Links

Materials on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board or the Baptist General Association of Virginia.

Link Topics

 

Bible Teaching Resources

www.abingdonpress.org 
General publisher including small group Bible studies

www.alban.org 
The Alban Institute is an independent publisher of congregational and leadership books.

www.alphausa.org 
An independent international publisher of evangelistic small group Bible studies

http://www.bgct.org/texasbaptists/Page.aspx?&pid=459&srcid=591 Bible study resources for all ages published by the Baptist General Convention of Texas

www.cookministries.com/curriculum
An ecumenical publisher of Sunday School Bible study resources for all ages

http://www.cph.org/cphstore/Category.asp?find%5Fcategory=79977&find%5Fdescription=Bible+StudiesConcordia Publishers, a Lutheran publisher of curriculum resources

http://www.helwys.com/curriculum/adultcurr.html
Smyth & Helwys is a Baptist publisher of Bible study resources for youth and adult with close ties to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

www.gospellight.com
An independent publisher of Sunday School teaching resources for all ages

www.grouppublishing.com
An independent publisher of Bible study and small group resources for all ages

www.kerygma.com
A publisher of adult in-depth Bible studies

www.Lifeway.com
LifeWay Church Resources is an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention

http://www.moodypublishers.com/Publishers/default.asp
A publisher of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago

www.renovare.org
A publisher of adult spiritual formation resources, Renovare was founded by Richard J. Foster.

www.upperroom.org
A Methodist publisher of Christian discipleship resources

www.willowcreek.com/resources/
Association with the Willow Creek Community Church and the Willow Creek Association and affiliated with Zondervan Press

http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/Curriculum/Index.htm?QueryStringSite=Zondervan
Zondervan Press is an independent publishing house.

 

Church Planting Sites

Welcome to the Church Planting Village — A Vital Resource for the Twenty-First Century!


There is a greater need for more churches now than ever before.  The Church Planting Group wants church planters, sponsoring church leaders, and those who work with them to be equipped, trained, and resourced with the latest tools so they can experience success in every new plant.  The Church Planting Village is for anyone dedicated to changing the world through church planting.

A Church Planter's Paradise: This site is hosted by a group evangelical organizations that have partnered together to accomplish the Great Commission through Church Planting. All participating organizations adhere to the theological standards of the National Association of Evangelicals. Within this framework, you will find theological diversity among our participants. The Purpose of this site is to offer a "one stop" experience for potential Church Planters to connect with church planting opportunities across the USA and to offer a links page to some great church planting resources. This site intentionally does not offer great depth -- it is designed to be a launching out point.

AltaVista Church Planting Subdirectory: Focused on organizations which do church planting.

Ethnic Harvest: Dedicated to serving ethnic churches in the U.S., inspiring and equipping churches for multi-cultural ministry, and helping build bridges between ethnic populations in the U.S. and foreign missions.

Glocalnet was born out of a dream — a dream that followers of Jesus Christ and their churches would be so radically changed from the inside out that those disciples, their families, their churches, their neighborhoods and their work places would never be the same. And as a result of a transformational experience, these disciples and their churches would form partnerships that would transform their communities and touch the world. Groups of regionally-located churches or churches within the same city (clusters of churches) would link arms to provide cities and nations good news in all arenas — fresh water, nutritional food, 21st century healthcare, competitive education and spiritual truth.

NewChurchesDotCom Links : A resource web site sponsored by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for church planters and lay leaders. It is our hope you that you will find the information helpful as you prepare to plant a dynamic and effective church in your community.

MCFD Links: Sponsored by the Missionary Church USA which is a part of the World Wide Missionary Church.

PastorNet.Com Church Planting Links: PastorNet began as the dream of a few pastors in Northern California who have a passion for leadership development in the church. This passion has resulted in the formation of an Internet resource for pastors, namely, PastorNet. As the site continues to grow and adapt to the ever expanding e-world, the goal is to help pastors take advantage of Internet resources by becoming a great starting point when they are on the net.

PlantAChurch.com: We believe it is the process that Jesus had in mind when He said to go into all the world and make disciples. Starting reproducing churches that will plant other churches is also the church's greatest challenge and most exciting task at the beginning of the 21st Century. Plantachurch.com offers access to assessment, training, coaching, strategic planning, prayer and other resources to stimulate a church planting movement.

Vision Ministries Canada/Vision Ontario Links--Vision Ministries exists for the purpose of: 1. Evangelism via church planting. 2. Development of Lay Leaders in existing churches. 3. Creating a co-operative Network of Churches. They have an overview of the work of Vision Ministries in Canada featuring the training program they offer in the area of church planting.

Demographics & Statistics

American Religion Data Archive has a variety of information, mostly compiled from surveys, about religion in America. The data file directory is compiled into four categories: surveys of the general population, surveys of specific religious groups, surveys of religious professionals, and aggregate data files.

Barna Research Online Provides an array of materials and services. Of particular interest for the church planter is the Research Archives with forty articles synthesizing Barna's research on topics including African Americans, church demographics, regional differences, worship, and unchurched people.

Discover Your City: Bringing light to the task of community transformation through research has a library with three research papers and also a links page which connects you to other research-based sites.

G-Base: a free, interactive, on-line database for networks of Christian ministries that maintain directories of churches and agencies (the harvest force), demographic and ethnographic information (the harvest field), and dhurch and regional growth data (the harvest yield). The work of Jesus Christ in making disciples in North American cities requires intercessory prayer, good research, biblical methods, and inter-church partnerships. g-base can help partnerships compile their contact directories and maintain their research data on community needs, ministry effectiveness, and Kingdom growth. g-base data can be analyzed and reported to designated churches and ministries as required for their strategic planning.

Percept: Fee-based demographic data targeted to help your church. Percept Group, Inc. is a California company providing planning resources to churches, regional denominational executives and religious organizations in the United States. Percept adds value to its demographic based information products by integrating data about the religious attitudes, preferences and behavior of the American people.

Reaching the Generations for Jesus--These pages are dedicated to researching, understanding and discussing the various generations of young people growing up in today's world. This begins with the so-called Baby Busters, or Generation X, who were born between 1961 and 1982. The Millenial generation, or Generation Y, follows, with those born between 1982 and about 2003. After them will come a generation of Adaptives, or Generation Z, who will be born between about 2003 and 2025. The specific purpose of these pages is to analyse the generations from a Christian point-of-view, and discover how best the Gospel of Jesus Christ may be communicated within the generational culture. A Spiritual Growth Model of Local Church Ministry presents a model of ministry to Generation X that will meet them where they are at. This chapter examines two current models which are attempting to adjust to a new generation, and then proposes a combination of both.

Statistics Canada is the country's national statistical agency, with programs organized into three broad subject matter areas: demographic and social, socio-economic and economic.

US Census Bureau--Demographic information about the United States; hundreds of downloadable (Adobe Acrobat) reports are available free on this site. NOTE: American Factfinder lets you download and print maps and demographic data on every city, county, and state in the United States!

Visions-Decisions--We serve churches, judicatories and denominations with quality, helpful demographic reports and studies. For nearly a decade, Visions-Decisions has supplied a range of dependable reports and studies to congregations, new missions, and congregational development committees within most of America's major denominations and church affiliations. Churches have always been our only clients: We exist solely to serve the church.

Educational/Training Sites

Arks Incorporated: The natural outcome of successful church planting and growth is usually the need to build a church building. We would like to see if there is a place for us to help you in this ministry. Our mission is to minister to churches in this complicated phase of growth and to help them save money, reduce risk and maintain the unity of the church they have worked so hard to build.

Church Multiplication Training Center: offers training for planting/multiplying churches; exists to multiply reproducing churches through equipping and empowering planters, pastors, spouses, and leaders of sponsoring agencies.

ChurchPlanters e-mail Conference (Abilene Christian University): The vision for the CHURCHPLANTERS conference is for Church Planters to build up and encourage each other through the sharing of overall vision, questions, specific problems, experiences, testimonies and practical suggestions. Other Christians who are interested in church planting are also welcome. Of special interest are their Archive and Resource pages, each providing multiple links to books, organizations, etc. available online.

The Church Planting Institute: Empowering Leaders for Church Multiplication Movements in the 21st Century--Sponsored by CRM New Church Development, the Church Planting Institute (CPI) is an intensive training and coaching process designed to help leaders implement reproducible systems necessary for church multiplication movements within a district of churches. The Church Planting Institute exists to: Mobilize powerful prayer for evangelism and new church development; Implement appropriate, reproducible systems to accelerate the multiplication of disciples, groups and churches within cities, regions and countries; Cultivate coaching and networks for key leaders to facilitate effective church multiplication movements; Raise up workers for the harvest and from the harvest through evangelism and leadership development; and Empower leaders to start and multiply churches all over the place.

Church Planting Ministries: This ministry is here to assist you in raising up strong and growing churches. The information provided on this site will help a pastor of an established church as well as a pastor who is starting a new church.

ChurchSmart: Offers multiple resources (including an on-line newsletter) and opportunities for training within the orientation of Christian Schwarz's Natural Church Development.

Dynamic Church Planting International: a mentoring, training, and consulting mission focused on providing products and services to help church planters at all levels.

Easum Bandy & Associates offers consulting, evaluation, and training together with various written resources dealing with church growth and planting, with an index to their church planting articles.

House to House Church Planting and Leadership Publications
Mark Harris collection of papers: 11 professional papers analyzing church planting in Russia for people who are doing evangelism and other kinds of ministry work in Russia

Worldview Resource Group The purpose of WRG is to provide equipping, training, and consulting in cross-cultural church planting methodologies with a particular focus on a worldview approach.

Denominational Organizations

Calvary Chapel Church Planting Mission is dedicated to assisting Calvary Chapel affiliates in their effort to plant and nurture Calvary fellowships in the Former Soviet Union.

Christian Reformed Home Missions encourages and assists new and established churches, in partnership with classes and the whole Church, to initiate and support the multiplication of new, Biblically faithful, disciple-making churches (Matthew 28:18-20). CRHM is an agency of the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRC) which is responsible for the spread of the gospel and the building up of Christian Reformed churches on this continent.

Church Planting Group (NAMB)--provides multiple resources on church planting from a Southern Baptist perspective. Note that Church Planting & Evangelism TODAY Magazine is available in Adobe Acrobat format from this site.

Grace Brethren North American Missions Church Planting Pages GBNAM has a three-pronged approach to accomplish the global mission strategy given to us in Acts 1:8, utilizing: Regional Initiatives, Ethnic-American Church Initiatives, World-Class City Initiatives.

The Mid-Maryland Baptist Association is a partnership of churches fulfilling the Great Commission and exists to plant churches by stimulating church health, developing leaders, and networking resources locally and globally.Missionary Church USA: The Church Multiplication Training Center exists to develop practical church planting skills while encouraging the personal spiritual growth of planters, pastors, spouses and coaches of planters.

NewChurchesDotCom: A resource web site sponsored by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for church planters and lay leaders. It is our hope you that you will find the information helpful as you prepare to plant a dynamic and effective church in your community.

New Tribes Mission (NTM International): Missionaries plant churches among tribal groups around the world. Christian missions are available as well as planned charitable giving and "donate a car" options online.

North American Baptist Conference Church Planting Page:Our vision is to raise the value of "reaching the lost through church planting" so high that an increasing number of our churches see church planting as a sign of health and see the unique role they will play. We will do this by: Assisting association leadership in developing a vision for Church Planting in their context; and assisting local churches in the identification and fulfillment of their unique Church Planting role.

Emerging Church

For provocative articles and information about cultural changes and the role of the church in the emerging culture, visit The Ooze.

If you are interested in exploring how various churches are responding to cultural changes, then visit the collection of links, webzines, art sources, and other interesting information linked at Vintage Faith.

Emergent Village is a growing, generative friendship among missional Christians seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.  The site contains several blogs, articles, and podcasts addressing numerous related concerns. 

Next-Wave in a webzine with fresh collection articles about cultural change and the role of the emerging church in contemporary society.  The sites articles are written from a wide range of perspectives and can be found here: 

For over 30 years Youth Specialties has worked alongside Christian youth workers of just about every denomination and youth-serving organization. We're here to help you, whether you're brand new to youth ministry or a veteran, whether you're a volunteer or a career youth pastor.  This site is always a tremendous source for issues related to emerging ministry. 

Referring to itself as “a touching place for the emerging church,” Emerging Church Info contains a collection of blogs, articles, and discussion groups related to the issues that are confronting the church through cultural change. 

Led by 16 section editors and hundreds of writers just like you, RELEVANTmagazine.com is the daily-updated, user-driven counterpart to RELEVANT magazine. The website receives hundreds of thousands of visitors and more than 4 million page views each month, and the print magazine has now surpassed more than 75,000 in circulation. In just a few short years, RELEVANT has become a leading voice for our generation. 

Parachurch Organizations

Canadian House Church Resource Network is about "facilitating reproducible house church networks." Mission Statement: By the power and leading of the Holy Spirit, we seek to mobilize, resource, encourage, network, train and facilitate those that God is raising up in Canada who, while complimenting other forms of Christian gatherings in Canada, share and carry out the vision of establishing easily reproducible, multiplying house churches in house church networks as a vital part of seeing Canada discipled and taking a more effective role in discipling the nations, in order that Jesus will be glorified as King of Kings among all nations. We desire to see His life lived out through us in every aspect of life.

Church Planting Forum: Web-based threaded discussion on church planting.

Church Planting International Besides working directly in church planting projects, the role of CPI in fulfilling the Great Commission is to help mobilize Christian laborers and resources and direct them to areas of need in the world. It is to be the link between those willing and able to help in those parts of the world which have little or no Christian witness.

Church Resource Ministries: At CRM our mission is to develop leaders to strengthen and start churches worldwide. CRM envisions movements of fresh, authentic churches, pioneered by godly leaders, fired by a passion for their world, compelled to multiply their lives and ministry, so that the name of God is renowned among the nations.

Dawn Ministries: The word "DAWN" is an acronym for "Discipling A Whole Nation." It is a strategy of ministry developed in terms of our Lord’s command to "make disciples of all nations." It takes literally the idea that the Lord wants nations to be discipled. To do this, DAWN seeks to mobilize the whole Body of Christ in whole countries in an optimum strategy for the discipling of all the "nations" or peoples of those countries.

Fellowship of Church Planters The Fellowship of Church Planters began in 1985 in Rhode Island and now consists of a network of autonomous teams in New England. We facilitate teams in other countries. The teams are modeled after the apostolic bands in the New Testament and are committed to planting reproducing networks of house churches.

ForMinistry.com: ForMinistry.com is an Internet ministry of the American Bible Society.This brand new site is carrying on the important work begun at Houses of Worship and promises to become the premier Web site for churches and ministry-minded Christians.

Global Church Advancement is committed to “Advancing church planting movements through Kingdom Partnerships”, and we do this primarily through 5 levels of training, both formal and non-formal, academy and non-academy.

House Church Central--HCC is non-denominational and an effort is made to accommodate Christians of many backgrounds. The house church movement is an attempt to get away from the institutional church, seeking instead to return to the small gatherings of peoples that constituted all of the churches of the New Testament era. Dedicated to the growing house church movement and endeavoring to provide house churches with 1) A channel for the interchange of ideas; 2) A source for solid, Christian theology; and 3) A catalog of resources for the house church.

Midwest Church Planting: We believe that the local church is the ‘hope of the world’ and that develpment of new vital churches is the most effect means on earth for reaching our world. Our vision statement is to fullfill the great commission through the planting and growing of healthy churches.

Russian Ministries Projects: Evangelism and Church Planting in Russia: If you're interested in planting churches in the former Soviet Union, here's a resource that might be helpful. PDRM Projects offers information and links to those intereseted in ministering in Russia. This site also connects you with already established mission agencies currently working in Russia.

World Impact--crosses class and cultural barriers to reach those unreached by the gospel of Jesus Christ and form culturally-conducive churches among them.

White Fields--specializes in providing collaborative start-up support to pastors planting local churches among their own people in other parts of the world.

Virginia Baptist Mission Board Sites

Worship

Highway Video contains some very good vibe videos that can be used in worship gatherings.

Worship First is an effort to provide the resources and a means of encouragement for all of us and our churches to strive to become the kind of worshipers that the Father seeks! We invite you to explore ways in which you and your congregation may better and more authentically worship our Lord and Creator. We invite you to submit resources to our site that others might use to enhance their worship experiences. We invite you to join us in our journey towards making the worship in each of our churches an encounter in which our lives are transformed and renewed on a continuing basis.

Find churches and other organizations that offer sermons, sermon notes, or an audio clip from past sermons online.