January 24, 2025

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Church Planting

Church Planting, Missionary Roles, Training

Missionary Roles in Church Planting

Last week, I attended Multiplying Churches Globally, a training workshop for church planters hosted by EQUIP, the training arm of ReachGlobal. SEND missionaries have participated in and helped to lead some of the sessions over the past few years, and we encourage all church planters to attend the training during their first home service. One of our workshop facilitators was Jay Pinney, a church planter with Reach Global in Quebec. I was intrigued by his presentation on missionary roles in church multiplication, and particularly by his description of himself as a “botherer”, someone who disturbs the status quo by asking good questions and prompting lively discussions among local church leaders. I found a more sophisticated (not necessarily better) explanation of these different roles in a 2009 blog post by Jay Pinney, and Jay was kind enough to send me an updated version of this article to use on this blog.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Church Planting, Islam, Book Reviews, Covenant Community, Evangelism

Critical Issues for the Cross-Cultural Church Planter

This summer I read The Messenger, The Message and the Community: Three Critical Issues for the Cross-cultural Church Planter by Roland Muller.  It was a read that was long overdue.  You see, the author is a friend of mine, and I have followed his ministry closely for about 25 years. About 14 years ago, as the first edition of some parts of this book was being written, Roland Muller asked me to read it and give some feedback.  To my regret, and with some degree of embarrassment now, I admit that I did not finish reading the manuscript, although I did give some thoughts on the part of the book that I did read.   As a result, the author used some of my graduate study research to support one of his arguments and somewhat undeservedly, included my name in the acknowledgments. About seven years later, Roland combined three books he… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Success in ministry, Church Planting, Disciple-making

The Resume is Staring You in the Face

This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series "Success for missionaries".Part 4 of a series on defining success for a missionary.  Part 1 demonstrated that we, like Paul, can be confident in our ministry, despite all our detractors and critics. In Part 2, we saw in 2 Corinthians that Paul repeats the phrase “commend ourselves,” to identify key criteria that he uses to demonstrate that his ministry is credible and successful.  In Part 3, we explored Paul’s first criterion of successful ministry, that of clearly proclaiming the Gospel. The Church’s Existence is a Proof that I am Successful Besides reminding the Corinthians that he clearly and even simply proclaimed the Gospel, Paul argues that the very presence of a Corinthian church was ample evidence that he was, in fact, a successful apostle and missionary. .… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Church Planting, Coaching

The Importance of Coaching Church Planters

In SEND U, we have been promoting coaching as a means of personal development, and as a help for those in mission leadership.    But coaching is also used extensively in supporting church planters, and this was the context that first sparked my interest in coaching back in 2007. The following article comes from the December 2011 edition of Dr. Bob Vajko’s Help in Planting and Multiplying Churches newsletter.   Dr. Vajko is a church planting consultant with TEAM International, and he and his wife Noreen served as church planters in France for 29 years and then 7 years in Australia.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Church Planting, Team Leadership

Training for Cross-Cultural Church Planters

In SEND U, we are very open to partnering with other organizations in providing training for our missionaries.   As the saying goes, “Why re-invent the wheel?”  One of the more profitable partnerships for SEND has been with ReachGlobal, the international mission arm of the Evangelical Free Church of America.   Through ReachGlobal’s training arm, EQUIP, SEND U has developed and facilitated an online training module for SEND team leaders.   A second edition of this training module is scheduled to begin on February 14, 2011.   Although the primary target of this training is for SEND team leaders, I am willing to enroll a few team leaders from other mission organizations. More information about this training module is available on the SEND U wiki. Contact me if you are interested in enrolling. Another opportunity for partnership in training comes in the area of training church planters.  Our SEND Directors’ Council recently asked SEND… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
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