The following is a guest blog post by Janet McMahon, a founding pastor of Restore Community Church, a multi-site church in Kansas City. Janet is one of our 50+ speakers at the Exponential Regionals this fall:
Planting Pregnant
I was 44 years old with three kids and no intention of being pregnant. Luckily “planting pregnant” had nothing to do with restocking my house with diapers and baby supplies.
Full of vision, passion, and clarity of calling, we left our beloved friends, jobs, and community to plant a new Church in a new city. As if this was not challenging enough, we also knew that God was asking us to plant a church that was pregnant with the possibility of future Churches. At the time, we thought maybe we were “pregnant” with at least two more campuses of Restore Community Church in our city. That felt like a HUGE dream, it felt like best-case scenario. Never did we imagine that by embracing the theology of sending we would instead be a part of launching 43 new churches in 10 years.
Jesus sent out the seventy-two and he told them: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out…” Luke 10:2-3. Not only did he send them, he told them to pray for God to send even more. When God sent our family to Kansas City, it was all I could do to keep myself together to plant one Church. It was extremely difficult to wrap my mind around the sending of others.
It is just so much easier to focus on ourselves and what God is doing through us, but when we embraced the theology of sending, it become less about our work and more about God’s work in the world. There is so much freedom and joy in that. Now we are hooked on sending, we just can’t see it any other way.
The more we send, the more we want to send. The more we bless the work of others, the more we want to go out with a blessing of sending on our lips.
Special Invitation from Janet
Janet McMahon is one of over 50 speakers at the Exponential Regional conferences this fall. Join Janet and others at the Washington, DC and Chicago regional conferences!
Hero Maker Conferences
Hero Maker is the theme for Exponential 2018. The theme focuses on the shift from being the hero to coming alongside others for them to become the heroes in our church’s unfolding story. At each conference, we will unpack the 5 essential practices for leaders to multiply leaders: multiplication thinking, permission giving, disciple multiplying, gift activating, and kingdom building.
| 5 Main Sessions | 10+ Speakers | FREE Equipping Labs |
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Regional Conference Locations
- Washington, DC: September 10-11
- Southern California: October 2-4
- Bay Area: October 22-23
- Houston: October 24-25
- Chicago: November 6-7
- New York City: December 5-6
To learn more and to register for any of the 2018 Hero Maker conferences, click here.
