Changes Coming

I am in the process of revamping the content that I post on my blog in the future. Until recently, I have been posting message notes on Monday from my sermon the previous day, a church planting/church growth article on Wednesday and a “Friends & Family” post on Friday that is primarily a list of links and sights regarding items of curiosity and/or interest to those who know me and/or the ministry work I do.

Since I’m not preaching anywhere at the present time, I’ve been wondering what path I should pursue, specifically what I should post here on Mondays. That led me to consider whether or not I change the other content, too.

So I’m up for suggestions: what would you like to find here? how often? If you are a frequent visitor here, what have you enjoyed most? Please send me your thoughts over the coming week in the comments section below. Next week I’ll begin to incorporate some of your ideas on my site.

As Frasier Crane used to say, “I’m listening…”

Thank You, BCM/D!

Today marks the completion of my eighth year with the Baptist Convention of Maryland/ Delaware! Wow, I am as amazed by that fact as any of you out there. This is the longest I’ve ever “worked” on one ministry assignment in my life. Some of you probably thought I wasn’t a good match for the work here (I wondered that early on); some of you probably thought I’d be elsewhere by now (I’ve had those moments too). But I still believe with all my heart that God called me here to lead our church planting effort and that He’s not through using me to expand His kingdom in this way.

We’ve seen some success over these years. Over 220 churches have been started. Thousands of people have become followers of Christ. Families have been transformed by Jesus. Communities have been impacted by the love of our Lord. Churches have become engaged in larger Kingdom priorities here and even around the world. All of these things are reasons for rejoicing.

I want to thank God for the privilege of serving here. It’s been a blessing and a joy to learn from Him and to serve His people in this region.

I thank my wife and children for their support and encouragement in joining me in fulfilling the call of God upon our lives, which led us here from Boston in 2001.

I thank Dr. Lee, our Executive-Director, for “taking a chance” on me and believing I was the one God wanted to serve with him here in the ministry of church planting. And I thank the rest of the staff–the missionaries and the support staff–for the privilege and opportunity they’ve given me to partner with them in the joint ministry we share here in the Mid-Atlantic area.

I thank the churches of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware for the honor of serving them. I love the pastors and the people God has here in these congregations! They have richly blessed my life. And I especially am thankful for those in the churches where I have served as an interim pastor: you have helped me grow in my walk with the Lord as we’ve journeyed together on the path God set before us.

And I thank the church planters, whom I’ve had the privilege to know and serve over these eight years. You are my heroes–your courage, faith, determination and creativity, among many other things, have made my spirit soar as I’ve watched what God has done through you.

There are others, too, of course, in the larger Christian community that have blessed my life immensely over these eight years, including those of you who over the past eleven months have started to read and comment on this blog. Thanks; I am humbled by you and the way you have all blessed my life.

Now on to year nine and beyond, as the Lord allows! One thing I know: every day is an exciting adventure with the Lord Jesus Christ. While there are twists and turns along the journey, the walk is deep and rich, and meaningful every step of the way.

I can’t wait to see what God’s going to show us all next. To Him be the glory!

Fridays are for Friends & Family 03.27.09

Well, we’ve made it to Friday again, friends, and you know what that means: a trip around the web to see what’s been happening elsewhere.  This week’s trip will be more serious than most.

In recent weeks there has been a focus by other bloggers on what’s been happening within my own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. There’s far too much being said to cover in one post, so I’ll just list a number of links that have been garnering attention in my world.  By far the “hottest” name in the blogosphere on this topic this week has been Michael Spencer, aka Internet Monk, who has written a two-part commentary on SBC decisions and consequences in Avoiding Death by Nostalgia (part 1) and the follow up article, entitled A Great Commission Resurgence (part 2) .

Dr. Alvin Reid of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary recently posted a timely and discerning post that I have said elsewhere needs to be read by everyone within my denomination. It is entitled “I Have a Problem” and can be found by clicking here.

Baptist21, another noteworthy blog, recently posted a two part series that speaks to the concerns of younger generation Southern Baptists. Entitled “3rd Generation Conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention” (part one) and again in a subsequent article (part 2).

My own friend and colleague David Phillips on his blog wrote a response to the Internet Monk regarding a previous article suggesting the coming collapse of evangelicalism. In that article Phillips suggests implications for the SBC if iMonk’s predictions turn out to be true. You can read about his comments in “If iMonk is right, What does the SBC Look Like?” here.

And finally some hopefully good news: Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research is referenced in an article found in USA Today yesterday, suggesting that the SBC has the opportunity to be more evangelistic in the coming years because the people of our society are not as opposed to us sharing our faith as we’ve previously thought. That article can be found here. This is encouarging, since the SBC’s purpose and heartbeat for decades–maybe from its very inception–has been evangelism and missions.

It’s time to recapture our founders’ vision and focus on the mission. It’s the only way our denomination will once again thrive in coming years.

What do you think?

Dan Kimball Coming to Town

Just a heads up for all of you out there who are interested: Dan Kimball, church planter, pastor, author, blogger and one of the leading voices among younger evangelicals in America, will be with us here in Columbia, Maryland, on Tuesday, May 12.  “A Day with Dan Kimball” will focus on what’s happening among emerging generations and why they are disappearing from our church.

During the day Dan will talk about “the emerging church” and discuss its developments, including the differences taking place within the movement (including why he personally no longer uses the term “emerging church). In addition, Dan will discuss how churches are viewing themselves as missional and what that means to the average pastor and church in terms of a variety of things, including leadership, evangelism, preaching, worship and even facilities.

Dan will speak a portion of the day addressing some of the concerns that the emerging culture in America has in regards to Christians in particular and the church in general. These criticisms includes perceptions that the church is judgmental, homophobic, anti-intellectual and oppressive of females. He will conclude with thoughts about what we as the church can do about it without compromising the Scripture or truth.

Dan serves as founding planter/pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California. He has written a number of cutting edge books, including The Emerging Church, Emerging Worship and most recently, They Like Jesus but Not the Church. He is currently completing his Doctor of Ministry degree from George Fox Seminary. For more information about Dan, you can go to his own blog here.

The event is open to the public. The cost is $50 per person. To register or for more details about location, click here.

Fridays are for Friends & Family 03.20.09

Welcome, everyone, to a “March Madness” edition of my blog. Today is the first Friday of the NCAA tournaments and there’s a lot of attention on the basketball games over the next few days. So far, there’s only been one “upset” (Western Kentucky over Illinois…sorry Big Ten). If you haven’t made your predictions yet, even though you’re a little late you can find the Men’s chart here and the Women’s chart here, along with a “Bracketology” explanation for beginners. My Final Four: Louisville, Memphis, Pitt and North Carolina. I’m picking Memphis to win it all; what about you?

On a related note, I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to all of you who voted for me in the SBC Blog Madness contest at SBCVoices.com. I am honored to have been included in the fellowship of those others whose blogs are referenced in the contest. If you haven’t voted for this blog, you can still do it by clicking here, anytime before 9:00pm on Sunday evening.

Are you a LOST television fan? I’ve been hooked on it since its very first season. If you are (there are no spoilers here), then you might be interested in reading what Christianity Today has written about it and the parallels recently found to the work of a very popular Christian artist. Click here to read what they suggest has influenced the show’s storyline.

Are Southern Baptists “the new Methodists?” And what is meant by that? Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (a Southern Baptist school) recently suggested that in a chapel address he gave at the seminary. You can read his thoughts here.

My deepest thanks go out to Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas, who did an outstanding job in sharing wisdom and insights on church planting and church systems with us earlier this week here in Maryland. Most of you are aware of Nelson’s website, ChurchLeaderInsights.com. You can access it here to find a great deal of material that could be of assistance to you in your ministry. However, what many church planters do not know is that Nelson has another site specifically for you: it’s churchfromscratch.com. I encourage you to go there by clicking here and you will find countless documents and other items that can be of use to you in your ministry.

This week’s video comes from my own family life: my daughter, Rebekah, is in the Preparatory Strings of the Annapolis Youth Orchestra. She plays violin and sits directly in front of the conductor (the actual center of this video). The musical number is the finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which the Strings performed a week ago here in the area.

Podcast of the week

Joel Rainey, a colleague here in Maryland, gave me the privilege of doing his very first interview on the popular book he has written entitled “Planting Churches in the Real World.” You can listen to the podcast or download it here; you can also buy his book if you have not done so by clicking here or going to Amazon.com.

Church Planting Website of the week

SonRise Church in Berlin is one of my favorite church planting stories of this decade. The church, planted by founding pastor Daryl McCready (seen at the right with his family), is a leader in baptisms every year, has grown to several hundred in attendance and has planted multiple churches already. Check out their website here and read about what God is doing there.

More Nelson Searcy Today

This is just a heads up that the LIVE BLOGGING with Nelson Searcy will continue today, Wednesday March 18. Nelson will be teaching his evangelism seminar from 9:00am-Noon and his stewardship seminar from 1:30-4:30pm. I will continue blogging from both of these training events in the same way I blogged yesterday from his LAUNCH church planter training. First post should go up no later than 9:30am; check back then for information. And you can follow this on Twitter as well; my name there is “bcmddavid.”

Nelson Searcy LAUNCH Conference Later Today

Just a short post here to let you know that throughout the day today I will be doing LIVE BLOGGING of the Nelson Searcy one day church planting conference. The conference starts at 9:00am EDT and ends around 4:00pm EDT. You can check back here throughout the day to find what Nelson has said.

The conference is being held at White Marsh Baptist Church in Perry Hall (Baltimore), Maryland. The first post should be up no later than 9:30am this morning.  Catch ya later!

SBC Blog Madness

Well, here’s a first. SBC Voices is a website run by several authors who compile what pastors and leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention are saying and writing on their blogs and then stream their feeds for easy access to the potential reader. You can find their home page here. This year they have (again) posted a “contest,” built off the format of the NCAA College Basketball tournament concept, in which they select what they consider the 64 most significant blogs in SBC life (this is largely subjective, they readily admit). Anyway, the long and the short of it is this: this blog made the list of 64…barely! It appears it was the last one added. But regardless, it’s in the tourney. According to the site, here’s how the determination was made:

About the Selection Process

The top rankings  were based largely on the following factors. Some are very subjective, while others easy to verify.

• My observations of that blog over the last 12 months
• What others have said about SBC blogs (Stetzer – Puryear)
• High comment counts
• Posting consistency and quality
• PageRank from Google and Yahoo back links
• Authority rank from technorati.com
• Performance in 2008 SBC Blog Madness
• Bloggers influence on other social media (Twitter & Facebook)
• How I expect them to perform in this tournament

So, here’s where I need your help. To stay in the tournament (or more important than that, to be added to the regular “feed” of the most influential SBC blogs at this site), I need your vote. YOU CAN VOTE FOR THIS BLOG BY CLICKING HERE. It is in the West Division (I haven’t a clue why!)

All the rules are below on voting. Note that you can only vote once from computers with the same IP address. But if there are others of you at an office somewhere that want to vote for this blog, you can email Tony at Tony@SBCvoices.com and he will manually add you to the contest.

2009 SBC Blog Madness Official Rules

• It’s my [SBC Voices] contest, so what I say = the rules.
• You are free to vote your conscience. I would expect most people will vote for who they like or who most influences them. But you can also vote for the rival or your rival.
• The voting is restricted by IP address. So, one vote per internet connection. If you work in a large office or use your school’s internet then you may need to manually email your vote to me. Tony@SBCvoices.com
• You are encouraged to stump for votes in the comments, on your blog, twitter, facebook, pulpit, etc. If you are too shy for self-promotion, then you might want to rethink this whole blogging thing.
• The top 40 voted blogs will be added to the SBC voices watch list.
• Each round will last about a week. Four blogs from each division will advance to the second round (sixteen total). One blog from each division will advance to the final round.
• The winner will receive a $313 gift card to Westminster Books via email. This prize was donated by my children’s ministry blog and earned via the Westminster blog partners program.

If this blog were to “win” (highly unlikely, but just in case), the gift card would be given to a church planter who has been supportive of Moving at the Speed of God in the past.  Voting ends around NEXT SUNDAY, March 22, so vote early and encourage others to vote too. And as always, thanks again for your support!

Fridays are for Friends & Family 03.13.09

Friday again, and thus, time for more news and views from around the web.  We’ll start with the video overviewing our own organization’s church planting strategy. This was put out a few years ago (watch for the “beard-less” me), but we still follow the strategy outlined here. As a result, we have seen over 200 churches planted so far during this decade, so you might find it interesting. Check it out here:

Rev. Tullian Tchividjian

It was reported this week that the church previously pastored by the late Dr. D. James Kennedy will now be led by one of the grandsons of Billy Graham. It’s a part of the subsequent merger of Coral Ridge and New City churches. You can read about that here.

SBC Voices is this week starting their March (blog) Madness and, I’m excited to report, that we made “the SBC blog bubble list” (#38) in our first year of existence. You can vote to keep us in the tournament here, if you like.  And even if you don’t you’ll find a list of what they consider the 94 most influential blogs in SBC life at this link, so check it out.

In addition the same site has posted a link to ChristianAudio.com which offers FREE downloads of Christian books each month. In March, you can download Donald Whitney’s book on Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by clicking here.

My daughter, Sarah, who is in university studies at Kwantlen in Vancouver, British Columbia, is a journalism student. She has her own blog and this week posted her first sports writing story, of which we are all justifiable proud. If you like hockey and/or would like to see what she wrote, you can find it here. Way to go, Sarah!!!

Podcast of the Week

Dr. David Lee

This podcast with executive-director David Lee of our own organization has been the most popular podcast MSG has done to date. Why? Probably because he forecasts some of the issues and trends he believes will impact church planting in the future. You can listen or download it here.

Church Plant Website of the Week

John Willis

Check out the website of Iron Hill Community Church in New Castle, Delaware and see why founding Pastor John Willis and the congregation there are our largest church planting congregation in northern Delaware this decade.

RSS Feed Available

Hey everyone, just an FYI to let you know three things:

1. An RSS feed is now available for my site.  You’ll find it in the sidebar on the right for those of you who are interested in subscribing to the blog; and,

2. There won’t be a “Monday Morning Rewind” today, since I did not preach yesterday and there’s no message to re-present.

3. If you haven’t done so yet, check out our podcast with Ed Stetzer at http://multiplyingchurches.libsyn.com.  It’s….different (if you know Ed you’ll understand) but worth your time and effort.

I’ll be back on Wednesday to talk about what to look for in a potential planter (or pastor)…

Until then!