Going Deeper as We Go Wider

3 key lessons Church Planting Teams can learn from Dana Trent's book For Sabbath's Sake

Church planters and their leadership teams are often so busy doing the entrepreneurial business of starting up a new faith community that they neglect spiritual formation. They engage in good business practices marketing their vision, inviting newcomers to join the cause, raising funds. What about their daily walk with Jesus? What about the spiritual practices that form Christian character and build strong lead teams?

As new faith communities emerge, it is important to plan how to strengthen spiritual depth among the lead team for several reasons. If the team experiences together a deeper form of Christian experience, they will share a common bond with one another. If they can draw from spiritual wholeness, their witness to others they seek to reach will come from that wellspring of solid formation. If they practice Christian spirituality, they will align themselves with what Jesus modeled in his ministry on earth.

Read more at Going Deeper as We Go Wider.

Doug Ruffle serves as associate executive director of Path 1, the Division of New Church Starts at Discipleship Ministries of The United Methodist Church. Before accepting this position in 2013, he served as coordinator of congregational development for the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference. Ruffle is author of Roadmap to Renewal: Rediscovering the Church's Mission and A Missionary Mindset: What Church Leaders Need to Know to Reach Their Community – Lessons from E. Stanley Jones.

Click here to discover more about Dana Trent's book For Sabbath's Sake.

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