Recently, the U. S. Census Bureau sent out the following information in their “Facts for Features-Super Bowl XLVI.”  You may find this resource HERE.

New York (Giants)

• New York is ranked first on the list of the nation’s most populous cities. The population of New York in 2010 was 8,175,133.
• 33.4% of New York residents 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2010; 79.6% had at least graduated from high school. The respective national figures were 28.2% and 85.6%. The percentage in New York who have graduated from high school did not differ significantly from the percentage for Indianapolis.
• 38.7 minutes is the average amount of time it took New York residents to get to work — 22.7 percent of the city’s workers drove to work alone, 5.0 percent carpooled and 55.7 percent took public transportation. Nationally, it took workers an average of 25.3 minutes to get to work. The percentage of New York workers who drove to work alone and the percentage taking public transportation were significantly different from the national average and Indianapolis.
• 49.2% is the percentage of New York residents 5 and older who spoke a language other than English at home. The national average was 20.6 percent.
• $48,743 is the median household income for New York. The national median was $50,046. The figure for New York was not statistically different from the national average.
• $504,500 is the median home value of owner-occupied homes in New York. The national median was $179,900. The figure for New York differed significantly from that for Indianapolis.

Boston (New England Patriots)

• Boston ranked 22nd on the list of the nation’s most populous cities. The population of Boston in 2010 was 617,594. The Patriots actually play in suburban Foxborough, Mass., which had a 2010 Censuspopulation of 16,865.
• 44.3% is the number of Boston residents 25 and older who had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2010; 85.8 percent had at least graduated from high school. The respective national figures were 28.2 percent and 85.6 percent. The percentage in Boston who had at least a bachelor’s degree was significantly higher from the percentage for Indianapolis.
• 28.4 minutes is the average amount of time it took Boston residents to get to work — 38.3 percent of the city’s workers drove to work alone, 7.3 percent carpooled and 32.8 percent took public transportation. Nationally, it took workers an average of 25.3 minutes to get to work. The percentage of Boston workers who drove to work alone and the percentage taking public transportation were significantly different from the national average and Indianapolis.
• 35.5% is the number of Boston residents 5 and older who spoke a language other than English at home. The national average was 20.6 percent.
• $49,893 is the median household income for Boston. The national median was $50,046. The figure for Boston was not statistically different from the national average.
• $369,600 is the median home value of owner-occupied homes in Boston. The national median was $179,900. The figure for Boston is significantly different from that for Indianapolis.

Indianapolis (host city)

• Indianapolis was ranked 12th on the list of the nation’s most populous cities. The population of Indianapolis in 2010 was 820,445.
• 26.7% of Indianapolis residents 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2010; 83.8 percent had at least graduated from high school. The respective national figures were 28.2 percent and 85.6 percent.
• 22.2 minutes was the average amount of time it took Indianapolis residents to get to work — 82.6 percent of the city’s workers drove to work alone, 9.2 percent carpooled and 1.8 percent took public transportation. Nationally, it took workers an average of 25.3 minutes to get to work.
• 12.7% of Indianapolis residents 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home. The national average was 20 percent.
• $38,502 is the median household income for Indianapolis. The national median was $50,046. The figure for Indianapolis is statistically different than the national average.
• $118,100 is the median home value of owner-occupied homes in Indianapolis. The national median was $179,900.

And among the people, a great battle is taking place.  This one is not on the gridiron.  It is a battle of supernatural proportions that has practical realities in the lives of these city dwellers, both today and for eternity (Eph 6:12).

Regarding the percentage of Evangelicals in these cities and the evangelical church to population ratios, here’s what we find:

Metro New York:

2.3% Evangelical

2478 Evangelical Churches

1 Evangelical Church for every 8517 people

Metro Boston:

2.5% Evangelical

778 Evangelical Churches

1 Evangelical Church for every 7786 people

Metro Indianapolis (host city):

16% Evangelical

743 Evangelical Churches

1 Evangelical Church for every 2163 people

I pray that these numbers will sink into your heart as you ponder them, and as you are exposed to all things Super Bowl over the next several days.

Pastors, take these numbers and share them with your church this Sunday morning.  Challenge the people  to consider how as a church you should respond to the mission of God in such North American contexts.  Develop a plan to put feet on the challenge, and act upon it.

These are the numbers on a few of the battlefields.

(See HERE for information on the research behind these numbers.)

I plan to share some more information regarding these cities in the next post.

Today, I am releasing my latest e-book Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps. 

This 62-page work is designed to encourage and provide some guidance for pastors considering such missionary work. While some elements of this book will be of value to pastors who are already leading their churches in church planting, this resource was not written with them in mind.  The content is very basic.  It is written for those approaching the starting line–not those  already in the race.

Chapters include:

• Seven Reasons for Leading Your Church in Church Planting
• The Other Wing of the Airplane
• Some Resources to Get You Started
• Avoiding the Nestea Plunge
• Five Steps for Vision Casting for Multiplication
• Anticipating Objections to Church Planting

Each chapter concludes with questions to assist with developing and taking contextualized action steps.

This work is FREE for the taking.

My only request–if you would please–is that you would be kind enough to subscribe to my blog feed and tell at least three other people about this free resource (tweeting it to your millions of followers will suffice).

I truly appreciate your assistance in spreading the word on this book.

The book is available in pdf, Kindle, and Epub formats.  I prefer the pdf.  At this point in time, Kindle and Epub remove some of the aesthetic value of the book.

So, take it, use it, give it away, make photocopies of it, tweet it, etc.!

GET THE PDF HERE: Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps

GET THE KINDLE and EPUB VERSIONS HERE: Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps

If you get a chance, please let me know how you are using this book.  I always look forward to hearing from you guys out there.

If you did not get a copy of the other e-book I gave away last month, you may find it HERE.

The present enrollment of international students at U. S. colleges and universities is at an all-time high of 723,277.

These numbers have been increasing at least since the mid-twentieth century.

Another important fact I want you to note is that the countries sending the most students are China and India, with a 23% increase in the number of Chinese students over the previous year.

Beyond these top two, other noteworthy countries are Taiwan, Saudi Arabia (which had a 44% increase over last year), Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran (which had a 19% increase), and Pakistan.

In my next post, I’ll make a few comments related to our labors.  Until then, I want to encourage you to look at the Open Doors Fast Facts (linked above) and prayfully consider the missiological implications set before us as faithful and wise stewards.

“The Story” is an excellent way to train people in personal evangelism.  In fact, it is one of the best resources I have seen in a long time.  Because of this matter, I ask Jerry McCorkle to do a brief interview with me for the blog.  Jerry is the Executive Director with SpreadTruth. We only had a camera phone at the moment of our meeting–so bear with the quality of the video below.

You need to check out “The Story” for use in your church or classroom.  I think you will be very pleased.

Here is a link to “The Story Leader Kit” that I mention in the video.

And a few of you pastors need to consider sending future church planting teams there.

Now, if you track with my writings, you are probably asking yourself why I am urging a few churches to consider sending future teams to such a place.  While the county does not have a recommended Evangelical church to population ratio of 1:1000 (urban context), it is very close (and not too far off from the rural recommendation of 1:500).  Also, it is striking within the 10-20% Evangelical range.

So, why Williston, North Dakota?

Last night, I caught an amazing report on Rock Center with Brian Williams.  The 9 min. 22 sec. story–which you can see HERE–profiled the small North Dakota community that is now a boom-town.

An exceptionally massive amount of oil has been discovered around Williston.  New technology is allowing it to be extracted.  This is a major game-changer, not just for the city, but for the country as well.

While jobs are hard to find in other parts of the United States, the demand for workers in Williston is far exceeding the number of people available.  Thousands of well-paying jobs need to be filled immediately.

And if last night’s report is accurate, then Williston must brace itself for a massive influx of people and businesses over the next several years.  Life in this small community will never be the same.  This is one reason future teams are needed.

Whenever something of this magnitude occurs, the need increases for gospel advancement into such areas.  And I fear that our brothers and sisters making up those 17 churches will quickly become overwhelmed–if they are not already.

Here is another reason for church planting teams:  Consider for a moment the growth of the darkness.  Whenever the population of well-paid men (living in “man camps”) grows dramatically in a community with little post-work opportunities to overcome boredom, you can imagine the results.  The media reports that crime is on the rise in Williston, doctors are witnessing an increase of chlamydia cases, and strippers are making $2000-3000 per night.  Here is one article recently published in the Wall Street Journal.  Other recent reports are out there; I’ll let you do the searching.

Where the darkness is great, oftentimes, the receptivity to the light is greater.  Our Lord has been known to breakthrough the thickness of blatant wickedness, despair, and hopelessness, to most glorify Himself.  But, someone has to share this great news of His love.

It is amazing how fossil fuel fuels the need for missional opportunities.

Keep an eye on this community.  Pray for our brothers and sisters serving there.  Pray for laborers to go, love, and serve the people as this town expands.

52% of the world’s international migrant population can be found in ten countries.  Take a look at this table from the Migration Policy Institute.

So, let’s do a little math to guide our missiological musing.

If we take the populations of the U. S., Germany, Canada, France, United Kingdom, and Spain, our total is 80,288,000 people, or about 38% of the world’s international migrant population.  That is a great number of people.  To help put things into perspective–this number is well over the total population found in France, Canada, Spain, or the United Kingdom.  It is a number about a million shy of the total population of Germany.

Why single out these six countries?  Because the restrictions placed upon churches for gospel advancement are very limited.  Opposition is low at both the local and national levels.  Persecution is low.  Access to the peoples is high.  The opportunity is great for showing the love of Christ while helping one’s neighbor.

In addition to finding numerous UPGs in these countries with transnational social networks, we also have numerous Majority World believers as well.  200 years of Western missions have now resulted in numerous Kingdom citizens migrating to these nations, with many being sent from their churches to share the gospel in the West.  Here is an opportunity for churches to partner with and offer training to brothers and sisters from other lands.

Of course, I’m only sharing here the story for a few Western countries.  The story of international migrants grows even larger whenever we take another step back to view the rest of the world….But that is another post for another time.

What are the other Kingdom possibilities you see whenever you look at the table above?  How should we respond to such wonderful opportunities to serve the strangers next door to us?

Now, I recognize this is a strange statement for a church planting professor to make, especially one who has written books and articles on this topic.  So, let me explain.

No Command

There is no command in the Bible to go into all the world and plant churches. The Church is never told to plant churches until the end of the age or search out all people groups and plant churches among them.

It seems everywhere we turn today, both churches and mission agencies in North America and outside this continent, are training and sending missionaries to plant multiplying churches across the globe. Over the past twenty years in North America and Europe, numerous books and articles have been published addressing this topic. Conferences and practical resources are being provided every year to potential church planters. More and more seminaries are offering courses and emphases in church planting.

Then why is there so much talk about church planting if there is no scriptural mandate?

Missionary Endeavor

Our Lord is very clear about the Great Commission.  The Church is to make disciples of all nations (literally, “peoples,” not nation-states). The best way to fulfill this mandate of evangelizing, baptizing, and teaching obedience is through the planting of contextualized churches among the various people groups and population segments of the world. For it is in the process of evangelizing, baptizing, and teaching that local churches are planted.  Church planting is a missionary endeavor.  Our Lord gave the Great Commission before his ascension; and it was the apostolic Church that later followed in obedience, setting the example of church planting for others to follow.

Start in the Fields, not the Barns

Biblical church planting is evangelism that results in new churches.  But, churches can be planted with little to no evangelism being done.

For example, if our annual goal is to plant 12 churches, then all we need to do is gather some long-term Kingdom citizens together into twelve groups, lead them to covenant together as 12 local churches, and we have accomplished our goal.  And if we do this, people will sing our praises and invite us to speak about church planting, telling them how they can plant 12 churches in a year.  And no one will ask us about making disciples.

But it’s not about church planting.  We are called to make disciples—and the first step in making disciples is doing evangelism.  For it is out of a disciple making movement that churches are birthed (e.g., Acts 13-14).

Unfortunately, most church planters in North America are more involved in gathering together long-term Kingdom citizens than doing evangelism that results in new churches.

Try This

Let me give you a little exercise.  The next time you hear about churches being planted, I want to encourage you to be radically biblical and simply ask, “How many people recently came into the Kingdom of God before these newly planted church came into existence?”  If you are talking with church planters in North America, do not be surprised to find out that the answer is generally few to none.  Rather, than finding a church planter who saw a church birthed out of the harvest field, you are more likely to find a church planted by the shuffling of the saints around in the Body of Christ.

Today, we plant the church first, and then (hopefully) lead the church to do evangelism.

If our goal is to plant a church, then our goal has been accomplished.  Let’s have a party and celebrate.

But it’s not about planting churches.

The Coolness Factor

But planting churches is cool!  It is cool to quickly start a worship gathering with high quality music and preaching.  It is cool to quickly develop church programs for kids, families, outreach, missions, etc.  It is cool to be able to write to our partners in the ministry and show them “tangible” things that prove we have been at work—making good use of the resources they have sacrificed for our labors, and hoping such partnerships will continue.

But it’s not about planting churches.

Our mandate is about evangelism, baptisms, and teaching those new believers how to be the local church in their context.  It is about teaching those new believers how to gather for worship.  It is about teaching those new believers how to preach, how to pastor, how to lead children, families.  It is about teaching those new believers how to do missions.  There is not much that others can see, feel, and hear in the early days of a church recently birthed from the harvest. . .

. . . not much other than a group of new Kingdom Citizens, agreeing to learn and live by this new Kingdom Ethic in covenant community.  And this is messy, oftentimes slow, gives us little to report to those back home, and is definitely not cool.

Planting churches is cool. . . making disciples from out of the harvest that will become local churches is not.

But it’s not about planting churches, is it?

While I originally thought I would simply set up the links to the presentations, I soon came to believe that I needed to share some information about this new network.  And since the group is comprised of Southern Baptists, I am specifically directing today’s post to those within my tribe.

If you are a Southern Baptist leader involved in church planting, then you need to keep an eye on what is happening among this group of brothers and sisters in Mississippi.  I was very surprised, blessed, convicted, and encouraged by what I saw and experienced.  After spending time with the leaders and participants, I am convinced that exciting things for the Kingdom are happening in Mississippi, things below most of our radars.

(Some people, however, have super-sensitive radars.  For even at this inaugural event, I encountered other Southern Baptist leaders–from outside of Mississippi–who were present to observe and learn what was taking place in this new network.)

The One8 Network is primarily located in the northern part of the state, but another like-minded network is presently developing in the central region as well.  I expect others will follow across Mississippi, and that similar networks will quickly begin to pop up across the Southern Baptist Convention and the Canadian National Baptist Convention.

Here is some information about One8:

ONE8 is a cooperating network of likeminded SBC churches across Mississippi and the Mid-South working together to advance the gospel by planting new churches and equipping existing churches for multiplication. Along with the Mississippi Baptist Convention, our vision is to partner with churches, associations, and state conventions to plant at least 30 churches over the next three years. Through an intensive application and assessment process, we seek to provide church planters with internships, coaching, networking, and resources.

The convictions of this network are closely aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention:

ONE8 Church Planting Network is a committed partner with the SBC. All ONE8 Network Churches and Church Plants affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.  The ONE8 Church Planting Network also affirms the following distinctives:

• We believe in the Sufficiency of Scripture

• We Practice Systematic Exposition

• We Seek Regenerate Church Membership

• We are Committed to Biblical Community

• We are Committed to Practicing a Biblical Worldview

• We are Committed to Evangelism, Missional Living, and Church Planting.

140 participants were present this week, with the majority representing younger Southern Baptists.  The meeting had to be moved to a larger location due to an unexpected increase in the number of participants.  The organizers invited several plenary speakers, representing church planters, missiologists, and pastors, as well as numerous speakers leading breakout sessions.

I spoke on the following topics, with each linked to my Power Point slides (.pptx files):

The Good News: Bridging the Gap through Evangelism

Equipping the Church Planting Family

Who Can Bridge the Gap? The Barnabas Factors: Essential Practices of Church Planting Team Members

I do not claim to know the future of this nascent network.  But, if Monday and Tuesday are representative of the cooperation, enthusiasm, and missional engagement to come, then I am very excited about its future potential.

Mississippi Baptists are offering something to younger, Southern Baptist church planters, involving at least partnership/cooperation, respect, wisdom, assessment, coaching, training, encouragement, and accountability.  They have invited them to pull up a chair and have a major seat at the table.

Since this blog is about global missions, I wish to take this time to direct your attention to Sott’s influence on global evangelization. Check out this memorial video by Langham Partnership. It provides a brief biographical sketch and glimpse into his heart for making disciples of all nations.

Next, you should listen to the following audio recording. Last year, Stott provided this greeting in preparation for Cape Town 2010 (also known as Lausanne III).

Finally, I want to draw your attention to the documents that were developed from the Lausanne Movement which Stott helped launch with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The first document linked below is known as the Lausanne Covenant. It was developed in 1974, setting the pace for the Movement. Describing the origins and influence of this document, The Lausanne Movement’s web site notes:

John Stott chaired the drafting committee and is best described as its chief architect. This was to be a Covenant with God, publicly declared, and a Covenant with one another; it has proved to be one of most widely-used documents in modern church history. The Covenant has helped to define evangelical theology and practice, and has set the stage for many new partnerships and alliances.

Here are three documents from the Lausanne Movement that bear his finger prints and carry on his legacy and global influence:

1974 Lausanne Covenant

1989 Manila Manifesto

Cape Town 2010 Commitment

Stott’s legacy reminds us of the importance of theologians being missiologists and missiologists being theologians.