This six-session course with Ben Connelly equips everyday Christians to live as missionaries right where they are, not just overseas. Through practical teaching and follow-up exercises, it helps believers display and declare the gospel in ordinary, everyday life.

This 11-session course with Ben Connelly offers a practical primer for anyone exploring the idea of church planting, whether you're feeling called, curious, or considering joining a team. Drawing from his own church planting experience, Connelly answers key questions and provides tangible next steps to help you discern and prepare for this important ministry calling.

This four-part ebook series by Ben Connelly helps churches embrace their role in God’s mission by equipping and sending leaders—no matter their size or age. Drawing from real-life experience, each reflection offers practical insights and exercises to guide churches in becoming gospel-driven, sending communities like the early church in Antioch.

In Reading the Bible, Missing the Gospel, Ben Connelly exposes common ways Christians misunderstand Scripture by centering it on themselves rather than on God. He invites readers to rediscover the Bible through the lens of Jesus as the true hero, reshaping how we view forgiveness, blessing, the church, and more.

Healthy plants make more healthy plants. Healthy platypus and giraffes make more healthy platypus and giraffes. Healthy humans make more humans. Healthy disciples make more disciples. Healthy leaders make more leaders. And healthy churches make more churches! No healthy entity is an end unto itself; God created good things, and designed them to multiply. That’s God’s heart for multiplication, from Genesis 1 and still today!

What if every church followed God’s leading in sending, and were willing to pray and give away our finances, and even our best leaders?

What if we could do so, not in our church’s 20th or 200th year of existence, but in its second year?
And what if we could at least start down that path, not when we have 200 or 2000 people engaged, but when we have 20 people?

Ben Connelly answers these questions and more in this free, online video workshop.

This was the question that Jim Essian, a friend and fellow pastor in my city, asked 15 folks around a table in 2017. This was the third question he asked, with building gusto, after receiving rousing and unified responses from his first two questions: “Who believes Fort Worth needs the gospel?” “YES!” “Who believes that church planting is a way that can happen?” “YES!” Then came the climactic moment: “Who’s ready to plant churches together?” …crickets. No response. The air was sucked out of the room. No one was ready to work together.

Recognizing and stewarding one’s personal strengths and limitations can lead to more faithful and effective ministry.

As we approach Easter weekend, we want to pause and remember that the life, death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus is truly “good news” – on Easter, yes, and also in everyday life, all year long. But amidst competing worldviews, everyday busyness, and a context that prioritizes values over beliefs, it’s easy to relegate that “good news” to Sundays (or perhaps for some, this one Sunday annually), and live as if other forms of “good news” are better, more impacting, and more applicable to Monday - Saturday life, the rest of the year. 

This experience shaped the past nine years, as I have led national church planting residencies for various organizations. In 2019 and again in 2023, we did a full-scale revision of our residency work. On one hand, The Equipping Group is collaborating with more organizations, churches, and planters than ever before. On the other hand, these revisions came from many lessons learned in training dozens of residents, from many states and beyond, who are now ministering in five countries.

As I reflect on the past eight years and look to the future, I wanted to capture and share five lessons we learned.

What do you do as a leader, when things feel like they’re falling apart?
What’s your default response when you feel stretched too thin?
What happens when you can’t “fix” the thousands of things that people want you to fix?

Historically in seasons like these, my default response was to double down, to pile things on my plate, and to take a stronger hold on the things I could control, during the (many more) things I couldn’t.

But that posture only works for so long. Or more truthfully, it only even feels like it works… as I discovered the hard way.

A promise of the Bible is that none of us are “everything enough” — because no human but Jesus was ever intended to be enough. No church is “everything enough” to accomplish the beautiful, weighty, spiritual task of sending — because no church without God’s Spirit can accomplish what only God can accomplish. Another promise of the Bible is that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

I want to submit that Barnabas was a far more vital leader in the early church than we give him credit for — at least in a western, “leaders-are-those-with-the-best-stage-presence” mentality. Without Barnabas, the Jerusalem church would have struggled financially -- and the Antioch church might not have existed….

What keeps churches from planting churches and sending missionaries? For nearly a decade in various roles, I’ve been honored to create and oversee training for discerning one’s ministry fit and for equipping potential church planters to plant across North America and in multiple nations. I've also been honored to serve, coach, and train church planters in various cultures all around the globe. (I often learn more from them as they learn from me!)

“PREACH THE WORD”: This was the motto at the school where I received ministry training. It was known for its commitment to biblical exegesis and literal interpretation. So, semester after semester, I learned what the actual words on the Bible’s pages meant, and how to explain that meaning to others. I was young in my faith and just learning to know and love the Bible during those years. But looking back, I think I learned to preach the Bible’s words, but not actually preach the Word. And there’s a difference.

The world of publishing is a weird, at times overwhelming world. It feels confusing to navigate, and it's often hard to even know the first step. But every book started with an idea, and every author started out in some form of obscurity -- so sometimes it's just helpful to know where to start!

Trillia Newbell and Don Gates will help get you started in this free, online video workshop.