The NEXT Generation of Purpose Driven

“It’s a sin for church to be boring!” -NEXT Conference Coach Randy Smith

NEXT is a network of purpose-driven churches dedicated to launching 1000 churches in the next five years.

If you are leading a church . . . Breaking Through Growth Barriers is NEXT. Many pastors ask, "How do I grow my church?" The question should be, "What's keeping my church from growing?" The NEXT Conference will help you determine the things that are keeping your church from growing and how to correct them.

For $200 a month, you can join a Coaching Network. NEXT Coaching Networks consist of 10-12 Lead Pastors who meet with a coach one day each month for six months...

STAGE 1: Dream
Mapping and preparing for the church-starting experience is critical for the success of the church. You can always draw people to a church, but you can lose just as many out the back door. If you don’t have a plan in place, it will eventually cost you in leadership, people and momentum. Churches are also best started with a team. If God is working in your heart to start a church, he’s probably working in the lives of others. How do you find these people? In this session you will learn how to:
Develop your vision
Create a purpose statement
Craft a strategy
Formulate your core values
Build a launch team
Finance the dream

STAGE 2: Design
It is crucial to design the right form before people start pouring the concrete. The form a leader constructs will shape the future of the church. Do not take the beginning form of your church lightly! Based on the purpose-driven philosophy and without compromising your theological convictions, you’ll learn how to focus on a specific group of people in your community and how to:
Determine your worship style
Develop your teaching style
Decide your leadership structure

STAGE 3: Launch
On opening day the goal of a new church is to have a fully functioning team and hundreds of first time guests that show up for the service. If a church can’t break 200 in the first 1 to 2 years, it generally never does; a church that launches large, however, has a better opportunity to keep growing and growing. You’ll learn how to:
Develop credibility with the community
Create preview services
Market the church to the community

STAGE 4: Development
Healthy churches are continually looking to innovate and improve what they are doing. After a church is launched, several critical areas of the church must be developed. Gathering a crowd is important, but moving them to greater Christ-like maturity is just as critical. Too often churches are in a rush to become a “full service” congregation by trying to do everything for everyone. In this session, you’ll learn how to:
Create a welcoming atmosphere
Develop a worship experience
Install an intentional discipleship system
Start the right ministry at the right time

STAGE 5: Strategic Leadership
Church starters must continually develop as leaders or they will become the barriers for growth in their churches. Everything rises and falls on leadership. Purpose driven leaders learn how to lead larger by continuing to grow and develop their leadership skills. As the church grows, the pastor must give up more and more ownership to the members and staff. In this session, you’ll learn how to:
Determine what to stop doing as the church grows
Hire the right staff in the right priority
Add multiple services
Ride momentum without killing yourself

Galatians 3
1O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6just as Abraham "believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"? 7Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." 9So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

See the five part series Signs of a Purpose Driven Transition in Your Church