This exercise invites you to study your neighborhood, city, workplace or community to start to know the ins and outs of your missional sphere.

It can be difficult to define a shared mission — but such definition is often less about creating something brand new, and more about discerning and discovering what God is already doing among your community, together.

In nearly every realm of ministry & mission, it is easy to rely on our ways: our strength, our plans, our strategy. This exercise is designed to help you take a tangible step in fighting that temptation and reversing that trend to dependence on God.

Humans are inherently relational beings: we are not designed to be alone. Biblically and experientially, “discipleship” and “mission” at their best are relational pursuits. In this exercise, define your relationships in your mission and ministry with categorized roles and then prayerfully bring balance to them.

This exercise asks you to define a certain area of your church’s vision, then invites you into an honest assessment of what aspects of your culture promote that area of your vision, vs. what aspects of your culture work against it.

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.

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.

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.

Do we actually know how Jesus sounds like good news to people today? Do we know how to share the gospel in a way that it addresses peoples' true needs, problems, questions and situations?

Join Jerram Barrs as he answers these questions and more in this Free Online Workshop.

Much has been said about Christianity in the West and the need for the Church to rethink its approach, so I won’t belabor the point here. But I will say this: if the studies are correct and our current models of church will only reach about 20% of a given city at best, we must ask how we can reach the other 80%. We need a definition of church that allows us to go anywhere and reach anyone, with possibilities as expansive as the mission of God it’s called to participate in…

What's the difference between a missional community and a microchurch? Are they the same thing with two names, or are they distinct philosophies of ministry? How is each more helpful than the other... and does it really matter!?

Jeff Vanderstelt and Tomy Wilkerson answer these questions and more in this free, online video workshop.

Should you pursue a Bible degree, or a formal residency process? Maybe (I’m biased!). But whether you do or not, if you have a desire to plant and/or lead a church, don’t waste your current situation. Live in the present. “Bloom where you’re planted.” Make use of the time, season, and church God has you in. Because if you want to plant and/or lead a church one day, your training starts today. Look around you: everything is a residency.

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!)

What will the North American Church look like in 2050 (which isn't even 30 years away?!) What foundations can we keep from the past, and how must we contextualize for the future? And how is Jesus still good news in an increasingly pluralistic, post-Christendom culture?

Join Daniel Yang & Ben Connelly to discuss these themes in our first workshop of 2023, sponsored by Fuller Church Planting Initiative.

While it’s probably true that 18-25 year olds of every generation are sort of anti-institution, we have not seen any other generation born into the age of the internet, extremely heightened by social media, raised in an economic recession, plagued by mental health diagnoses, navigating college during the most politically and racially divided moment in our lifetime, and then thrust into the workforce in a global pandemic.

Gen-Z is not a snowflake generation. They’re just accurately reflecting back to us the cultural chaos that started off this decade.

Bivocational ministry -- like so many other aspects of life -- often leads to an outcome unexpected by those who pursue it.

Above all, life in the family of God is a daily act of worship. So let’s find a group of folks to go with us, and let’s pray for the Spirit’s help in difficult steps on this journey.