Learn from Everyone and Everywhere

Preparation
The journey for us (April and I) to move to Michigan and plant Lakepointe began nearly two years before we actually moved.  For Scott that journey began nearly five years before his family moved.  We spent those two years reading and preparing for the exciting adventure God had planned for us.  Here are just a few of the things we did to prepare for church planting.  We were consumed with learning as much as we could about the subject.  Our goal was to be "experts" which we are still striving for.

Books
Once we knew that God had called us to plant a church in Michigan we immediately began to read all things dealing with church planting including the Bible beginning with Acts.  The first book we read was Launch by Nelson Searcy.  I followed that by reading Planting Missional Churches by Ed Stetzer, Community of Kindness by Steve Sjogren and Robert Lewin, Innovate Church by Jonathan Falwell, plus many others but these were some of the first that we read.

Blogs and Websites
We also began reading blogs from other church planters.  Some of the blogs we read were Steven Furtick, Perry Noble, Life Church, Access Elevation, Tony Morgan, Inside North Point, Tim Stevens, Wired Churches as well as many others.  We wanted to immerse ourselves in all things dealing with church planting and leadership.  Of course this is not an exhaustive list but these are some of the best places for a person to learn about church planting and leadership.

Conferences
Each person on our team attended at least one conference.  Here is a list of the conferences we attended: Innovate, Three, Unleash, Exponential, C3 Conference, and others.  We knew that hearing from the speakers and leaders at these conferences plus others would prepare us and motivate us for the job of planting a church.

Coaching Networks
Scott and I each joined a coaching network which we believed would help us to grow especially in the area of leadership.  Scott joined Ritchie Miller who is the pastor of Avalon Church in Georgia and I joined Tim Stevens who is the Executive Pastor of Granger Community Church in Indiana.  We both learned from these two men as well as the other leaders who were in the groups and we were extremely thankful for the opportunity to join these groups.

Prayer
During all of this our team met regularly to pray and plan.  Individually we spent hours praying and asking God to give us discernment, wisdom, and strength for the days ahead.  God has been faithful and will continue to be faithful.  We are so grateful that we have been able to take this journey.  Please continue to pray for us as we continue on this journey.