MetroGrace – church planting in philadelphia

MetroGrace is an urban church development ministry. Our purpose is to gather, train, send and coach teams to develop gospel-centered, community-based churches in neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia.

Gathering: We gather urban workers by sharing our vision and hosting short-term mission teams. We share our vison in a monthly newsletter that details God’s work in Philadelphia. This allows us to share with supportive friends from all over the world. (Contact us if you’d like to receive our newsletter.) We send speakers to churches, schools and conferences. They help others to see the needs of the city and invite friends to serve. We also recruit workers by hosting short-term mission teams. These teams help cultivate the soil for new church plants and strengthen existing churches. This exposure to urban ministry enables informed response to God’s call.

Training: MetroGrace trains urban missionaries through internships. Summer interns serve for 8-12 weeks. They receive hands-on training in urban ministry while receiving credit from their college or seminary. Church planting interns serve for 18-24 months as they prepare to lead a team to establish a new church.

Sending: We send teams to establish new urban churches. We assist the team in its own development. We connect the group with a network of urban churches. We help them formulate a plan. We guide the team in discovering financial support. And, we assist with the launch of the church plant.

Coaching: MetroGrace coaches teams to establish new urban churches. For at least two years, the team leader meets regularly with a coach. Encouragement, advice and assistance are provided during these formative years of the new church.

Our Goal: When we’ve accomplished our purpose, at least ten biblically relevant, reproducing churches will glorify God by transforming lives in neighborhoods throughout the city. These believers will renew their city by acting to influence their culture. And Philadelphia will truly become the City of Brotherly Love.

If interested in joining MetroGrace on a small group, summer internship or a church-planting team contact Kurt Miller / kurt@metrograce.org / @kurtmiller01

Have We Got ‘Equipping’ Right?

 

Within my denominational affiliation I serve on a team called E-Net. The purpose of the team is to shine a light on the need for pastors and churches to better understand and implement the biblical mandate to ‘equip the saints.’  A recent summary communication from our E-Net team says, “Equipping grows directly out of Ephesians 4:11-16, one of the most significant passages of the New Testament, yet one of the most neglected. Why is it neglected? One reason is that too many people do not realize that in this passage the terms “apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher” refer to functions in the church, and not positions.

“Another reason is that adopting an equipping culture represents a huge paradigm shift. Our [pastoral] training emphasizes preparing us for doing ministry, rather than for equipping others in ministry. We can do ministry better and faster than having to equip others to do it, and much of our identity comes from doing it ourselves. Too many think that equipping and training are synonyms. However, the root meaning of katartismon (equipping) is to bind or to join. Though you cannot equip without training, you can train without equipping. Equipping incorporates joining believers to ministry opportunities. Equipping transforms ministry consumers into ministry participants.”

E-Net’s position is this:

1. Every church is to fulfill each of the five ministry functions of Ephesians 4:11.
2. The Lord sends gifted people to every church to serve as “joints and ligaments,” the mid-level leaders committed to helping join the members to ministries.
3. To equip is to identify both the ministry needs and the available people, seeking to bring them together, usually through involvement in ministry teams.
4. Through equipping the entire church grows up into Christ, the Head, from whom the whole body is joined and held together by every supporting ligament.
5. As a result, the church grows and is built up in love, as each part does its work.

I serve in Philadelphia with MetroGrace. We believe God has called us together to raise-up followers of Jesus who help release neighborhoods from Satan’s strongholds by starting gospel-centered and community-based churches. Last year Anecia (my wife) and I had this sense that we could be part of God’s answer to the cries of the the city, and especially those of the urban poor. We relocated our lives to focus our best attention on loving God and neighbors in need in Philadelphia.

While it is easy for our MetroGrace team to be overwhelmed by what is in front of us each day, we sense a call to multiply ourselves and to see more light shine in dark places. We have no desire to help build a mega institution as a vehicle for our own benefit. Rather, we seek to raise-up teams of Christian workers able to go and pioneer, reproduce and multiply strategic neighborhood mission churches throughout the city, and especially among the urban poor. This means that we must get equipping right!

One of my core convictions is ‘organic growth’ which for me means using reproducible models of nurturing, equipping and raising-up of new teams and leaders as the means of growing workers and local Jesus-centered (gospel-centered) movements from within our communities. Responding to urban poverty, helping spark Christian movements in neighborhoods, seeing real transformation requires us “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”  (Ephesians 4:12 NIV). We cannot depend solely or primarily on outside help. We must equip the saints!

We are committed to assisting MetroGrace to become a gospel-centered, community-based church planting movement. This will have the greatest opportunity for success as we follow the five-point recommendations of E-Net. We must train our folks, and future church-planting team members, to grow new believers into Jesus-centered workers, serving together in teams, to impact their neighborhoods for real community transformation.

Your thoughts?

Needed: A Massive Movement of Everyday People

 We believe one the best ways we can advance God’s purposes among the nations is to think beyond ourselves and serve the church-planting movement in Philadelphia through partnerships. The task is too big for any one person or organization to complete. Partnerships are key to seeing breakthroughs in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia and other urban centers.

MetroGrace 1) Gathers, 2) Trains and 3) Sends. Our goal through these efforts is to send urban church-planting teams to start new churches. Yet, we recognize that the role of sending is continually changing, and must continue to change in order to honor and serve what God is doing through churches and other sending movements in our city.

As MetroGrace looks to the future, we recognize that the Great Commission will only be accomplished through a massive movement of everyday people from all walks of life and all nations—all with an extraordinary passion for God’s glory to be known among all peoples. Since we cannot do it alone, we need partners to join us in this endeavor:

• College graduates who want to work and live in urban places that are walkable, bike-able, connected by transit, and hyper-caffeinated.
• Second-career people who sense God’s call on their lives to serve Him in new and significant ways in an urban context;
• Retired people who want to use their gifts and talents to train, equip and mobilize a younger generation; and, who want to evangelize people who need the Lord.
• Churches who have a desire to mobilize their people to help the Gospel to be proclaimed in Philadelphia.
• Returning missionaries who could relocate in Philadelphia to reach the tribe, tongue, people and nation God has called them to reach.
• Extraordinary financial partnerships for extraordinary opportunities.
• And more…

Making disciples of Jesus is the most important job in the world. It not only transforms the lives of people here in this world but also for all eternity in the next. Few jobs are as difficult as this one—we have a powerful adversary who is working against our every effort. If this is true, should we not employ everyone we can to the most densely populated places on earth (major cities) to spread the gospel, to gather new believers into new churches, to prepare every believer in Jesus to accomplish the mission of making disciples who are able to disciple others? Does not a mission of such critical importance demand our very best combined efforts? Literally, the eternal destiny of millions of people hangs in the balance.

Jesus’ strategy for revealing Himself to the whole world was through successive generations of disciplers. Rather than being consumed with meeting every need He could in His own generation, He foresaw that the greatest fruit for all generations would come from a movement of everyday people from all walks of life and all nations—all with an extraordinary passion to work together for God’s glory to be known among all peoples.

We are always looking for new partnerships. Would you consider partnering with us? You may be asking how. Well, ask the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, that question. Read His Word. Pray. Expect an answer. You might also want to contact me for some ideas. I can be reached via email at kurt@metrograce.org.

JOIN THE TEAM! #metrograce www.metrograce.org

The Great Challenges of the City

“An honest evaluation of church history should serve to remind Christians that there has often been some hesitation to embrace the city. After all, when in the Book of Genesis Lot chose the cities of the plain for his habitation, it led to disaster. With the exception of Jerusalem, most cities referenced in the Bible are mentioned with considerable concern, if not outright judgment. Think of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, Gomorrah, Corinth, and Rome.”

To read the entire article please go to Albert Mohler’s blog

Multi-Cultural Church Planting

The multicultural church matches a need in our society. In the “Foreword” to Manuel Ortiz’ book, “One New People: Models for Developing a Multiethnic Church,” Harvie M. Conn crystallizes this point: In a day of fear and mistrust the multiethnic (or multicultural) church is a sample of recomposition in Christ.

E pluribus unum (“One out of many”) is a visionary slogan in politics; in the multiethnic church it is a response of the Holy Spirit to culture wars. It is well worth more than a quick glance by a fractured society seeking unity in too many superficial solutions, and by a church that often doesn’t realize the treasure it has been given.

The multicultural church prepares us for a picture of eternity.

“And they sang a new song: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). In his book, “Experiencing God,” Henry Blackaby counsels, “Find out where the Master is—then that is where you need to be. Find out what the Master is doing—then that is what you need to be doing.”

God is already drawing people of every tribe and language and people and nation together to worship Him for all eternity. The multicultural church becomes an example of what can be done on earth and a foretaste of what will be in heaven. Is God calling you as a prayer supporter, a multicultural church planter, a church planting team member, a church planter’s mentor, or a helper from a partnering church? If “yes” or “maybe” is your answer to one of these, then contact me. Let me help you discover how you can be significant in our multicultural world!