Exciting Trends

1. Churches Working Together to Identify and Equip New Church Planters 

 One of the trends that I am absolutely loving is the willingness of churches to cross denominational and even theological lines and begin to work with each other. Today we are seeing more and more churches partner together and learn from one another in ways that they never have before. BUT that is not the trend, this is the trend and a very exciting one... Churches working together regionally to identify and equip new church planters. I believe this is one of the greatest hopes we have for the advancement of the Gospel. This will be huge for planters because it will not only help provide some of the financial support they need but the relational, emotional and spiritual support the need as well. 

What are some of these growing networks? Here are few:  Redeemer City to City, New Thing, ARC, ChurchPlanters.com, PLNTD, Vision360, Forge Network, CPC and the  ICF Movement. Of course there are countless more and new ones popping up all the time. Two that just started are the Houston Church Planters Network and the Launch Network in Atlanta. Please note that these networks are not trying to be new denominations, but are helping plant churches in the cities they find themselves ministering and their momentum is changing the game. Also note that some effective city networks like what the Mennonite Brethren are doing in Toronto and Vancouver is denominationally based. 

I truly believe if the church continues to go down the road of partnership (instead of competing with each other) then we are going to see worldwide movements of God like we’ve never seen or experienced. We can accomplish far more by working together than we ever could alone.

2. Leaders will Pay More Attention to Shorter Time Horizons

I love this idea that came from Will Mancini's on Tony Morgans blog. He says "Everything in the vision and clarity space pushes to shorter horizons as the pace of change accelerates. A mantra that Reggie McNeal coined is “Preparation over planning.” The emphasis on leadership is preparing for the uncertainties of the future, rather than trying to predict them. As a result, answering the question, “Where is God taking us?” requires a 90-day focus and a 1-year horizon of shared storytelling like never before. Will other time horizons be important? Yes they will, but not like the way we used to think about it. Read this post on the Five Horizons of Leadership to glean more."