The Life and Ministry of Brian
I caught up with Brian Hogan via Skype the other day. The guy oozes with energy and enthusiasm for church planting movements.
Back in the early 90s he and Louise helped pioneer a CPM in Outer Mongolia. Their Mongolian disciples are now training and sending out their own missionaries to other unreached people groups.
He wrote up the experience in Mongols Follow the Khan of Khans
Today Brian is based in Northern California where he serves with Youth With A Mission Church Planting around the globe.
I figured he might know something about church planting so here are his responses to some questions I asked him:
What are you learning about Church Planting Movements?
The two biggest obstacles we Westerners face in being used of God to start these Movements:
- It is still too complex.
We still are exporting a far too complicated model of “how to do church”. We need to simplify in a radical way. Strip everything we know and do down to New Testament essentials. - We don’t trust the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.
We over-control and fail to release because we can’t bring ourselves to really believe that God’s indwelling Spirit is actually able to do all that He is promised to do: teach, lead into truth, glorify Christ, etc. We need to cultivate a radical trust in the Holy Spirit who lives within us and our brethren – even brand-new brethren!
What are you learning about the sort of people needed to plant churches and fuel Church Planting Movements?
- Risk-takers
Church planters need to be willing to let go and trust God - Innovators
Are they ready to think outside the box and try new things as God leads? - Servant-leaders
Do they have the ability to model “non-top-down” leadership for new believers and release multitudes into it. - Unsatisfied Longers
Do they yearn to see God’s Kingdom come among those to whom He has called them AND who can’t wait to see the form it will take?
What sort of training opportunities do you offer?
The School of Frontier Missions equips workers to go cross-culturally to plant reproducing fellowships of believers among unreached people groups.
Training includes evangelism, missions strategy, cross-cultural studies, church planting principles and practices and language acquisition. This is THE school of effective church planting with YWAM.
For those desiring to work with Youth With A Mission, the Discipleship Training School is a prerequisite. Both schools are offerred at numerous locations around the world. The best place to start is our website at www.cpcoaches.com.
We also have a resource CD with 30 hours of training for planters and their teams.
Finally, we provide a number of training schools for church planters and church planting coaches around the world. These can be accessed by contacting us through the website.
