Preparing to Church Plant

The Priority of Patience, Prayer, and Preaching in Church Planting

By Josh Manley | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

As you patiently “preach and pray, love and stay,” you’ll find that your church has been planted on fertile soil that bears up good and lasting fruit.

Why Not to Plant Churches

By Phil Newton | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.01.2023

Yes, plant churches. But do so after counting the cost.

Preparing to Plant Is a Whole Church Effort

By Dwayne Milioni | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

A “whole church” approach to planting involves preparing, sending, and ongoing engagement of church planters and their teams.

You Can’t Plant a Church If You Don’t Know What a Church Is

By Nathan Knight | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

You need a robust ecclesiology that’s in place well before you start trying to plant a church.

Partnering Together to Plant

By Nate Akin | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 10.13.2023

While churches are independent and autonomous, they also are interdependent for the sake of those who don’t know the Lord.

Pastor, Not Entrepreneur

By Nathan Knight | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 10.06.2023

Emphasizing the acumen of Wall Street and the values of Silicon Valley in what to look for in a planter distracts us from paying attention to the New Testament’s emphases—who a man is.

Pastor, Not Entrepreneur, Part 2

By Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

You can lead a church plant and not be an entrepreneur. But you shouldn’t lead a church plant if you’re not a pastor.

Five Trends in Church Planting

By M. Rogers, P. Newton | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

Trends should become norms only when they arise from biblical roots.

What 9Marks Purists Should Know About Church Planting 

By Ed Stetzer | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

Learn best practices, learn how to engage the lost, learn how to lead your church well to engage its community, but don’t do so by moving away from the gospel, the Scriptures, and a biblical understanding of church.

Sending Out a Church Plant

Taking Risks in Church Planting by Sending Your Best Members and Elders

By Juan Sanchez | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

We can always find reasons, even good ones, for not planting a church. And yet, the need for church planting in my town far outweighs whatever adverse effects we may face.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Advice for Members on Church Plants

By John Joseph | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 10.11.2023

Here are four clear reasons why you should consider not joining a new church plant.

Sending Out Future Leaders Strategically

By Matt Rogers | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 10.20.2023

Pastors developing future leaders can help using these seven diagnostic questions.

Equipping Women for Church Planting

By Sharon Dickens | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

Equipping women well and releasing them to serve surely benefits the home and church.

Shepherding the Heart in Sending

By Dave Kiehn | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

How do you shepherd the hearts of those who are sent? What about those who stay?

Planting a Church

Stop Launching Churches, Covenant Together Instead

By Nathan Knight | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

The word covenant will help to shepherd our people into a richer, deeper, and more biblical picture of what the life of the local church is and what it’s not.

Personal Evangelism for the Planter and the Church Plant

By J. Mack Stiles | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

If evangelism is to be woven into the fabric of the life of a new church plant and its pastor, it takes some thought and planning.

Planting Churches for Pleasure, Not for Profit

By Nathan Knight | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

Here are three principles we should all consider so that we might plant churches for the infinite pleasure of God’s glory over and against our own profit.

Preaching in a Church Planting Context

By Clint Darst | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

As you step into the laborious, weighty, joyful, and glorious work of church planting, I offer you four simple encouragements.

Church Planting Is Rarely Rapid

By Matthew Spandler-Davison | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

There are two great threats to gospel work in the world’s poor and unengaged communities today: the prosperity gospel and the encouragement toward rapid multiplication.

The Church Planter’s Second Priority: Raising Up Leaders

By Mike McKinley | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

By developing other leaders who can teach, disciple, evangelize, counsel, and shepherd the flock, you raise up others who can care for the health of all the church members.

How to Do Ministry When You Have No Money

By Brian Davis | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

Like King David, we don’t go armed from the armory of the world—no, our stones from the brook are promises from the Word of God.

Church Planting across Ethnic Lines

By Joel Kurz | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

As you carefully move forward in humility and with wisdom, be encouraged that God often uses cross-cultural work for his own glory.

International Churches as Strategic Gospel Multipliers

By Caleb Greggsen | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

International churches can work as strategic platforms for enhancing existing gospel work in a city.

Revitalization with an Eye Toward Church Planting

By Matt Capps | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

If you are currently in the midst of a revitalization, don’t necessarily neglect church planting.

Church Planters, Don’t Wait to Put Your Documents in Place!

By Joel Kurz | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

We waited three years to put our church documents in order, and we suffered for it.

Church Planters, Make Sure Your People Know You Love Them

By Steve Jennings | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

I once asked a long-time pastor: “What’s one piece of advice you would give a first-time pastor preparing to plant a church?”

Church Planting in the Same Building 

By Matthew Spandler-Davison | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

I simply want to offer an alternative to a costly building campaign or tying up resources in more bricks and mortar. That alternative is establishing a network of churches that partner together to share property and resources, and support each other in the work of the ministry.

Church Planting by Peaceable Division

By Colin Clark | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

In September our church did something crazy, and I offer six lessons we learned from the process.

Church Planting in Hindsight

Church Planting Roundtable: Counting the Cost 

By C. Greggsen, J. Joseph, J. Chatman, T. Ross, W. Forrest, Z. San | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 10.19.2023

Six church planters—national and international—explain how they wish they had counted the cost, which yields counsel for the rest of us.

The Blessings and Burdens of a Church Planter’s Wife

By Gloria Furman | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

Blessings and burdens mingle together as we live in this world that groans for the Day of redemption.

Lessons Learned from a Church Planter’s Wife

By Jenny Manley | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 10.25.2023

Here are five lessons I have learned in the decade since I first arrived in an unfamiliar city with my husband, who had the task of planting a new church.

Why Bad Polity Hurt My Church Plant

By Phil Newton | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

Labor on developing polity before starting a church.

Knowing When to Say When: Reflections from a Failed Church Plant

By Derek Bass | 9Marks Journal: Church Planting | 11.07.2023

Our God wastes absolutely nothing.

Evangelism

February 2024
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Catholicity

November 2023
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Church Planting

November 2023
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A New Christian Authoritarianism?

April 2023
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The Church’s Ministries

December 2022
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The Pastor and Church Administration

September 2022
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Pursuing Revival While Avoiding Revivalism

June 2022
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Expressive Individualism in the Church

March 2022
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Sound Doctrine: The Foundation for Faithful Ministry

October 2021
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The Ordinary Means of Grace—Or, Don’t Do Weird Stuff

July 2021
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How to Build Up Your Church: A Guidebook for Members

March 2021
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Heaven: Rejoicing in Future Glory

December 2020
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Pastoring Through Political Turmoil

September 2020
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Shepherding: The Work & Character of a Pastor

June 2020
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What’s Wrong With Gospel-Centered Preaching Today?

March 2020
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Complementarianism: A Moment of Reckoning

Complementarianism: A Moment of Reckoning

December 2019
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The Heart of the Gospel: Penal Substitutionary Atonement

August 2019
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Church Membership: Following the Lord Together

Church Membership: Following the Lord Together

May 2019
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Ecclesiology for Calvinists

February 2019
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The Pastor and Pornography

The Pastor and Pornography

October 2018
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Pastoral Burnout: Its Causes & Cures

July 2018
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Church Life: Our True Political Witness

Spring 2018
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Church Discipline: Medicine for the Body

January 2018
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The Reformation and Your Church

Fall 2017
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Church Mergers and Plants

Summer 2017
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Pastoring Singles

Spring 2017
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Healthy Churches around the World

Fall / Winter 2016
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Authority: God’s Good and Dangerous Gift

Summer/Fall 2016
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The Church Praying

Spring 2016
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Confessions, Covenants, and Constitutions: How to Organize Your Church

Winter 2016
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Missions: Adding Wisdom to Zeal

December 2015
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Multi-Ethnic Churches

Summer/Fall 2015
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Expositional Preaching

Spring 2015
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Complementarianism & the Local Church

Winter 2015
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Vanishing Church?

Fall 2014
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Biblical Theology: Guardian and Guide of the Church

Summer 2014
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The Church Singing

May–June 2014
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Prosperity Gospel

January–February 2014
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Evangelism – Part 2

November–December 2013
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Evangelism – Part 1

September–October 2013
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Is Scripture Enough?

July–August 2013
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Church and Churches

May—June 2013
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Pastoring Christians for the Workplace

March—April 2013
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Lay Elders: A User’s Guide—Part 2

Jan—Feb 2013
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Lay Elders: A User’s Guide – Part 1

November—December 2012
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Discipling in the Church

September—October 2012
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Mercy Ministry in the Church

July—August 2012
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Wanted: Apostolic Pastors

May—June 2012
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The Underestimated Doctrine of Conversion

March—April 2012
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Don’t Be Too Cool for Sunday School

January—February 2012
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Revitalize: Why We Must Reclaim Dying Churches—and How

November—December 2011
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The Pastor and his Staff, Part 2

September—October 2011
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The Pastor and his Staff, Part 1

July—August 2011
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Church Membership: Holding the Body Together

May—June 2011
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Church and Parachurch: Friends or Foes?

March—April 2011
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Pastoral Moves

January—February 2011
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Book Reviews on the Mission of the Church

November—December 2010
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Hell: Remembering the Awful Reality

September—October 2010
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Pastoring Women

July—August 2010
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Journal about Deacons

Deacons

May - June 2010
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A New Evangelical Liberalism

January—February 2010

Church Discipline (Part 2)

November—December 2009

Church Discipline (Part 1)

September—October 2009

Missions

July—August 2009

Multi-site Churches

May—June 2009

Young Pastors

March–April 2009

Raising Up the Next Generation of Pastors

January–February 2009

Counseling in the Church

November–December 2008

Family & Parenting

September–October 2008

Marriage & Pastors’ Wives

July—August 2008
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Living As a Church

May–June 2008

Cooperation

March–April 2008

Corporate Prayer

January–February 2008

Church & Culture

November–December 2007

Race and Ethnicity

September—October 2007

The Gospel

July–August 2007

Preaching

May–June 2007

Elders (Part 2)

March–April 2007

Hospitality & Friendship

January 2007

Elders (Part 1)

February 2007

Biblical Theology

November–December 2006

The Church’s Mission

October 2006

The Emerging Church

September 2006

Miscellaneous Articles

December 1999