Today my new eBook released through Exponential and I am honored that it is being electronically distributed to pastors around the world.
Here's a brief excerpt:
"...At this juncture in 1998 my wife Deb and I decided to get
away for our 20th anniversary to seek God. The new millennium,
century and decade were knocking on the door of our church. We needed to know
what to say when we opened the door. During those days away the Lord birthed a
new vision into our minds. It was a concept we had never heard of, though it
was not original to us.
The vision was to stop becoming a “LAKE church” and instead
become a “RIVER church”. To us a LAKE church meant a church where people flow
in and stay. It seeks to get more and more people around one pastor in one
place. A RIVER church was dynamically different. It was one where the people
flow in but keep moving downstream. God takes them to other places to minister.
The measurement becomes about “flow rate” instead “volume contained”, about
“gallons per minute” instead of “gallons retained”.
Specifically to us we felt this meant, “stay where you are
and stop worrying about growing your numbers”. Instead, from those already
there, begin to “send people out to start new churches thus making room for
more people to fill their place”. We sensed the Lord saying, “Focus on FLOWING
instead of GROWING and see what I will do.”
Such a message didn’t come out of nowhere. We had been
praying about our next ministry move personally and for the church. I had been
troubled listening to a mega-church pastor report on the several million
dollars they were spending to deal with an environmental “bird problem” in
their relocation effort. I had done the math in our own context. I knew to relocate
in our general area to a facility that could support the next 30 years of
growth would cost between 10 and 15 million dollars. In an urban poor
congregation like ours that amount was astronomical.
I began to ponder, “What could be accomplished if, instead
of investing those huge dollars in buildings to “add”, we invested them in
people so we could “multiply”? What would the kingdom impact be if we focused
on raising up and releasing pastors, leaders and workers to start new churches?