CMN BootCamp is a four-day process that provides strategic planning to prepare people to start new churches or turn around existing ones. During BootCamp, church multipliers will review all aspects of the planting process under the leadership of a team of facilitators and coaches with real world experience. Don’t wait - register today!

If you still have questions, contact the CMN Team at cmnbootcamp@ag.org.

1. Be intentional in building relationships with people to one day invite them to church. Going out and intentionally meeting people through everyday interactions was extremely difficult and challenging for me. It definitely took me out of my comfort zone.
2. Church planting is the toughest, but in the long run it is worth it. It isn’t easy to start a church plant, but if God called you to do it then the rewards will be more than you could imagine.
3. Be more reliant on God. Financially I wasn’t making a lot but God provided every time. I made 40 dollars a week and didn’t know how I was going to live on it. God blessed me with watching a fellowship team’s kids and they paid me for that. I also worked at a pool cleaning once a week. God took care of my needs. But I have been more content this summer living how I have than I’ve ever been in my life. The money means nothing compared to being a part of making a Kingdom difference in people’s life.
4. Dream big - the kind that can only be accomplished with God’s help. I’ve always had a dream to reach children for Christ, but I can tell kids about Jesus all day long and they will accept Him.
5. In church planting it’s important to stick to the plan. It’s very easy to develop ministries and programs but instead we need to be intentional about the mission: Reaching people for Christ. Nothing is more important than staying focused on the mission.
6. People don’t care how much you know about God until they know how much you care about them. Relationships are how people see that you care about them. If people know your care for them is fake they won’t stay. True love comes from God working through you.
7. Healthy church planting is built on trans-generational discipleship. Reaching someone who reaches someone who reaches someone.
8. Remembering that church planting takes time and commitment - it’s a process. Church planting doesn’t happen over night.
9. In order to reach people you have to understand the culture, you have to know what their interests are and bring the gifts and talents God has given you into the mix.
10. You don’t have to have some amazing gift or talent to be used by God, you just have to have a love for Him and a willingness to obey Him. God will use us in an amazing way as long as we’re living for Him.

From John Van Pay, lead planter of Gateway Fellowship Church, a Matching Funds Church in Helotes, Texas.

You and over 3,500 other church planting leaders make this the largest gathering of church planting leaders on the planet. With 70+ national speakers, 10+ pre-conference intensives, 60+ workshops, 50+ of the best service providers, numerous publishers featuring the latest church resources, and 35+ networks and denominations, you will not want to miss this historic gathering. We’re also adding a new “After Hours” program to focus on the burning questions new church leaders face.

I have also heard that after a long day of dealing with the human condition, one pastor said with a sigh, “I have been peopled.”

These statements are very funny and soberingly true. When it comes to reality, we always have to deal with people. Sometimes we have a great vision that seems to only include faceless individuals that have no opinions, do not get offended, always tithe, always have a heart of service, do not stink, are not eccentric, and always have the greater good in mind. That’s a church I want to be a part of!

In reality, the closer you get to people, the more you can smell their bad odors.

This does not mean we should throw the whole vision away! It means we must understand that no matter how much we try to be spiritual and Christ-like, there is still a humanity to this thing. The key is that love covers over a multitude of sins. The key is that our salvation is not a product of perfect religious living, but the gospel of grace. The key is that the beauty is in what God raises up from the ashes.

So learn to see past the humanity of it all into the potential of it all!

By Nathan Kollar, lead planter of Clarity Church - CMN’s 100th Matching Fund Church - in Los Angeles, California.

On the verge of ending her 15-year marriage to Chris, Nicole and her children walked into New Generation Fellowship on January 17, 2010. That day she accepted Christ into her heart. “I knew that whatever I had gone through, that there was a plan and a reason.”

“The week before Palm Sunday, Pastor Joseph Garza had said that miracles happen during this time,” she says. With this in mind, Nicole invited Chris to church. Chris walked in to NGF and felt God there. “From then on, the new journey started,” he says. Chris and Nicole began reconnecting, their kids began healing, the divorce was called off and the couple is expecting their fourth child.

Gideon is one more of those kind of guys. He found himself “threshing wheat” in order to provide for him and his family. The wine press was usually a small pit, made out of rock or smoothed out with a type of  plaster. In this pit, harvested grapes would be thrown in and trampled upon to squeeze out the grape juice used to make wine.

Threshing is the process by which kernels of grain from harvested cereals are separated to be made into flour. Gideon was using the wine press to thresh the wheat.

God meets Gideon and says, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” It wasn’t a question - it was God’s statement of fact. The only problem is Gideon didn’t believe it. He says, “Excuse me God, I think you have the wrong person.” He says this a couple of times!

This is the starting point of any great leader. Understanding that we are “mighty warriors” even when we don’t feel like it or know it yet simply because God is with us!

You are a “mighty warrior.” Don’t make excuses. Embrace the mystery of attempting great things for God! Remember, God often uses ordinary people to do the not-so-ordinary!

Are you ordinary? Then you are primed to be a mighty warrior!

By Todd Bishop, lead pastor of The Point Church, a Matching Fund Church in Westbury, New York.

CMN Multi-Site Forum:

On August 26-27, 2010, the CMN Multi-Site Forum will spend 24 hours discussing different models of church multiplication. You’ll hear from experts in parenting churches, video venues and multi-site networks, including:

• Greg Surratt - Founding Pastor of Seacoast Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.
• Scott Hagan - Senior Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Sacramento, California.
• Jeff Leake - Senior Pastor of Allison Park Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• Naeem Fazal - Lead Pastor of Mosaic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For more details or to register*, click here.

*Participants who register but fail to show up will have a $100 cancellation fee charged to their credit card.