1. High Giving.  Giving is worship.  Giving is "I love God."  Giving is "Jesus is my master, not money."  Giving is "God is my provider and source; my trust is in Him."  Giving is a sign someone understands the Lordship of Christ.  Giving leads to spiritual health, and when a church body understand the power of giving, it blesses God and enables the kingdom to advance through financing staff, missionaries and activities.  A church can't be healthy without being a generous, open-handed church.

2. High Excellence.  Exodus 31:1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses (regarding the building of the tabernacle), saying,  2 “See, I have called by name Bezalel...3 “And I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, 4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze, 5 and in the cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship.  6 “And behold, I Myself have appointed with him Oholiab... and in the hearts of all who are skillful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you.

1 Cor. 3:10 - continues the tradition of Bezalel and Oholiab as "craftsman," imbued with a passion for excellence.

Nothing frustrates me more than when people bring their all to their regular jobs, and their second best to God and service in the kingdom. 

God does all things well, and specifically calls out those that will do the job with skill, wisdom, knowledge and excellence.    Excellence is attractive.  God is beautiful because he has excellence.  Heaven will be breathtaking because it has brilliance.  The church must reflect God and heaven, and in so doing draw the world unto itself.

3. High Touch.  Part of the genius of the New Testament Acts church was that in the midst of revival, with mulitudes coming to Christ, they also had a strategy & structure for nurturing personal community and accountability.  Not only did they meet in the "temple" (big church experience - Acts 2:46, 5:42); they also had the "small church" experience (personal community - "house to house" - Acts 2:46, 5:42, 20:20).  This represents God's "high-touch" strategy to personalize the church and keep it intimate as it powers foward as a harvesting machine.  See also our 1 x 1 x 1 rule.

4. High Impact.  In reality, the church has been in the minority throughout history, but it's impact has been like a majority.  Our DNA is such that a little makes a big difference.  Mustard seed.  A band of 12.  Ester.  Hanging on a cross.  Potency changes the world.

Craigslist (18 employees) is the fourth most visited site according to some measures. They are partly owned by eBay (more than 4,000 employees) which hopes to stay in the same league, traffic-wise.

Boing Boing (four people) has a readership growing 100x faster than the New Yorker (hundreds of people).

Small is big. 

We put no limits on our growth as a church (which comes from God - 1 Cor. 3:6), but it's out of our control.  What we can control is our potency.  And out of potency comes impact. 

See A12 and 10 x 100 rule. 

5. High Tech. Technology has become an important part of our culture (ipod, iphone, powerpoints, twitter, podcasting, IM, etc), along side of fashion, movies, TV, etc.  When used correctly, technology is an accelerator of ministries and a servant to the gospel.  The use of technology communicates a cultural awareness that is important for people to relate to, and helps reach people for Jesus.  See also entry here. 

How to remember these five points:  Get-It  (giving/excellence/touch/impact/tech).

#1 - Incubate leaders and their ministries, known as the A12 rule or the Assignment of 12.  Specifically the senior pastor signs on to raising up and releasing up to 12 full-time ministers in his life time, in the tradition of Jesus himself who raised up 12 apostles.  This is the legacy mandate.

#2 - 10 x 100 rule.  Rather than raise up one church of 1000 people, raise up 10 churches of 100.  This is a multi-site city strategy to better penetrate and incarnate the gospel, while releasing more leaders to do the work of the ministry.  It's meant to facilitate a viral church multiplication model.   This is the impact mandate.

#3 - Boutique church - one pastor, one church, one purse.  This is the 1 x 1 x 1 rule.  The purpose of this rule is to keep the pastor close to the people for the purpose of shepherding them into the Lordship of Jesus.  This is the discipleship mandate.  Additionally, it's to raise up a congregation that can finance the livelihood of one full-time minister.

 * Being proto-typed in Vancouver, BC (5 Stones Church)

Defined: The study of how churches multiply.  (adding to church planting lexicon).

Coming soon: seed thoughts from the field in Vancouver and our incubator church concept.

In August, I posted an entry about our 20 year plan for our church plant.  It basically breaks down the 20 years into 4 five year segments and describes what each five year segment is about.  Recently while preparing for our upcoming staff retreat, God impressed on me a sport metaphor; "Your 20 year plan is like four quarters of a football game and you've just finished the first quarter.  You now have a proof of concept regarding your incubator church model."  Wow, what a neat picture, and what an encouragement from the Lord to know we've prototyped something that's of some value.  Can't wait for the second, third and fourth quarters.  With Coach Jesus on the sidelines, we can't lose.

One of our 5 operating principles at 5 Stones church is to leverage technology for the gospel. This is still a work in progress, but never in the history of man, have local churches been able to have such global reach and appeal through the internet, technology and multimedia. 

Mars Hill Church in Seattle says it well:

"God has often used technological advancement to spread the Gospel through the church. At the time of Paul it was the Roman’s system of roads.  For the Reformers it was the printing press. For Billy Graham it was sound amplification systems and stadiums. For Mars Hill [or local churches], we have ... the opportunity to use the advances in video and internet distribution [like never before]."

I'll be sharing more on the other 5 principles we live by at 5 Stones; it's part of our "incubator" concept for church planting.

The above picture says it all.  High tech reaching the farthest corners - may it be for Jesus and his glory.