Bike City USA - Portland Oregon

Portland is leading the way in the number of persons who commute to work via bike/bicycle. 5.6% of Oregonian's use two wheel power to get to and from work.

We at

Portland Church Planting

would invite you to come join us in pedaling throughout 20-minute communities in order to sow the Gospel and see new churches started.

Pray, send, advocate.....COME live for Christ here.

#sbc11 sbc2011 gcr send sendportland churchplanting

20-minute Community : Mississippi Ave

This trendy neighborhood in NE Portland is one of many 20-minute communities in Portland Oregon in need of a new church. How will you help advocate for this sendnamb community? Learn more about sowing the gospel in 20-minute communities here:  www.portlandchurchplanting.org   #sbc11 #sbc2011 #gcr # #churchplanting #sendportland

More of the Same....Irony of Numbers....Dreams

Ed Stetzer (edstetzer):

SBC is reporting baptisms, membership, attendance all decline in 2010-- baptisms lowest in 60 yrs.

http://is.gd/MpAJTS

Here is a striking qoute, "The report did, however, indicate one positive change. The number of churches in the Southern Baptist Convention rose to 45,727, an increase of 1.59 percent from the 45,010 reported in 2009."

More churches but less influence.  This is positive?  Positive only if OUR collective goal is to plant churches and not reach people.  Positive only if our goal is adding to our number of churches but not considering if our model of church planting should be a concern.  What are we to do? More of the same bigger, better, with more dollars (especially in church planting), expecting people to be attracted to our way of Church and continue to get the same results .... insanity!  Not in Portland.

OR, do we re-imagine how to reach those with the good news of Jesus as if they are not ATTRACTED to our forms of church?  Do we consider new ways of being the gathered and scattered people of God or continue with the status quo?

Come help dream dreams in Portland OR @ www.portlandchurchplanting.org.   Come plant your life with the gospel in 20-minute communities so curious God-seekers can be captured by the ONE who loves them!

We look forward hearing from you.

#sendportland #sbc2011 #namb #gcr #churchplanting

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Dealing with Stressors? Here is Some Advice.....

All of us have stressors. Before we get to the HELPS, here is some preliminary work you may need to do.

First, identify the stressors in your life. Here are the top areas for stressors in our life: Things we are trying to AVOID (bad habits), NUTRITION (what you are feeding yourself), INTERACTIONS (relationships at work, home, across the street, etc,), BODY (exercise, appearance, etc.) and MINDSET (positive, negative, etc.). Where is your stress coming from daily?

Once you've identified the area, you need to develop a plan to minimize the stressors. Here are FOUR helps in dealing with those stressors (two in each of the following categories): Change the situation or Change your reaction.

1. Change the situation by AVOIDING the stressor. Learn to say NO! Avoid people who stress you out.

2. Change the situation by ALTERING the stressor. Manage your time better. Find a healthy environment to express your feelings. And, be willing to compromise.

3. Change your reaction by ADAPTiNG to the stressor. Keep the stressor in perspective by looking at the BIG picture. Focus on the positive.

4. Change your reaction by ACCEPTING the stressor. Stop trying to CONTROL the UNCONTROLLABLE! Learn to forgive.

Stressors are a normal part of life. We all have them. So, learn to manage your stressors in more productive manner.

If you are a church planter, stressors will be plentiful. At portlandchurchplanting.org we want to help provide an environment to help you deal with the stressors. We believe the FIRST place to begin is developing and maintaining a SABBATH RHYTHM. Sabbath is God's initiative to help followers of his to keep LIFE in perspective. Jesus is our SABBATH rest and the proper framework for living out of a SABBATH RHYTHM.

Come to Portland and learn this SABBATH RHYTHM while you plant yourself in a 20-mintute community sowing and watering the gospel! sendportland namb sbc churchplanting gcr

The Portland our Parachuters will Experience

Welcome to Portland Parachuters! Here is what you might see as you engage our context with the gospel? Thanks for giving your summer to the people and communities of Portland.

Enjoy your stay.....
http://ping.fm/RM6ay

What is keeping you from visiting Portland and considering planting your missional life here? Come join us in sowing the gospel in 20-minute communities throughout Portland and watching God grow his church!
#sendportland namb gcr sbc

The Portland Parachute Project: June 1-July 31

THE BIG IDEA.....
The Portland Parachute Project is a spiritual adventure designed to deploy collegiate students and young adults into strategic 20-minute communities throughout Portland to experience firsthand the realities of church planting activities while cultivating the “spiritual soil” of a community in preparation for starting new churches.

Our Missionary participants will be equipped to interact and build relationships with those who are disconnected from Christ and His Church. Our Parachuters will be “dropped off” in a strategic location for service, information gathering and other missionary activities. Pray for our team of 9 serving in two 20-minute locations.

THE GOALS:
The project carries seven goals.
(1) Develop an influential rapport between the missionary teams and the community.
(2) Gather critical information on the rhythms of the community that can be handed over to a church planting team.
(3) Identify persons of peace and other strategic contacts in the community.
(4) PRAY for the opportunity to gather at least one small group and engage them in disciple making.
(5) If the team were working with a church plant, they would help the new work have a greater Kingdom Impact within that community.
(6) Create an enlistment strategy for the field based on young adults returning to the place of service to help plant a church (Matt Jolley is coming back this summer from last summer's team and in January will move to Portland!)
(7) Be a part of a larger “farm system” that helps develop young adults’ character, knowledge and skills in the areas of
networking for evangelism, starting multiplying small groups and identifying and equipping leaders.

THE PLAN:
The Portland Parachute Project is a high velocity missional experience. A team of NINE students have committed to live for 8-10 weeks in Portland to help cultivate the “spiritual soil” of a 20-minute community in preparation for starting a new
church.

Like the name "The Portland Parachute Project" suggests, teams are "dropped off" in the middle of a community. The 20-minute neighborhoods we have chose are Sellwood and NE Portland near Fremont and Alberta. Our team's mission is simple: Live missionaly (doing missions in everyday life) by building relationships and seeping into the cracks and crevices of the culture.

Summer mission experiences often involve a specific job description. However, The Portland Parachute Project, participants will be equipped to initiate ministry. They will discover, plan, and implement ministry based on what God is doing in the community and the team's giftedness. They will be encouraged to interact with disconnected people and value meeting them on their turf. Participants will be equipped and encouraged to volunteer in community clubs, do acts of kindness /service, and build relationships around personal gifting. The team will be coached by Ken Harmon and myself while we introduce them to church planters and Portland Church Planting (coming soon www.portlandchurchplanting.com and www.portlandchurchplanting.org).

Pray for the communities of Sellwood and NE Portland (we hope to be able strengthen a church plant in the area) and for our team. Pray for Ken and myself as we coach the team in missional living, disciple-making and community activities. Pray how you can be involved in 20-minute communities throughout Portland. Pray for people in these communities to become followers of Christ and for a faith community to be started.

#sendportland namb sbc gcr

What Do Tribbles and Missional Communities Have in Common?

If you have ever watched Star Trek, than perhaps, you remember the episode with the Tribbles. These Tribbles multiplied profusely. Why? Because they were born pregnant and here is the similarity I would like to make with Missional Communities.

Missional Communities must be BORN pregnant and ready to reproduce -- MULTIPLY. (says Neil Cole).

When you BIRTH a missional community the expectation is multiplication – anything less leads to death.

Here is a little secret -- it is easier to multiple groups of two, three, twelve. It is more difficult to multiple your gathering or worship service of 40, 50, 150. The beauty of missional community is this: It is a simple organism!

What you aime for you will hit. Target missional living and you will get communitas (which is better than community). If you just aime for community, you will possibly miss missional living.

The gravitational pull --for most churches in America -– is the holy huddle. HUDDLES (not communitas) of community singing kumbaya and growing old together. Comfort and community can lead to the death of a reproducing community.

Sometimes, missional communities can become too old to reproduce because of this gravitational pull.

Multiply everything you do. Let your missional communities be born pregnant.

What do you think? Where do you agree or disagree with what has been written?

Go therefore and MULTIPLY......

In fact, come to Portland OR and live missionally with us. Come live here and sow the gospel. Come live here "born pregnant" ready to multiply communitas into a gathered, called out people of God in a 20-minute community. sendportland gcr namb sbc

Portland Fourth for Fitness

Another reason to live in the Portland Metro, you will be fit.

Portland ranked fourth behind Minneapolis/St. Paul, Washington D.C. and Boston out of the top 50 most populous metro cities.

Portland earned high scores on overall physical activity, access to health care, its farmers markets, use of public transportation, high number of workers who commute by foot and bicycle, overall health, access to parks and number of baseball diamonds and dog parks.

Read more: Portland fourth for fitness | Portland Business Journal 

Like you needed another reason to come to Portland and sow the gospel to see new churches started!


Join us in the harvest sendPortland namb gcr sbc

Dr. Crews Supports GCR

Jim Richards (RichardsJim):
RT @pray4gcr Bill Crews, Executive Director of the NW Baptist Convention Supports Report & Recommendations http://bit.ly/ddn8bs SBC GCR

http://ping.fm/BBNRS

retweet of @GCResurgence tweet

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