How Do You Build A Reproducing Church

1. Never stop growing personally.
- all leaders are learners.
- the vision of the church will never exceed the vision of the pastor.
- you can delegate a lot of things. But, you cannot delegate faith in Jesus.
- Most of us have polaroid vision. The longer you look at it, the more clear it gets.
- God’s will is not a giant map, its a scroll. As you read a little, God unfurls a little more of His view for you.
- How do you build significant growth for 28 years? Solid, steady discipleship.
- God builds a mushroom in 6 hours. He builds a solid oak tree over decades.
- its easy to get a crowd. A crowd is not a church.
- Integrity, humility, and generosity are the antidote to the traps of leadership.

2. You’ve got to pay attention to your family.
- Don’t be like Solomon who while tending other vineyards, left his own unattended.
- Take a day off. Take a sabbath. In fact, don’t call it a day off, call it a sabbath.
- Don’t read email. Don’t answer the phone.
- Don’t pay attention to the critics or to the compliments. Focus on what Jesus says about you.

3. Develop a Kingdom mindset.
- God’s agenda is bigger than your denomination, your network, your agenda.
- The competition is not other churches. Its other recreation, stuff, and things.
- What is God’s agenda? It is the Kingdom of God.
- “The Kingdom of God is like….”
- Where is the Kingdom of God? Summarized is wherever Jesus Christ is (in heaven, on earth, in your heart).
- The Kingdom of God is eternal, inevitible
- Everytime the disciples wanted to talk about prophecy, Jesus changed the subject and began to talk about evangelism.

4. Focus on building people, not the church.
- In the first year of the church, the pastor is the glue. But your job is to wean people off of you.
- On the last Sunday of the first year, I stood up to preach and fainted. I had my midlife crisis when I was 26. Depressed and afraid.
- You have to have a system of incremental movement taking people to maturity.
- Why do people sit around in churches for decades and never mature? Because simply preaching doesn’t get it done.

MY PRAYER FOR YOU: Acts 13:36

The methods of the church must change with every generation.
For too long, the church has had no hands and feet … just a big mouth.

[From Rick Warren during a session at Exponential Conference - National New Church Conference]