARD STORIES The presenters (storytellers & experts) did an amazing job of sharing their stories but not making it about them. They framed what happened in their lives while also framing the goodness and redemption of our God.

RELATIONAL CONNECTION People didn’t just hear stories; they got to share them with one another. It was incredible to watch people connect during the weekend, eat lunch together, pray for one another & share communion. This truly was a diverse, yet unified, picture of the Bride of Christ.

THE HOLY SPIRIT Without the thick covering of the Holy Spirit an event like this cannot succeed. We were aware, even during the event, that the Spirit was at work confirming, revealing & challenging us. What a beautiful thing to see God’s people submitting to God’s whispers!

Look for our Epic Fail reflections video in the coming weeks to get a different vantage of this event. We are praying that others would start small Epic Fail events in their region in order to see vulnerable networks arise among spiritual leaders. Please contact us if you are interested in making this a reality in your context.

Since that conversation I have come to realize that this will be a defining issue for Christian leaders in the coming years. Many will want to plant churches, quit jobs they hate or enter the foreign mission field but will not do so because they are simply trapped. This is a HUGE deal!

This weekend we hosted an intensive called ‘Church Leaders and Their Finances’. 27 of us gathered to dig deep in the Bible and ask, “What does the Bible actually say about money?” We talked through debt, budgeting, spending & generosity. To my knowledge there is no church planting training centering around biblical stewardship (if I’m wrong I would love to know who else is doing it). It was deeply impacting to discuss these biblical principles and move to the next question of, ‘How can I practically apply these principles?’

So where do we go from here? March 23rd & 24th we are doing an intensive called, “Imparting a Theology of Money to your Church”. This is for leaders of churches, small groups, ministries or future plants that want to go beyond personal stewardship and create a culture of this in their church. I will be posting in the near future about this.

- Resident Couples Both resident couples are getting more vision for what God has for their future in making disciples through church planting. One couple has identified a possible area for the plant and continues to get staff experiences, opportunities to preach in various venues, access to a broad network or leaders in our city & growth in their knowledge base. Our other couple has a core group that is accidentally growing as people come to know Jesus for the first time & even join in our trainings to be equipped.

- Cultivate Learning Track Cultivate continues to be a highlight of the month for me as around 30 folks read a book each and gather for teaching & dialogue over a specific topic. This month the topic was ‘What is the Church?’ and we delved into the collective mission of the Church & mandates for church leadership. In February we will focus on missionary evangelism.

- New Churches New expressions of the Church are popping up in the Springs and Denver Metro area, even one from a couple involved in our Vanguard family. We are starting to see new churches not as focused on gathering as a whole, but on being in smaller groups of people on mission to reach subcultures for Jesus. There is unity rising among new & semi-new church plants here in the Springs as we try to reach new people in our city.

Upcoming Equipping Events
We are always trying to scratch the itch that leaders want & need to learn about. This Thursday the 19th & Saturday the 21st we are putting on an intensive called ‘Church Leaders & their Finances’. This will be an 8 hour stewardship training and we already have around 30 folks signed up! Get more info at at the ‘Equipping’ tab

Epic Fail Roundtable This is an event we are hosting to bring vulnerability to our network of leaders. Some folks will share their stories of failure or perceived failure and how God shaped them through this. Others will share on why failure grips us so deeply, but everyone will be able to interact, pray & discuss God’s grace on our lives. This is coming up March 2nd & 3rd. Spots are limited so get more info and sign up at www.frontlinechurchplanting.com/training

I would love to answer any other questions you might have about opportunities to be trained, network with planters and leaders or anything else you would like to talk about.

Kingdom come,
Alan, Frontline Director

If you’re a church planter you’ve heard the stats. I can’t speak for the whole country, but here in Colorado’s Front Range we hear the stat all too often that over 85% of church plants fail. That’s right- FAIL. They cease to exist, and the families regroup, head a different direction & try to make sense of why they took such a huge risk. The fail rate is pretty similar for new business ventures. Studies also tell us that more marriages fall apart than make it these days, even within the Church. All of these percentages mean that our churches are full of people dealing with epic failures of family, ministry, friendships or finances and probably feeling like one. And sadly, I don’t believe anyone is talking about it.

We have held the world’s view of success so high within church families that we have forgotten about the other F word- faithfulness. It seems like every conference, blog or book focuses on how it worked for others and it can work for you too. Chances are if you’re studying up on those folks and their success you’re trying to make it work for you as well. Don’t get me wrong; studying others is a great way to learn and seek excellence. I am more concerned by the status quo of finding success or having to make an escape into the shadows.

I just don’t think that’s how God sees us.

In dreaming about a network of leaders & churches here in Colorado I began to envision people who could share what was ACTUALLY going on in their life, ministry, family, church & heart instead of pretending to be successful. I sat around a table eating sushi with some leaders in our city this week and it turned into just that. We were praying for each other as brothers deeply concerned for what was below the surface.

Moments like this confirm our risk to host Epic Fail Roundtable on March 2nd & 3rd. We can’t wait! 7 people will share their stories of failure and 3 others will dig deeper into what’s behind failure. We truly believe this will be a benchmark event for Frontline and for many leaders in Colorado. No podcast, no big names, no big hype- just a gathering of people who want to take a risk in community. There are still more spots open, but we are capping this event at 80 folks so check out our Epic Fail Roundtable info page and sign up.

Derrick, what is the vision of Process Skateboard Ministry?
We want to see kids come from the darkness of the skate culture into the light of Jesus. We live this out through building relationships, teaching the bible, and putting on big events that get their attention so we can disciple them. Alethia Church is our primary partner in this ministry.

What is some of the fruit you are seeing through your efforts?
We just baptized two kids, my living room is full every Tuesday night for Skate Church. We are seeing kids kick smoking & alcohol addictions and get jobs. It’s those little things that we’re really looking for.

How long have you been ministering with PSM?
I have been doing skate ministry in some fashion for about 10 years, but we have had a presence in Colorado Springs for about two years.

Tell us more about “Loud & Clear Skate Jam” that you organized in August
This event was at Memorial Skate Park in downtown Colorado Springs. 6 churches, 4 skate shops, multiple business vendors & a tattoo shop helped us to put this on. Almost 2,000 people showed up for this event & we cooked about 1,500 hot dogs. Not just skaters were there- moms & dads showed up too. Christian Hosoi and a few other pro skaters shared their story of faith in Jesus Christ and invited kids to respond. We saw about 200 kids raise their skateboards in the air to get saved after hearing Christian Hosoi’s message.

How can others connect to Process?
Email me at skateprocess@yahoo.com or show up at Briargate YMCA park on Tuesday nights from 4-8 or the Memorial Skate Park on Fridays from 7-10.