As we plan for 2014, we look forward to a great year of fellowship, teamwork and cooperative missions with your help and encouragement.  I need to place my thoughts concerning church planting in a succinct written format that might be helpful as we move toward pressing mission work and then I need to share with everyone my Annual Report to the Association.  My thoughts concerning Our Sending Centers come first:

Our Sending Centers – Philippians 2:19-30

 

1. When Shirley and I came 7 ½ years ago we committed to guiding our association in building and maintaining balanced Great Commandment / Great Commission cooperative associational missions effort that included a focus on discipleship and a focus on planting at least one church per year together.
2.  Massive changes at the North American Mission Board led me to question my call to Alaska and begrudge the direction our mission boards had taken.  Revisiting The 7 Realities of Experience God has reinforced / renewed my commitment to a balanced (missions, discipleship, planting) associational wide effort with a resolve to aggressively support the NAMB / IMB global missions focus, thus, to assist in planting multiple churches in the Mat-Su Valley and across Alaska each year.
3. Looking at our text,
   1. Paul was a disciple/discipler in the Antioch church
   2. Paul was sent out from the Antioch Church to plant churches
   3. Paul planted the Philippian Church and discipled multipliers, some who continued on with him in church planting work.
   4. The Philippian Church loved and supported those who were effectively multiplying disciples/planting churches.
   5. Their efforts were not about church planting, these efforts were about doing the Great Commandment (love the Lord, love your neighbor) and the Great Commission (make disciples)
   6. Application, we must work together with love and cooperation to strengthen our existing churches (some need special attention, now) and at the same time, challenge each other to “love on” and support our church planters and to send out additional discipleship multiplies as church planters and church planting support families.