Charlene and I visited Stovall and Kerri Weems in Jacksonville, Florida this past weekend where I had the opportunity to speak at their marriage weekend and Sunday services. WOW! This church is explosive in worship, attendance, and in the presence of God. Everything there is just plain fun. There were over 1,700 in attendance in their Super Saturday service and they packed-out the building twice on Sunday…not to mention the other off-site campuses.

Stovall has done an incredible job building a dynamic life-giving church in this sunny city in northern Florida. The energy in the services, the intensity with which the people worship and the “all out” pace that the Celebration team serves is incredible. It was fantastic!

We also had the privilege to see “Watoto” from Kampala, Uganda. This is a choir made up of AIDS orphans from Uganda that have been adopted by this mission. My heart was stirred for missions all over again as they sang with all their heart “I am not forgotten, God knows my
name.” Incredible.

Thanks Stovall and Kerri for a weekend we will never forget.

Billy

I just returned home from Fort Lauderdale from the Book of Hope Roundtable. Book of Hope has provided nearly 500,000,000 copies of the harmony of the Gospels in relevant, colorful books and booklets around the world in 155 countries. They will distribute 70,000,000 to the children of these countries in 2008.

What a privilege to spend time with Bob and Rob Hoskins and hear again the wonderful and miraculous story of Book of Hope. Many of my precious friends were there from ARC and, as always, I met made many new friends like, Bob Coy of Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale, Chris Beard from Ohio and Osvaldo
Carnival from Argentina. Osvaldo pastors one of the largest churches in Argentina with over 4500 cell groups. We will be good friends! Check out the pictures! Billy

We just completed CPR at Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, AL. Chris
Hodges did a great job sharing his story and teaching on church planting
strategy. It was one of the best meetings we have had like this and I
believe will produce several great church planters.

CPR is the start of the relationship with ARC and initiates a long
partnership with each church planter that plants a church with us. We are
serious about relationships! Check out this email that I received from
Pastor Nathan Camp.

Billy,

In Christ,
Nathan Camp
Lead Pastor
Fusion Church

This is an example of what we try to do in the area relationships. With
God’s help we will continue to walk with each couple who partners with us.

God bless, Billy

I’ve decided that Ed Stetzer is like the Bo Jackson of church planting. Not only does he understand the statistics behind the church planting movement,he is one of the best strategists anywhere. Needless to say, the guy knows his stuff and I’m thrilled that now he’s on my side of the field. Check Ed out at http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/

Started seven years ago with two church plants, today the Association of Related Churches, (ARC) has planted 53 relevant, life-giving churches across the country, many of them now effective mega-churches. We are a non-denominational church planting engine that offers coaching, assessment and financing to young church planters and church networks. Because of the partnership of vision minded pastors like Greg Surratt, Chris Hodges, Dino Rizzo, Rick Bezet and Scott Hornsby, the ARC is poised to make an even bigger impact in the next few years. Great new friends have come along side of ARC to make the potential even greater…Guys like Matt Fry, Craig Altman, Craig Groeschel, Stovall Weems and many others have put the MO in the organization. As we continue to grow, we are excited to forge a new friendship with Ed Stetzer and want to welcome him into our circle of friends. Can’t beat that, after all…

Ed knows church planting.

It was a great weekend for ARC and the New York Giants. Several ARC churches had record attendance (C3, Matt Fry’s church broke 3300) and Eli and his Giants team beat the unbeatables. I was amazed at the NY Giants’ determination to win under such pressure. The odds against them were huge and the media darlings, New England Patriots, were the by and large the favorites. But that didn’t play out in the end. Pure determination and guts won at the end of the day.

Sometimes I think that pure determination and guts wins in church planting situations. When we get tired and depressed that our church isn’t growing like we had hoped it would we start to give in to the status quo and accept the idea that we will remain a small average church. We learn very quickly how to buy into the idea that our city is a church "graveyard" and we are one on those statistics. We begin to agree with all the other pastors in the area that "religous" spirits and demons have our city by the throat and if we can just "hold on to the rope" for a few years maybe we will grow enough to eventually buy a building and carve out a niche in the city for our struggling church.

Take a lesson from Eli Manning….break loose from the enemy and chunk your best effort down the field…maybe someone will do something extraordinary to keep you in the game. Maybe that individual will be the Holy Spirit. God has great plans for you and wants to celebrate with you on a victory that only the determined and overcomers will participate in. It’s nice to have wins along the way and even necessary, but we must win the "big one." In the case of the church planter, that big one is the conviction and belief that God wants to win many souls in your city through your church (and others) and that your purpose is not to just get in the game, but to accomplish what He sent you there for.

Enough football? Not yet.

During the game I paid attention to the coaches and how they interacted with the players. It was amazing to see how each coach was constantly consulting with the players, both individually and in groups. No team can win without a coach! Question: Who is your coach? Who do you call for new plays? Who is mentoring you and guiding you through the next phase of your church plant? Who do you call each week to go over your situation with? Who is listening to your messages and giving you feedback? Who is watching you play and helping you make adjustments? For many of you the answer is, "No one." That is the basic problem that most church planters have. ARC has coaches available to help you make weekly adjustments if necessary….call one. It could be a church planter that is a year ahead of you or it could be the weekly teleconference with ARC leaders that we offer. These pastors are innovative, creative and successful and willing to share what they have with you. Just call in and listen or contact ARC for the name of one of our pastors who would be willing to coach you.

Pure determination and guts……Just do it!

Billy

Here I am with my new friend Nelson Searcy. Nelson is the author of a fantastic book on church planting called Launch and he was also a special guest at the Liberty University Church Planting emphasis week.

Matt Fry is the man! Wednesday January 30 I sat in the huge dome on Liberty University campus to hear Pastor Matt Fry speak at the convocation to 10,000
Liberty U. students. He stirred the crowd with a message on vision and
living out your destiny in God.

Later that evening we attended Campus Church at Thomas Road Baptist Church.
Walking in to the auditorium it felt like a rock concert…really cool
stuff. Smoke filled the huge 5500 seat room with red, blue, yellow and green
strobe lights flashing everywhere. The worship set was wonderful and the
5000 students really entered in with many dancing raising their hands in
intense worship. I thought I was as Bethany World Prayer Center for a few
minutes! Great time.

Ed Stetzer did a great job teaching on the ministry of reconciliation out of
2Corinthians 5. Dozens of students responded to the call to be church
planters. It was a moving experience.

Thursday morning I had the opportunity to teach a class lead by Dr. Elmer
Towns on church planting. I was honored to get the opportunity to speak at
Liberty U. and share all that God is doing in ARC.

At lunch 16 leaders convened for a Church Planters Roundtable with many
great leaders from around the US. Jonathan Falwell, Senior Pastor at Thomas
Road Baptist Church led the meeting and shared his vision with us to plant
500 churches in 5 years in the USA. His passion for reaching the lost is
incredible. Each one in the room had an opportunity to share what they were
doing and give input into the direction of this initiative. ARC will have a
part.

It was decided that one of the means for planting 500 churches would be for
Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University to partner with existing
church planting organizations in the effort to do this. It was decided that
ARC would be a part of this and that students that identified with the ARC
style and model would be encouraged to plant with ARC. What an honor to be
able to partner with such a great church, university and a leader like
Jonathan Falwell.

At the end of the meeting Pastor Falwell prayed specifically for Charlene’s
healing and for peace and strength for us both during the challenging time
we are facing with Charlene’s battle with cancer. I was deeply moved by
this.

Please pray with us that God will give direction and wisdom to all involved
to be able to carry out this initiative.

It was an incredible two days in Lynchburg and I was humbled by the
reception and hospitality of the Liberty U. staff and leadership.