Is There Such A Thing As A “Church Planter Personality Type?”
Is there a specific gift mix or personality type that’s necessary to be a successful planter? Is Vineyard or seminary/bible school education necessary? Is being on staff at another church first necessary? There are some irreducible necessities, but beyond that, there are as many ways to plant a church as there are churches. The assessment […]
Should We Do More Marketing?
A question that we all wrestle with is “should we be doing more marketing?”. I’m sure that no one in this economy has a lot of discretionary money to use for marketing, so what is the best way we can utilize the limited funds that we have? Here are some thoughts. Creating A Culture Of […]
Death By Suburb? The Unique Challenges Of Suburban Spirituality
Dave Goetz is president of CZ Marketing (www.czmarketing.com), a brand and strategy firm for the service and nonprofit sectors. He has been an editor at Leadership Journal, and has written for Christianity Today and Christian History magazines. He lives in Wheaton, IL, with his wife and three kids. In his book Death by Suburb, David writes, […]
The Nuts & Bolts Of Church Growth
Rich Nathan is the senior pastor of the Columbus Vineyard and an internationally known writer and speaker on a remarkably wide variety of topics. Under his leadership, Columbus Vineyard has grown to over 7,000 weekly attenders, and has become a major influence for the kingdom in it’s community. They have planted 22 churches, established a […]
God’s Picnic: Stories From The Harvest Vineyard
VUSA: So tell us the story of the Harvest Vineyard, and the “Picnic in the Park”. JM: Well, The Heartland Vineyard had a vision to plant a church in downtown Waterloo in the urban community. In order to do this, they knew that they had to establish relationship first. So, in the 1990s, Heartland had […]
Church Planting: An Interview with Ed Stetzer
What are your current reflections on the church planting scene in North America? These days, I would say we are showing a high level of interest in – and even engagement with – church planting in North America. Warren Bird and I recently released some research in Viral Churches which pointed out that 4,000 […]
A Dream for Charleston
In 2010, my wife and moved back to Illinois from Syracuse, NY, where we were part of the Vineyard. We had a dream of seeing a Vineyard church in Charleston, so we started working with Happy and Di Leman to begin gathering people. About a year ago, we had 25 or so people meeting on […]
Overflow Coffee Bar
One Cup At A Time We are planting a church in the South Loop of Chicago, but we’re doing it relatively differently. We felt God call us to open a coffee shop, and through that a church would form. It’s not just any coffee shop, but a coffee shop that is “changing the world one […]
An Unexpected Pastor
We Began As A Couple My name is Cathy Chester. I am a church planter and, very unexpectedly, the lead pastor of Carolina Coast Vineyard Church in Wilmington, North Carolina. My husband, Jon, and I led a small house church before God made it clear that we were supposed to be part of the Vineyard […]
A Nudge Plus Obedience
I had been serving as the worship pastor for many years at the Urbana Vineyard. I loved that job and felt like I had been called to do it. My family had been worshiping there for years before I got hired there. Several years in, part of my role was trying to help get our […]
