On October 3, our church launched our first daughter church. It was a great moment as we have worked over the past two years to transition into being a church planting church. I had the privilege of preaching at Grace that morning, and in light of the launch of our first daughter church, I decided to preach on “The Transfer of the Gospel” based on 2 Timothy 2:1-2.
My basic point is that church planting churches are made up of disciple-making disciples who are made by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Putting it another way, if you are not being strengthened by the gospel, disciples will not be made and churches will not be planted. Therefore, to be a church planting church, we need a community of disciple-making disciples. To have a community like that, we need to experience and be empowered by the gospel on a continual basis.
I made my manuscript available on PLNTD’s relational communities and thought I’d post it here as well for anyone interested. As many of you know, my goal is to provide as much resources and information that will help individuals and churches in treasuring the gospel, making disciples, and planting churches. To download the PDF of my sermon manuscript, click here.
Tim,
It is so exciting to hear what is happening at Grace. God is moving the hearts of so many pastors and churchmen to become Gospel centered. I am a member of FBC Merritt Island FL and very exciting things are happening here. No offence to you or Tom, but I really believe I have 4 of the best Christ exalting Gospel loving, Gospel centered pastors in the SBC! Our senior pastor is Titus Green. Every time he preaches or teaches we hear the good news. Who Jesus is, what he accomplished and what that means to we sinners. Two of the assistant pastors you may know or know of. Fayez Ayoub and Matt Crawford, both Southern graduates. I love those guys, their hearts are all about the gospel. Rob Jones is our youth pastor who is really, and I mean really loving, mentoring, and discipling our youth. Our music minister leads us every Sunday in worshiping our Lord and King.
I read from time to time of the various problems in the SBC and I know they are serious and we need to deal with them, but God is so good. I see so many people in my church, other churches in the area, and across the web who have a love for the Gospel, for evangelism, for church planting, for missions, for discipleship. I am very, very encouraged. These are indeed exciting times.
Your post about what you went through some years back brought back memories. Not because I went through what you did, but because God used you and that time in my own spiritual growth. He brought me to the knowledge of so many things during that time. He used your blogging, Tom’s writing, and The Founders Ministry along with a host of His other servants during that transformational time in my life.
Thank you Tim, thank you. I hope to meet you someday to thank you in person. If not in the Already then I will in the Not Yet.
Keep up the excellent work brother,
Your fellow servant,
Jim Mahoney
FBC Merritt Island, FL.