Together For The City

What happens when 31 churches from 18 different denominations come together with a vision to reach the second-largest U.S. city? In this inspiring new eBook from Exponential, leaders of the Los Angeles Church Planting Movement (LA CPM) share how this unexpected movement came to be and the challenges to birthing and developing such a huge vision to plant a neighborhood church in each of LA’s 119 neighborhoods , especially across multiple denominations. Co-authors Tom Hughes and Kevin Haah also flesh out the lessons they’re learning about reaching a city and planting gospel-centered neighborhood churches. In the first two years, LA churches have come together to contribute close to $2 million to the LA CPM mission and plant churches together, offering a beautiful illustration of Jesus’ words in John 17:23: “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.”

Key takeaways:

• Inspiring evidence of how God set the stage for both Haah and Hughes individually and then brought them together to focus on one shared visions
• Key understanding of the makings of a neighborhood church
• How LA CPM adopted Stadia’s model of partnering churches to come together as networks to plant churches
• The importance of prioritizing church planting, including setting aside funds for it
• Why focusing on what God is doing vs what your church is good at will yield surprising outcomes you’ve never imagined
• The evangelistic impact of church unity (John 17:23)
• Evaluating multisite vs. church planting–when to plant instead of add a site and vice versa
• A thorough discussion on planting new churches vs. revitalizing dying churches
• Why mission begins relationships and relationships sustain the mission
• Why doers matter more than doubters
• Why church planting may not be the only good that comes from the good of church planting together