Acts 29 Network

But in modern evangelicalism, church planting increasingly happened through networks.

Acts 29 is one recognizable example.

There's also the Association of Related Churches, usually called ARC.

That's another big one.

Let's just meet at Bob's house next week," and they start their own little church.

So there's no book of modern evangelical megachurch doctrine [chuckles] that is a shared confession among all these groups we've been talking about.

A Vineyard congregation, an Acts 29 church, a seeker-sensitive Baptist church, an independent charismatic megachurch, and a house church may disagree significantly on many doctrines.

But here are some reoccurring tendencies.

Like, we were just plugging along, and the Lord just gave us a dream to plant a church.

This is back in the Acts 29 days.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and uh, went through an Acts 29 assessment, and they actually like yellow lighted me, were like, "Bro, you ain't ready.

You got, you got some stuff you gotta like work through." And we submitted to the stuff that they wanted us to work on, and about a year later they green lighted us.

And so we had moved to plant a church in the greater Boston area, uh, one of the least reached regions of the United States.

Wow.

So how about now in your role? How are you serving Africa still through Acts 29, through what you're doing at Church of 1122?

Yeah, so I love our church, the Church of 1122.

It is an

Just a result of the people just being faithful and growing in discipleship, asking what's first and best.

Yeah, no, it's beautiful.

And so we're walking into Neighbors to Nations, and we're asking the question, what does it mean for us as we are being blessed by God to be a blessing to others? And so how I see that working its way onto the continent in my role with Acts 29 is going, God is doing something at the Church of 1122.

What are some of those things that we can learn? And it's not just the tangible material things.

But and then I church hopped pretty much all my way through college until the very end.

I joined an Acts 29 network church, which I don't know if you're familiar.

No.

Okay.

Ooh, yes.

But if you want to tell just like a brief little thing about him, that would be cool.

Yeah, I don't have a great bio for this man, but he created or co-created, I'm not sure like the real history of this network of churches called Acts 29.

And it was this idea of like, megachurches, not good.

It villainizes it and actually makes it look, now let me give an example from the church because this is something we went through.

And you see churches get this wrong in ways that are harmful, where in the Young Restless and Reformed movement, and when it came to like Acts 29 and that world, there was this big, huge push towards plurality of eldership, which is a good thing.

on paper, plurality of eldership, meaning like you should have, churches are generally in scripture spoken of as being ruled by multiple elders, not just one, but multiple elders is an ideal because it brings in different, every leader has gifts and he has lack and they compliment one another over time.

And it makes it so the church isn't just shaped by the strengths, but then hugely shaped by the weaknesses of a single leader.

There's a variety of answers and so there should be.

This is the gift, church, of living in Acts 29.

We are living in Acts 29 days where we can meet with God wherever we are.

We can meet God if we're on a mountaintop.

We meet God here at church.

And I don't say this, I get asked this question, so I have to answer it.

So what's the difference between y'all and Acts 29 per se? And the thing I always come back to is there's a lot about Acts 29 in those years when they were getting informed that I was thankful for.

And so not saying this critically, but...

i can't plant churches with a presbyterian i can't plant churches with an anglican i i can i can think they have the gospel and can be very thankful for that uh but if if if the accomplishing of the great commission is going to happen by the starting and strengthening of churches you have to agree on what a church is you have to have those second tier to use moeller's triage you have to have those second tier issues shared in order to do this work together And so that's what distinguishes us from some of these more ecumenical church planning networks.

is pray and that like that of all the things church planters are running around trying to do raise money meet people yeah you know find spots to worship that's a guaranteed one

Welcome to On Church Planting, an Acts 29 podcast featuring conversations, missiology, and practical wisdom to encourage and equip those in church planting.

Acts 29 is a global network of churches committed to planting churches worldwide.

And here's today's conversation with your host and Acts 29's Vice President of Church Planting, Dr. Adam Flint.

Welcome to the Acts 29 podcast.

Hello, welcome.

How you doing? All right.

And you guys can't see, but behind the camera is Jen.