It was, to say the least, an interesting process.  Lafitte, like New Orleans, actually sits below sea level and is in the middle of a swamp.  As is much of south Louisiana, it is essential that the foundation of a building is prepared correctly.  Because of this, we brought in hundreds of truckloads of dirt and raised the building site to six feet above sea level.  Then, we had huge pile drivers pound one hundred and fifty creosoted telephone poles deep into the earth until they actually disappeared under the ground.  Next, strategic ditches were dug over the telephone poles to form rebar reinforced beams, steel mesh was placed to cover the entire foundation area, and a solid concrete floor was poured over all these components. It was a strong foundation.

      The foundation was to be severely tested nearly 30 years later by hurricanes Katrina, Ike and finally Gustav.  After Gustav, the town of Jean Lafitte was completely underwater—except for Barataria Baptist Church that was built upon a strong, firm foundation.  Although wind and rain battered the church building and did some damage, the church was not flooded.

      A new church plant must be planted on a firm foundation.  The planter is a key element of the church plant foundation.  But, there are additional elements that are important if the church plant is to be a healthy and reproducing church.

      A sound strategy or plan is an additional component of a strong church plant foundation.  Strategy starts with vision but will die there without implementing the appropriate next steps.  I want to share two fundamental ideas about strategy:

·         Strategy is biblical.  You can find God’s strategy in creation and redemption.  Nehemiah is a great strategy model.  Jesus had a definite strategy that included selection of apostles as He moved toward the cross.  Paul strategized as he chose key cities to begin churches.

·         Strategy is not difficult.  It is like planning a vacation trip with a map.  You determine where you are and you know where you want to go.  You plan what you need to do before the trip and what you need to do during the trip in order to reach your destination.  That’s strategy.

      But, when we are talking about the blueprint for a new church plant, there are some significant elements that are foundational.  Without these elements, the plant most likely will be unsuccessful at worst and unhealthy at best.

      What are these foundational elements?  The key foundational element is a called by God church planter.  Many church plants fail because the planter was not called.

      Church planting is hard.  It is similar to the difficulty of being an international missionary.  If you drill down deep enough, the reason that international missionaries sometimes fail is because they have not experienced a call.  When the going gets tough and they use up all of their personal resources, they fail.  This is true of church planters, too.  The testimony of many international missionaries as well as successful church planters is that sometimes the ministry gets tough—too tough to humanly sustain the passion and effort to get the job done.  In those times, it’s the call that gives the missionary or church planter the strength to go on.

      Most denominations require rigorous assessment of all candidates who are seeking resources to plant a church.  In all of these assessments, calling is an important attribute that the planter must possess.

      What is a calling?  How do you define it?  Those that have been called into ministry understand that a calling is an inner understanding that drives the individual to know that God wants you to take a certain course of action in following Him.  It is usually accompanied by a great passion, some talents and the affirmation of other believers.  It is a strong understanding that this is what God wants you to do.  If you have this calling, you will know it.  If you do not have a calling to plant a church, you are doomed to failure.

      Over the years, I have had conversations with numerous people who think they might like to plant a church.  Some were unemployed, some had had a bad experience with their present or former church, and some have had difficulties with trying to change a church.  These are not good reasons for planting a church.  The only reason for planting a church is because God has called you to be a church planter.  The other side of the coin is that if God is calling a person to be a church planter, he will never be satisfied until he is doing His will.  If you are called to plant a church, I hope you will move forward and follow God’s will for your life.

      Church planting requires careful attention to preplanning.  A “blueprint” must be developed.  There are many aspects of a healthy church that should be planned even before the first service is begun.

      Often I meet with perspective church planters who are so excited and extremely committed to planting a church.  But after talking with them, I see that they are enthralled with the idea and know the importance of planting churches, but they have never really given much thought about all the components that go into the planting of a successful, healthy church plant.

      So, how do you begin the church planting process?  You must begin with vision.  You must have a clear picture of what you want the new church to look like and how you want it to function.

      I remember when Lou Anne and I built our home in Hopkinsville.  We had a vague idea of how we wanted our new home to look and what features to incorporate into the new house.  We studied numerous house building project magazines until we found a design that we felt would meet our needs.  We had blueprints developed that included key components.  We wanted a house built on a firm foundation, provide the electric power we needed, provide good plumbing, comfort control, protection from the elements, security, space to meet all our family needs and be attractive.

      Six months after construction began, our new home was ready to occupy.  It was just what we wanted and functioned well for our family.  It looked like the vision we started with before building and had all the systems built-in to make it a successful and functioning dwelling place.

      Church planting is just like that.  You must begin with a vision and you must develop a well-developed blueprint/plan of how to achieve the vision.  Planting a new church requires careful prelaunch preparation.  The health and effectiveness of the new church plant depends on this early planning.

      Next time:  What is the foundation of a new church plant?

     Why?  1)  The United State is a great mission field.  I remember as a young pastor (long time ago when young was last used for me), I heard a number of people say that "if we don't get busy evangelizing and discipling, it won't be long before we will need missionaries to come to the US."  Those days are here!  Every study that defines being a Christian as a personal believer committed to follow Jesus Christ, is telling us that the vast majority of people in the US are not Christ followers.  To put it bluntly, the majority of the US population is lost.  New churches are needed to reach the lost.

2)  The US, for many reasons, has become a huge magnet for a tremendous number of immigrants.  A little over a week ago, the Kentucky Baptist Convention hosted a prayer dinner for people who were working with ethnic people groups in Louisville.  32 individuals came representing work with 19 different ethnic goups.  And this was less than 1/3 of the known ethnic groups that are represented in Louisville. The ethnic groups desperately need new churches.

3)  The US population is gravitating to urban areas.  50% of Americans now live in urban cities and counties.  In most of these urban settings the ratio of population to church has widened tremendously.  The urban areas need new churches.

4)  Areas that used to be strongholds for evangelical Bible-believing churches have experienced huge culture shifts.  Even in places where Southern Baptists have been traditionally strong the population-to-church ratio has risen markedly.  New churches are needed to handle this demographic shift.

5)  The greying of the church is another reason for planting new churches.  Most of our traditional churches  are made up of people 40+ years or older.  We have left several generations behind.  New churches are needed that can connect with the younger generations that are only found in small precentages in our existing churches.  To compound the problem, many of our existing churches, who are generally not happy with the dwindling number of young adults in their congregations, either will not make changes to attract these generations or are unable to do so.  The answer, new churches that will target the young adults that are far from God.

     I could go on...but it should be clear that new churches are needed.  And it is the responsibility of existing churches to plant, partner and sponsor these new churches. 

     What about your church?  Has it planted, sponsored or partnered with a new church in the last twenty years?  For the majority of our churches the answer is "no".  In fact, most churches have not even thought about planting a new church.

     Maybe now is the time to begin discussions on planting a new church.

     This Saturday, August 16, at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, a Super Saturday Event will be conducted.  Many conferences will be held during the day.  One of the conferences that will be offered is entitled Partners in Planting.  This will be a conference that will look at the why's of church planting and the different ways a local church can sponsor or partner with a church plant.  If you would like to attend Super Saturday in Lexington or in any of the other locations on August 23, September 6 and 13, you can call 502  4 89-3572 or email   supersaturday@kybaptist.org  and register or find out a list of conference offerings.

            We are facing massive lostness in the Louisville area.  It is urgent that we do whatever it takes to reach the lost of Louisville.  Certainly this will include helping and encouraging our Bible believing and practicing churches be more effective in their reaching out to the lost.  However, it also must be recognized, that the vast majority of existing churches are in survival mode and are not looking much past the walls of their own church buildings.  That leaves the greatest hope for reaching Louisville for Christ in the hands of church planting.  Without the planting of many new churches the lostness figures will increase even more.  Churches in Louisville must get serious about planting churches in this city!

     However, all indications seem to point to prayer as not being a significant part of the life of most believers and the majority of pastors.  Our mid-week prayer meetings have evolved into watered down hospital prayer list praying that often sounds more like gossip sessions than genuine praying.  Often, names and needs are made known and some generic prayer is offered.  Most times, if God answered those prayers we might never know it because of the lack of specifity in our praying,

     Do we really believe that there is a need to pray or that there is power in praying?  I heard of a man that wanted to open a tavern in a small town.  The local churches got wind of his application for a license and began praying that God would intervene and keep the tavern from opening.  Two days prior to the opening, lightening hit the tavern and it burned to the ground.

     The potential tavern operator was incensed.  He filed a lawsuit against the churches for their praying and asking God to keep the tavern from opening.  The churches hired a lawyer that argued that their prayers had nothing to do with the lightening strike.  The judge, during his judgement, said:  "This is very confusing to me.  It appears that the churches do not believe in the power of prayer and the tavern owner does!"

     Christian leaders must pray regularly for themselves, for personal needs, and for spiritual focus.  There are many elements of prayer that I could focus on during this post.  But I have chosen to emphasize three areas for prayer.  First, I believe that Christian leaders need to pray for spiritual renewal of our churches and our own lives.  All indications are that 80% of our churches are plateaued or declining.  Weak and unhealthy churches are that way because they have spiritually weak and spiritually unhealthy believers.  We must make praying for spiritual renewal (beginning with self) a priority.

     A second area of prayer focus is spiritual awakening.  The majority of people in America are spiritualy lost.  Most Americans do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  This is true for the world, also.  Let me say that in another way:  most of the 6 billion plus people that inhabit planet earth are going to spend an eternity in Hell.  Believers are incapable of reaching this world without divine intervention.  We must pray for a spiritual awakening.

      A third area of prayer focus should be for lost people individually, by name.  Every believer needs to be praying for lost people by name.  In our times in prayer at our churches we need to be praying specifically for lost people by name.

     During the last three years, the Kentucky Baptist Convention and the Kentucky Baptist Associations have sponsored a September prayer emphasis.  The first year, KBC staff did a Pray the Perimeter (of Kentucky) Tour and made stops in thirty plus associations for special prayer meetings.  The next year, KBC staff were hosted by the rest of the associations for prayer meetings in what was known as Pray the Interior.  Last year, the emphasis was called Praying with One Voice Simultaneous Prayer Meetings.  Each Association organized a special prayer meeting at the same hour across the state for this simultaneous time of prayer.

     In each of these prayer meeting emphases, there were four focuses for our praying.  We were praying for spiritual awakening, praying for spiritual renewal, praying for the lost by name, and praying for our church leadership (with a special focus on praying for pastors and staff).

     This September, the KBC is asking it's churches to devote their September 10 prayer meetings to praying "With One Voice", praying for the four areas mentioned above.  Each church will shortly recieve a packet of materials with suggestions and visual aids to help with these meetings.  These materials can also be accessed by going to www.kybaptist.org/onevoice

      My hope is that each Baptist leader will move his/her prayer life to a new level of intensity and that each church will pray with urgency for Kentucky and the world.

     The charge against the church at Sardis by our Lord is "thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead" (Rev.3:1).  Dr. Johnny Hunt, newly elected President of the SBC, said at our Pastor's Conference that 11,000 SBC churches did not baptize ONE person last year.  That means, if they preached two sermons a week, then 1,144,000 sermons were delivered with NO response.  This is inconceivable to me.  11,000 preachers and thousands of deacons and more thousands of Sunday School teachers, all together for a whole year could not reach and baptize even ONE person.  Something is terribly wrong!

     I am afraid that the goal of too many churches is to meet for an endless succession of "Next Sundays".  Beyond their Sundays lie no vision, no dreams, no sense of mission of doing something great for God.  Napolean said, "men of imagination rule the world".  What a man can conceive and believe, he can achieve.  Too many churches and pastors are not dreaming dreams of doing great things for God.  Too many are satisfied to maintain the status quo.  The truth is, churches must go forward, win souls and grow, or they eventually die. One pastor in our association recently said, "in ten years, 90% of my congregation will be in the grave yard or the nursing home."

     There is a reason why churches sit and die, and alternate reasons why they live and thrive.  Many churches and pastors have lost their vision.  The Scriptures warn "where  there is no vision the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18).  We have lost our sense of mission and mission provides the essential fuel for a church to grow.

     Often, churches die because they lack sufficient faith.  They are afraid to launch out into projects that are within reach of accomplishment.  There are numerous things we could do to reach people with the gospel, but in order to do so would cause us to have to leave our comfort zone.

     Again, churches sit and die because people refuse to change.  They are inflexible.  Many a young pastor has had his heart broken because whatever he tries to do to get things going forward, is voted down.  A poet put it this way: "Our Fathers have been churchmen for a hundred years or so: and to every new proposal the answer is always, NO!"

     Will Rogers was right when he said, "Even if you are on the right track, you get run over if you just sit there."  Brethern, it is time we begin to examine our hearts and our activities, and seek the face of God as to why we are not reaching the lost, and make confession and adjustments necessary to have Revival and see lost souls brought to the Savior.

     Does our church really have life or do we just have a "Name" that we live, and we are dead?

     That's a great question and a right on target commentary.&nbs p;Thanks, Harold! I hope it will impact the churches it was written to.  Unfortunately, I don't see too many "turn around churches".  But I will continue to pray for them.  In the meantime, let's plant new churches with a vision to reach the lost and those far away from God.

     I have also recently been made aware of a church who is seeking affiliation with an association that has in their constitution that they openly support moderate alcohol use.  This appears that it could result in them not being approved for affiliation.  And of course, Baptist Press headlines have been full of stories about the Missouri Baptist Convention and it's recent stand on alcohol.

     So how do I respond to these issues?  I admit, the Jesus turning water to wine miracle is a puzzle to me.  I've heard all the arguments (and used some of them) that it was grape juice and not wine (based on the greek generic word translated wine/grape juice), arguments about the deadly properties of water at the time, and how alcohol wasn't as strong then as now, etc.  Still, it appears to me that Jesus changed water into wine.  However, I am not sure that is a valid argument against abstinence, especially when I know that none of the guests drove home in humvees.

     Here is what I do know: the Bible teaches that abstinence from alcohol is a sign or mark of a godly believer (note the lives of Daniel and John the Baptist along with the Nazarite vow).  The Bible is clear about the dangers of alcohol (Isaiah 28:7; Proverbs 20:1, 23:19-20;29-33).  The Bible condemns drunkeness (Galatians 5:19-21; Proverbs 23:31; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 3:2-3; Epehesians 5:18).  The Bible gives other important justification for abstinence: care of the body (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1); stumbling block for others: (Romans 14:13,21); control of our minds and actions: (1 Peter 1:13, 4:7, 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:6).

     Now, I know that some will throw out the "take a little wine for your stomach" passage and build a case for drinking in moderation.  Come on, there aren't too many kooks out there who find fault with alcohol in medications!

     One of the most intriguing arguments I hear in favor of drinking socially (and that is what this argument is really about, isn't it?) is that drinking in moderation doesn't offend their conscience.  Could that be because Madison Avenue and peer pressure has seared their conscience?  After all, baby boomers down have been plummeted with literally billions of radio, TV, signs, and billboards touting drinking.  And Hollywood and all kinds of magazines have glamorized drinking.  Even Fox News commentators often joke around about their alcohol consumption as if they were greek college students. Maybe it is not God that has made this concession of conscience.

     On top of the biblical evidence that presents me with a good case for abstinence, there are the huge number of alcoholics, deaths, family break-ups and other human tragedies which are attributed in massive numbers to alcohol.  I can't find one good reason for drinking alcohol (oh, I forgot, some think it tastes good).  Alcohol kills, destroys life, leaves scars and robs people of joy.  I cannot fathom why a church would put alcohol or any drugs in a positive light.

     Alright, now I will sit back and embrace myself for the attack of the alcohol proponents.  But before you attack, let me say this:  I do not believe drinking alcohol will send you to hell.  I will not disassociate with someone because they drink socially and I will not limit myself from going anywhere (including a bar) if there is an opportunity to witness.  I will respect the arguments of those who disagree with me.  But my conscience tells me that alcohol is a poison and the church should in no way encourage it's use even with the intense cultural pressure that says drinking is OK.

     And, before you ask.  Yes, I do condemn gluttony!

     This initiative is called God's Plan for Sharing (GPS).  As revealed, GPS has four areas of focus:  praying, engaging, sowing and harvesting.

     The prayer component is a call for Southern Baptists to commit to pray for lost people by name.  Praying can include many strategies: prayer-walking, discovery of the lost, and praying for those engaged in reaching the lost.

     Engaging, the second component, combines witness training for believers and specific efforts to reach those who are far from God.  Strategies would include church planting, starting new Bible study groups and utilizing intentional outreach activities to reach communities with the gospel.

     The third initiative is sowing.  This phase will encourage believers to intentionally share the plan of salvation with those that are lost.

     Lastly, harvesting.  This is described as celebrating the bringing in of the lost.

     My initial reaction is right on!  But, it is nothing new.  It is the track we should have already been on.  And it seems to leave out an important component: discipling.  Of course some of the activities described in the initiative are crucial for discipling--but much is left out in the skeleton of this initiative.  Hopefully, as meat is placed on this skeleton, we will see a relationship to and a plan for discipling.

     Does this mean that I am unenthusiastic about the initiative.  Absolutely not!  I pray every Southern Baptist Church and every Southern Baptist will embrace the challenges of the initiative.  Perhaps if our pastors, church planters, ADOMs and other leaders will use these initiatives to set the agenda for the next 11 years, we will make a genuine and significant impact on reaching our world with the gospel.  I believe we can and I believe it is urgent that we do so.

     During this same period of time I have been conversing by telephone and email with Glen Johnson.  Glen is a house church planter in Ohio who is working with a network of house churches that mostly works with students at Miami of Ohio University.  His network is called Veritas.  Glen has been very helpful in explaining how his process works.

     Back in May, Jim Slack, missiologist for the International Mission Board, SBC presented to our Kentucky Associational Directors of Missions a series of dialogues on lostness in Kentucky and the United States.  He did a series of exercises called "Do the Math" that helped our ADOMs understand the vastness of the lostness in America and what it will take to reach our nation with the Gospel.  He helped us to understand that with our present rate of doing evangelism and church planting it will take several hundreds of years and billions of dollars to just catch up with the population growth.  

     Obviously, we don't have that kind of time or that kind of money.  As Jim suggested, we need to seek God's face and discover what changes we are going to have to make to reach our nation with the Gospel.  He thinks the house church is an important tool in reaching our nations.

     I am going to continue to explore this method of church planting.  I would be grateful to any of the readers of this blog for any information on this subject. 

     Olson shared his research about church attendance in America.  He noted that George Barna says that 47% of Americans say they attend church regularly.  Those of us that travel to and visit many churches know that this statistic doesn't ring true.  In fact, Olson points out that this high percentage is due to what researchers call the "halo effect".  The halo effect is the phenomena that takes place in interviews when people "overstate" their activities.  For instance, after the last presidential election a high percentage of Americans said they voted.  However, the actual counted votes were much less than the number of people who said they had voted.

     Olsen says the halo effect played into Barna's reported results.  Whereas 47% said they attended church regularly, actual attendance records demonstrate that only 17.3% actually were regular attenders in 2006.  What is equally alarming is that the percentage of people attending a Christian Church each weekend has decreased significantly from 1990-2006.  Only one state (Hawaii) has experienced an increase during that timeframe.

     Now, for the really alarming truth:  While the percentage of people attending a Christian church each weekend declined from 1990-2006, there were 91 million plus new people in the US during this same time period.  Total church attendance grew from 1990 (51,110,171) to 51,859,644 in 2006.  That's an increase of nearly three quarters of a million.  But there were 91 plus million new people added to the ranks of the US during the same time!  This indicates that churches have declined far more than most of us have noticed or have cared to know.

     Looking at this in another way, Olson points out:

• One birth in US every 7 seconds
• One death in US every 13 seconds
• One immigrant enters US every 31 seconds
• Net gain: one person every 11 seconds

     In Matthew 9, the Bible speaks of Jesus out visiting the towns and villages.  The Scripture says "he saw the people...".  Do we see the people?  It is time for us to open our eyes and see what is happening to our nation and its churches.  I believe with all my heart that with God's power we can reverse the trend.  But we will never do that if we keep our heads in the sand.

     For more information on the study that I have referenced, go to David Olson's website at www.theamericanchurch.org or you can purchase his excellent book: The American Church in Crisis.

     This year, the department of the MGT that I direct (New Work and Associational Missions) was responsible for the project.  Here is what we did.  Basically we planned an event to highlight the diverse ethnic groups in Louisville.

     I began our time by sharing from an advertisement in a church planting brochure that said this:

                                               In 2006 a photographer

                                                 set out to take a picture

                                                of one child from every

                                                    country on earth.

                                            He was not flying, sailing, or driving.

                                     He was riding the New York subways!

                                             That's right.  Every country on earth is represented

                                        on the streets of New York!

     I couldn't make that claim for Louisville, but I was able to share that there were 72 cou ntries represented in Louisville and perhaps 100 different ethnic people groups.  Then we began our journey.  

     Before we left the building, we heard from an elderly Korean Pastor who humbly described how he came to America after the Korean War to help plant a Korean church near Fort Knox.  He related how that this spread to the planting of numerous Korean churches in Louisville and throughout Kentucky.  Our team gathered around this veteran church planter and his wife and prayed for them.  He also prayed with great emotion and plenty of tears as he thanked God for religious freedom in America and for the Kentucky Baptist Convention and how it had helped him plant Korean churches.

     From there we traveled about two miles from the KBC Building for a tour of a Hindu Temple.  We watched as two priests went through some of their rituals to their gods.  We observed South Asian Indian Hindus that had come to make requests from the idol gods.  We were able to hear a basic belief lecture from a Hindu priest who was very friendly and answered many questions that we posed to him.  It was an eye-opener for many on our team.

     From the temple we traveled to an Indian Restaurant where we had lunch and were given a brief on the South Asian Indian population in Louisville by a former IMB Journeyman that had served in India and was now serving as a Nehemiah Intern.  We heard about their culture and were presented a strategy for reaching Indians in Louisville with the Gospel of Christ.

     Atfter lunch, we traveled to West Louisville to a former anglo church building that is now housing two congregations: one Hispanic and the other an African church.  We heard from the Hispanic pastor as he described the explosive growth of the number of Spanish-speaking who now reside in Louisville.  He shared an encouraging report of the growth of Hispanic churches in Louisville.

     After he shared, we heard from a young couple who was working with Bosnian muslims.  They shared with us about the culture of Bosnians and why they are so hard to reach (primarily because cultural christians had killed many of their families during the wars following the breakup of the Soviet Union).  They shared how important is was to show Bosnians genuine love and what a real Christian looks like.  We gathered around this young couple and their baby and prayed for them as they move forward with this difficult task of reaching Bosnians who are far from God.

     The Mission Growth Team then organized into teams and PrayerWalked the Americana Apartments, home to a huge number of Ethnic groups in Louisville.  As we PrayerWalked, we distributed bags with a bag of popcorn and a simple invitation to visit the Hispanic Church and African Church within easy walking distance.  Over 500 apartments were visited.  This morning the wife of the Hispanic Pastor reported that they had already recieved three phone calls from apartment residents that had recieved the popcorn and wanted more information!

     We returned to the church and heard from another young couple who were working with Somalis.  Again we heard about culture and strategy to reach the lost.  We heard how dangerous it was for Somalis to commit to Jesus.  Survival rate is 6 months on average.  Once again, we gathered around this young couple and their baby and prayed that God would protect them and give them a major breakthrough in reaching the Somalis.    

     We then returned to our vehicles at the KBC building and ended our day.  But it has not ended the impact.  We had some things clearly reinforced during the tour.

• There are thousands of people from first generation groups in Louisville that must hear the Gospel.
• Relationships and the demonstration of authentic Christianity is essential for reaching these that are far from God.
• In the process of reaching out to ethnic groups (and all people), we need to understand the different cultures in order to be effective.
• The amazing number of deeply commited young believers that are giving their lives to reach difficult to reach groups.  How we need to love them, pray for them and resource them.
• We need to be aware of those that are around us.
• It will take all of us working together to reach the ethnic lost and all people who are far from God.
• Prayer is the absolute essential to this process of reaching the lost.  We MUST move our prayerlife to a new level.  

     "Lately I have been restless and dissatisfied.   Mostly with myself.

     By now, I should be much closer to God.

     Why do I worry about things?  After 30 years of ministry, I should have arrived.

     I am restless about the church.  Sixteen to 29 year olds are mostly running away from SBC churches.  It's largely our fault.  They think we are judgemental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), too political (75%), out of touch (72%), boring (68%), confusing (61%), -all of these according to a recent Barna study.  They are often right about us.

     And you know what-I'm going to use my restlessness and dissatisfaction to become a more effective, applicable, useful, and smart DOM.  I don't want to be satisfied with my own mediocrity and the status quo.  I want God to take me to the next level of usefulness and I know He will."

     Thanks Rick.  And I pray that many of us will have a holy dissatisfaction!

     After we determined that Mary was OK, we tried to discover what had caused the items to fall.  We were not able to determine the cause and so the jesting began in earnest about the wooden figurines being possessed and stuff like that.  As I returned to my office, I remembered that I needed to write my blog and I had planned to do it on spiritual warefare (I planned to do this post last week--but the website for my blog would not let me in, hmm).  But really, spiritual warefare is not a joking matter.

     We have a real enemy, and his name is Satan.  In Ephesians chapter 6 verse 11-12, Paul tells us that we have a strong, sneaky and spiritual enemy.  The warfare is real.  Paul makes this point by sharing about the full armor of God that we must put on if we are to engage in this spiritual battle.  Paul certainly believed this struggle truly is a war as demonstrated by the battle dress imagery.

     It only seems like a few months ago (actually 16 months ago) that Lou Anne and I were down at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, saying good-bye to our son Tim who was about to deploy for a third tour in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division.  I remember helping him to pack his rucksack and duffle bag. We carefully packed his helmet, body armor and other articles necessary for war.  It was serious business!

     Just so in the spiritual realm it is serious business as we prepare for spiritual battle by putting on the whole armor of God: belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit.  We are not ready for the battle unless we are armed with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Word.  I am so grateful for going through MasterLife some twenty-six years ago and learning how to dress for spiritual warfare.

     But the battle is not putting on the armor.  The putting on the armor is what we must do to successfully engage in spiritual warfare.  But the putting on of the armor is not the battle.  Paul tells us where spiritual warfare is engaged in Ephesians 6 18ff.  Spiritual warfare is conducted in prayer.  That's where the battle is fought.

     Planter, Pastor, DOM, Christian--spiritual warfare is won only through prayer.  We are all engulfed in spiritual warfare, but we may not have entered the battle.  We may not even be ready to enter the battle.  We need to get ready by putting on the full armor of God and then enter the battle in prayer.  When we do, we will have victory over Satan and all his wiles, "and against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

     As Paul declares"And pray in the Spirit on all occassions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."  Let's get in the battle and pray!

     You can count on four out of five people who recieve your brochure giving at least a look at the first page of your brochure.  Knowing this, you will want to design this page in such a way as to create sufficient interest that will cause the recipient to look at the following page(s).

     It will be helpful if this first page is an accurate reflection of who you are or hope to be as a church.  Pictures and drawings are helpful.  Pictures and drawings of buildings generally detract.  A well phrased title that expresses the benefits of attending your church will be profitable.  An up-to-date logo can speak volumes.  It will probably be worth the money to seek counsel and aid from an art or print professional.  These specialists can assist with design, size, content and color which will enhance the impact of the brochure and it's message.

     Second and additional pages should give an overview of what your church offers.  Short testimonies, brief biographical sketches and pictures of the pastor and staff can be helpful.  Other information that you might wish to include: photos of people in worship and other activities of the church; schedule of activities and programs; statement of purpose and mission; and, a map.

     Size of mailing is important, especially for cost.  The minimum size of a mailing allowable by the post office is 5"x3 1/2".  Letter size is 6 1/8' by 11 1/2" and 1/4" thick.  A bulk mailing permit is essential to get the best price.  Zip code also effects the total cost.  It is important to consult with the Post Office to determine exact costs.  Usually the larger the number of pieces mailed, the less each piece costs.

     If your brochure is well done, you can expect to generate a .05 to 2% response.  Obviously, the more brochures you mail, the more people will respond.  Regardless of the number of people who initially respond, this kind of mailout can produce positive images of your church that may produce results at a later time.

     When should you do these mail-outs?  Most professionals will suggest doing mailouts three times per year:  early fall, pre-Christmas and pre-Easter.

     Using mailouts is just one way to do seed-sowing.  There are many ways to get a hearing for the gospel.  Whether your church plant or existing church uses mail-outs or not, you should have a prayer-bathed seed sowing method or methods in your strategy.