Daniel Im

Why We Need to Be Mean About The Vision

May 24, 2016 By Daniel Im

A Personal Conversation with Shawn

I remember having a conversation with Shawn Lovejoy a year after starting my new position with LifeWay Christian Resources. I had moved my family down to Nashville, TN to figure out how LifeWay was going to resource church planters, multisite churches, and multiplying churches (we started NewChurches.com as a result).

So we were together at the Exponential conference, and Shawn asked me, “How’s everything going?”

I just responded the way I normally do with a big grin, “It’s going great!”

But then, he stopped, looked at me straight in the eyes and asked me one more time, “How’s everything going?”

I remember thinking to myself, Shawn’s a really nice guy, and I enjoy working with him, but why is he asking me this question again?? We’re in a public place at a conference…does he expect to “counsel” me here?

Sure, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed, but who wasn’t anyway? After all, in the previous months, I was rewriting Planting Missional Churches with Ed Stetzer, developing and launching the strategy for NewChurches.com, leading a major software redevelopment initiative with the North American Mission Board to better assess, train, and coach their church planters, launching The State of Church Planting research project, and now speaking four times at the Exponential conference, but this season was eventually going to pass, right?

I was at a conference and had to put my “game face” on, so who was Shawn to be confronting me like this? Well, the reality was, Shawn was just being himself. He was acting as a wise mentor who had travelled this path many times, and was seeing someone else who was heading down the same path.

So he looked at me and said, “I’ve been where you are bro, I’ve burnt the candle at both ends, and it just wasn’t worth it.”

At that, I decided it was time to sit down and have a real conversation with him.

Trends for Church Conferences

May 17, 2016 By Daniel Im

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Today, I am in New York speaking at the first-ever New City Gathering and spending time with my friend, Drew Hyun and his new network. Learn about the five values that they see as being critical for new churches here.

What’s interesting to me is that their church planting conference is brand new.

I’m not against new conferences, nor am I against church planting; after all, I serve as the Director of Church Multiplication for NewChurches.com! But, what’s fascinating to me is how the trend with church conferences seems to be heading in the direction of small, regional, and specialized.

Take the Catalyst conference for example. They grew their single location conference in Atlanta to 10,000+ attendees, and then started a West Coast version of it. Soon afterwards, they introduced smaller one day regionals across the country.
Exponential went the same route. They had their Exponential East conference of over 5000+ attendees, started a West Coast version of it, and are now introducing regionals in the U.S. and in other parts of the world.
The Verge Network did the same. After growing their Austin based conference to 3000+, they shut it down for a year, and have now opened up with a regional only strategy.
The SEND Network had a 10,000+ sized conference in Nashville last year, and are moving to a regional strategy this next year. They’ve decided to alternate between one big conference and smaller regionals every other year.

–> The tension that big conferences face is the push to generalize their content, in order to broaden their registration base.

–> The benefit of small conferences is knowing your target audience, so you’re able to specialize and specifically equip your niche audience with what they need.

Multisite AND Church Planting

May 10, 2016 By Daniel Im

Through the research LifeWay conducted surveying multisite pastors, we discovered a trend among many pastors considering multisite. For them, “the multi-site strategy [did] not replace any other method of participating in kingdom growth. It [did] not replace church planting, personal evangelism, visitation programs, investing and inviting, servant evangelism, or evangelistic training.”[1]

For them it was merely another strategy to reach their city:

Planting churches, building larger buildings, adding services, adding venues at your current site, and relocating a campus are all still viable solutions today. Multi-site does not replace these other solutions. It adds one more possibility for consideration.[2]

Some once believed this move to grow via multiple campuses was a temporary trend, but it appears to be a trend that’s here to stay. After all, there are more than 8,000 multisite churches in the US alone with more than 5 million people worshipping in them![3] While it was once the domain of only the largest megachurches, multisite is now a common option for smaller churches to consider. In fact, although a thousand is the average size of the church that goes multisite, many have gone multisite at eighty.[4]

What’s interesting though, is the number of churches that utilize a multisite methodology and are also committed to church planting. The two are definitely not exclusive of each other.

Take a look at these three different models that are committed to both multisite and church planting:

Top Quotes and Images for Planting Missional Churches

May 3, 2016 By Daniel Im

Here are my 11 Favorite Quotes for Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply:

Missional means being a missionary without ever leaving your city.
Church planters should be known first and foremost as people of integrity.
Success is measured in multiplication of churches and quality of disciples.
If your church is empty in a single location, it will still be empty with two locations.
Multisite is not a substitute for church planting; it’s a substitute for a large auditorium.
You cannot lead people to godliness when you are not regularly encountering God.
You cannot love a city if you do not know a city.
Without an intentional developmental approach, the church is likely to become a mile wide and an inch deep.
Everywhere Christians have gone to share the gospel churches were formed.
Churches  of all sizes and ages can take part  in church planting.
Your ultimate calling is not to plant a church; it’s a calling to come to Jesus himself.

I’d be honored if you shared these images with your friends and followers on your favorite social media platforms!

Join Me at Exponential East 2016

April 26, 2016 By Daniel Im

Here are a few ways that you can grow during one of the largest church planting conferences of the year, Exponential East 2016.

If You’re Not in Orlando…

Tune into the Exponential live stream here for all the main sessions.
Download my new eBook, Multiplication Today, Movements Tomorrow: Practices, Barriers, and an Ecosystem here
- If you’re not registered as a Free or Plus member at NewChurches.com, then you can go here to register for free and get the eBook

If You’re in Orlando,

Say Hello to me by visiting one of my workshops listed below
Purchase my new book with Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply for 40% off