I found Dustin Neeley's blog recently and have found it to be very useful. I love how Dustin describes the purpose of his page, Church Planting for the Rest of Us.
"speaking up for the guys who may never plant mega-churches, while being thankful for those who do"
His page on preaching is only a link's page, but man is it helpful. (Over 35 hours of preaching resources linked to it!)
He has been airing some interviews conducted during Ambition, and his most recent one Bob Thune was especially encouraging. (Can't figure out how to embed it, or I would!)
I remember Daniel calling our church a plant even after we would be considered "established." I never said anything to him about it (I can tend to come across nit-picky), and just figured it was a man who was simply continuing to see our church through the lens of those first couple years. (Kind of like the parent of a graduate who still feels like the toddler years were just yesterday.) I've since come to realize, I believe his choice to call us a plant was strategic.
In most eyes, our church is not a plant. We're self sustaining. We own our own building (well, the bank does, but we're working on that). We have a fully functioning elder team and certainly appear "here to stay" to our surrounding community. However, I don't think I want to become established. We're not done! There is no reason to settle and certainly no call for us to congratulate ourselves. There is a lot of work to be done!
I pray that God would keep our church a plant forever...that we would never lose the urgency and vitality of those early years. The fields are white, there's much work to be done!
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