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The Honest Guide to Church Planting
- What No One Ever Tells You About Planting and Leading a New Church
- Narrated by: Tom Bennardo, Gabe Wicks - foreword
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Categories: Religion & Spirituality, Christianity
Non-member price: $28.59
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Brilliant book!
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Do you wish you had more qualified, committed, and mission-oriented leaders in your church to share the ministry workload? Do you have a passion for cultivating the God-given leadership gifts in others? Most pastors say that the need to identify and develop leaders is critical to the health and growth of their church, yet most churches do not have an intentional plan for doing this.
Publisher's Summary
Church planting has become a cottage industry. National conferences, hip planting organizations, and all-in-one resource kits celebrate the thrill of pioneering a church and inspire visions of glorious victories. Yet few who respond to the call are warned what they’ll actually encounter: the relentless opposition they’ll endure; the eventual scattering of their entire core group; the failure of their tried-and-true field-tested system.
Here’s the dirty little secret of church planting: The roadside is strewn with casualties. Many have closed their churches. Some left ministry permanently. Others abandoned the faith altogether.
Church planting is at once the greatest and most grueling ministry work on earth. This audiobook is for those toiling in the trenches, those about to bail out, and those considering jumping in. It’s for the church planters laboring and struggling, seeing little movement, and wondering what they’re doing wrong or why God is failing them. It’s also for mother churches, planting organizations, and denominations as a challenge to rethink and recalibrate the way they approach and measure planting endeavors.
The Honest Guide to Church Planting is a fresh and candid conversation about the challenges and joys of planting new churches. Tom Bennardo speaks the truth so those involved in church planting can embrace a more accurate and realistic picture of what planting a church is really like; one that not only enables them to survive, but to thrive in this wondrous work.
What listeners say about The Honest Guide to Church Planting
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Claire
- 15-01-2021
Such a blessing
I so appreciate his vulnerability and rawness. The truths shared in this book deeply resonate with us as church planters. Thanks for being obedient and writing this book inspite of your personal inhibitions :)
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- Ben
- 20-08-2019
Fantastic well worth the time!
An excellent and raw book on the topic of church planting. I really valued the real and rawness of the author who encourages and confronts so much of what is said on the topic today. Thank you
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- BJ Dale
- 28-03-2020
Very Good overall
I had a very hard time with the beginning of the book at first and wanted to stop listening. Seemed very negative and bitter, but I am glad I didn’t stop listening. I can say that the beginning of the book really does belong and brings meaning to the rest.
I hate the concept used in the last chapter of “Bait and switch” as God’s strategy to pull us in. Though I would agree with God-given vision not playing out the way we envisioned (I am a visionary and have struggled to understand this for years), I very much disagree that God tried to deceive us into following his plans, and that is very much what came across in this chapter. I think God gives us limited information at times and we fill in the gaps, leaving us disappointed when things don’t go the way we thought, or maybe God uses vision to communicate to us in a way we will understand, but the way he walks it out doesn’t exactly match what we thought it would look like. But I completely disagree with the “bait and switch” metaphor used in this chapter.
Aside from that, this book was greatly appreciated and very helpful as we look to church planting in our future.
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- Brent_sd
- 18-02-2020
Authentic
It is refreshing to hear someone be honest about church planting. The most important thing that Tom mentions is know your heart and for who and what you are doing this for. While other books map out an overgeneralized "plan, Tom is able to address the emotions (highs and lows) and the need to create a network outside your circle to provide a footing when things will assuredly go different than you expect. If church planing is on your heart, read this. If you are in the trenches already, read this. It will strengthen your resolve while affirming your fears and hurts.
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- Assad M. Saif
- 09-02-2020
Best book I’ve read on Church Planting!
Wow! I wish I had this book when I had started church planting 10 years ago. So good!
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- chad and Christine mckay
- 13-12-2019
I appreciate the author's candidness on the topic
like I said I appreciate the author's candidness on the topic, but there was little information more of his story and opinion
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