We Are Send Network

Pastors and church planters are wearing a lot of hats these days. And while most people see only one side of their lives, their wives see it all—the good days and the bad. This special episode of We are Send Network features Kathy Litton, director of planting spouse development for Send Network and Angie Lewis, a church planting spouse and Send Network vice president, Dhati Lewis’ wife, to talk about how spouses can emotionally support their husbands in this season and beyond.

Related Blog Post: When your husband needs emotional support

Kevin Ezell, president of the North America Mission Board (NAMB), is caring for thousands of pastors and church planters during the present crisis. In this episode, Dhati Lewis interviews Ezell to talk about how NAMB is caring for North American missionaries and their families during the coronavirus pandemic and how he has navigated leading a organization in an ever-changing and unpredictable season.

Should churches continue to exclusively meet online after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides? In this episode, Dhati Lewis interviews Bobby Gruenewald, a pastor at Life.Church; Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College; and Micah Fries, senior pastor of Brainerd Baptist Church; about continuing to meet online as a church after the pandemic subsides and if our new way of gathering should be the long-term norm.

Mentions: Church Online

In this special episode, Dhati Lewis sits down with some of the leading church planting practitioners and thought leaders in the nation — Vance Pitman, Ed Kang, Sean Sears, James Roberson and Martín Vargas — to answer your questions about how to practically shepherd your church and continue to fulfill the Great Commission during COVID-19.

Related Blog Post: What has COVID-19 exposed about the Church in North America?

Supporting your husband, taking care of the kids and their schoolwork, following up with members in your church and sharing the gospel — planting wives do a lot. And now, with the COVID-19 outbreak, they do it all from their home. In this episode, Dhati Lewis sits down with Kathy Litton, director of planter spouse development for Send Network, and planting wife Seané Rice, who along with husband, Ryan, serve Connect Church in New Orleans, to talk about the unique challenges and fears COVID-19 presents for planting wives, how their church has continued to serve the community and practical ways their family has stayed healthy in this season.

Related Blog Post: 5 Challenges for church planting wives during COVID-19

In a short time, COVID-19 consumed our world (literally), and the Church has been forced to adjust. The coronavirus has revealed aspects about the Church in North America that have previously been obscure. In this episode, Dhati Lewis and Brad Brisco, the director of bivocational church planting for the North American Mission Board, discuss four things every pastor and church planter should be thinking about today, before COVID-19 subsides.

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What we’re seeing right now with COVID-19 is not the crisis—it’s only phase one. How can the Church be prepared for the coming phases of the COVID-19 pandemic? In this episode, Dhati Lewis interviews Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College and an expert consultant on crisis management, about the Church’s response to COVID-19, the different phases we’ll experience and the hopeful new normal after the crisis subsides.

COVID-19 has brought Sunday services—and the world—to a temporary halt. These are unnerving, unpredictable times. As pastors and church planters, our initial impulse could be fear — fear of what’s going to happen to our church, our community, our family.

In this special episode, Dhati Lewis sits down (virtually, of course!) with Clint Clifton, church planter and lead pastor of Pillar Church in the D.C. area and the new senior director of development for Send Network, and Noah Oldham, church planter and lead pastor of August Gate Church in St. Louis and the new senior director of deployment for Send Network.

Together, they discuss what pastors need in these unprecedented times, initiatives their churches are doing to stay connected and the hope we have as God’s people.

More information about pastoring amid COVID-19 available here.

Money can’t solve all of your church’s issues, but it can fund the vision. Fundraising is important, but money and finances is a prominent struggle for church planters. On this episode of We are Send Network, Dhati Lewis interviews Matt Lawson, lead pastor of Story City Church in Burbank, CA, to talk about two essential things every church planter needs to fundraise for their church.

Related Blog Post: Maintaining an ongoing relationship with supporters

The numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they tell an important part of it. In 2015, 4,000 churches were planted. In the same year, 3,700 churches closed their doors. Five years later, our numbers aren’t much better. We need to plant and revitalize churches. In this episode, Dhati Lewis interviews Daniel Yang, the director of Send Institute, to talk about the state and stats of North American missions.

Related Blog Post: Church Planting Capacity for the Next Generation