Pastor Joe taught us on vision & mission, focus and clarity at our Eugene Supercluster. Thanks Joe! (Also, Pastor Bill Clemons is representing Seahawk Chris Clemons – way to go Bill!)
Pastor Joe has been the lead pastor at Life Center Foursquare church in Spokane, WA for 36 years. www.lifecenter.net
Gary Khan on technology
Pastor Joe & Laina Wittwer
The Pacific Planting Network joined with pastors from all over the west coast to learn from great leaders like Pastor Joe Wittwer from Life Center church Spokane (www.lifecenter.net), and Gary Khan from Desert Streams in Canyon Country, CA (www.desertstreams.com) .
4 times per year the Pacific Planters gather to learn, grow and have a good time together.
We assessed some fantastic couples as they considered their next steps in their journey. The 3 day assessment helps each candidate to determine if church planting is the best place for them to fulfill their calling with the giftings that God has given. Proper and thorough assessment is an invaluable tool for both preparing planters for success and confirming and guiding ministers who are called by God!
Date: November 14-16, 2012
Location: Celebration Center, 13503 86th Ave., Puyallup, Washington, 98373
Purpose: To help a church planting candidate discover, through prayerful, discerning and objective evaluation whether church planting is a wise direction at this time for their future.
Though this is an evaluative event and not a training event, it will provide opportunity for valuable learning experiences with other like-minded leaders.
Also, the Pacific Planting Network will use the results of the assessment to determine whether to extend an offer of support to a potential planter. We want to be able to answer this question: Does this person have the capacity to start a church that will be self-sustaining in 2-3 years, and reproducing within 5 years?
Characteristics:
1. Recommended: This candidate is ready to plant.
2. Conditionally Recommended: Recommended after meeting certain criteria or conditions.
3. Not Recommended: Not Recommended for planting, but given other options that, in our opinion, would be a better ministry fit.
The goal is to help every person discover where they are best suited to serve God’s Kingdom. One of the best things a person can discover is that church planting is not for them before they jump into it. In these cases, we will encourage other directions because we believe everybody is a 10 somewhere!
Cost: $1000.00 per couple
Application Deadline: October 26th
If interested, fill out the attached application, save it, and send it to chris.h@ccpuyallup.com.
For questions call Chris Hansler at 253.435.0172.
Exponential is giving away 35 free e-books – at least one a week from authors like Larry Osborne, Wayne Cordeiro, etc.. Check it out at http://www.exponential.org/product-category/series/resource-series/
Aaron & Paula Sutherland have begun the pre-launch phase of New Hope Campus Church! Please keep them in prayer and follow them at
https://www.facebook.com/NewHopeCampusChurch
Brandon & Joy Berg grew up in Vancouver, Washington. Vancouver is a city of over 200,000 and is in a metro area (Portland) of 2 million. After serving as staff pastors in Vancouver and then Lodi, CA, God gave them a vision to go “home” and plant “Rhapsody” church. A rhapsody is an epic story – an instrumental poem of irregular form. In the heart of Eph. 2:10, they set out to be God’s “poiema”, His workmanship – part of His epic story to reach lost young families in their home town.
They moved back to Vancouver in June of 2009 and with support, training and coaching from the Pacific Planting Network and GHC (Growing Healthy Churches) spent 16 months building a strong core team. Brandon worked part-time at the YMCA, which proved to be a God-ordained strategic alliance. They were asked to collaborate with the Y to creatively adopt their membership as their first mission field! This also gave them mission inroads to a large adjacent apartment complex. They held their first service in the beautiful YMCA facility with well over 100 people in attendance in September of 2010. They have continued to grow and have seen many people give their lives to Christ and have baptized them in the YMCA pool!
Jamie, a young single 
mom was an employee at the YMCA. She described herself as “lost” and “hopelessly searching”. She was invited to Rhapsody and in December of 2011 she became a follower of Christ and in February of 2012 was baptized!
God has given Brandon and Joy a big vision to reach young families by establishing churches in YMCA’s throughout the country. It is part of God’s epic story, and there just may be a Rhapsody near you soon!
On September 1st, Open Bible will unveil its new Mission Venture Plan website. This will start a new era in missions giving in Open Bible. Each individual, church or region will be able to choose the mission ventures that are closest to their heart.
One such venture of course is church planting in the Pacific Planting Network. With 13 churches in the works less than 2 years old, and more in the pipeline that are reaching 100′s and 100′s of new people for Jesus, church planting in the PPN continues to be one of the most effective investments to reach lost people that we love for Jesus. And we will continue to provide high caliber resources, training, coaching and support for those church planters who are on the front lines. To see an example of the great stories that are happening, click HERE.
If you are a planter, or have a heart for church planting, make sure you include church planting in the Pacific Region through the Pacific Planting Network in your MVP giving!
Wednesday of our Pacific Open Bible conference started with our “business” meeting. I’m grateful to Gary Emery because these are really about vision and what is ahead. There is no nitpicky, political posturing or endless debates about things only the over-churched really care about. New Open Bible president Randall Bach shared vision and strategy for engaging the next generation in the mission God has called us to. And we heard a compelling presentation about the vision of doubling our impact in the next 8 years through church planting. 
New Hope visionary pastor-dude Mike Lwin challenged us to live dangerously – to dream bigger and to lead with a perspective of faith and not fear. Mike has a contagious enthusiasm for Christ that makes you believe that you can be better than you’ve been.
One of the things I love is to hang out with church planters and those who love church planters – so about 35 of us packed into a Pei Wei (mini PF Changs) restaurant for lunch, took the place over, and did what we do so well – we ate and told stories. What you might not know is that because there were so many of us there as a group, it caused many other customers to have to wait. So our noble leader, Gary Emery, paid for the meals of about 12-15 people who had to wait because of us. Their demeanors quickly changed and they were left thinking well of the church. Thoughtfulness and awareness are missional activities!
Mike Nortune rocked my world Wednesday night. Using his kids as live illustrations, he challenged us out of 1 Samuel 30 to keep moving ahead even when some have left us, because “if we focus on what we don’t have, we might miss what God is doing.” Again, we were moved to keep our eyes forward.
On the last day we had opportunity to meet with great, wise leaders who helped us see what it will take to navigate the road blocks to growth. And that night Gary Emery stirred us to not only think far beyond where we’ve ever been, but gave us the practical picture of what it could look like: “If 50 of our churches would plant 1 new church every 5 years, in 20 yrs that would be 800 churches.”
Bottom line – 1000′s and 1000′s of people all around us – in our great cities and in the ‘burbs are ready to find Jesus. Let’s introduce Him to them. Let’s do it.
The first win of the conference was the location – San Diego – sunny and 80 degrees every day. When you are from the Northwest, this alone makes the trip a win!
When we arrived we began to experience one of the best parts of any conference – realizing you are a part of very connected family. With each old friend you see come mental reminders of how they have helped shape your life and of days and places that are part of your intersecting story. I remembered when I first became a part of this Open Bible family 27 years ago I felt like the distant, unknown, insecure 3rd cousin who shows up to the Thanksgiving meal where everybody but you knows everybody else, and can laugh at all of the inside jokes. But over time, struggles and shared experiences, this has become a family we love.
On the first night we heard from Monte LeLaCheur. The truth is that I know Monte, we’ve crossed paths, I respect his great ministry at Turning Point Open Bible in Spokane, and I’ve witnessed his infectious positive demeanor. But then he took us with him through his journey of faith and pain, hope and unimaginable loss. Through shared tears, we all got to know him that night. The transparency was rare and refreshing, and he passed these points of application to us:
We closed praying for each other – cause that’s what family does.
