Viral Churches – Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers: Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series

Viral Churches

Recent years have seen a clear increase in church planting enthusiasm across the globe. As church leaders look for ways to start multiple new congregations that in turn reproduce virally, they need credible information, healthy examples, and reliable guidance.

Based on a national, cross-denominational study commissioned by Leadership Network, Viral Churches outlines the best practices in church multiplication movements and reveals the common threads among them. A hands-on resource, Viral Churches offers the fresh vision and critical perspectives essential as a catalyst fortoday's church planting leaders.

Authors Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird draw from their own experiences, the insights of numerous pioneering leaders, and what was arguably the nation's largest research project on church multiplication. They show leaders how to plant churches that multiply into a movement, and they offer inspiration for the need to do so. Filled with illustrative stories from successful church planters, this important book outlines practical ideas that are essential to the success of church multiplication networks. Each chapter highlights a different point on such issues as keeping the focus on evangelism; recruiting, assessing, and deploying planters; increasing the survivability of new churches; using a multisite strategy effectively; funding; overcoming obstacles; facing challenges ahead; and many more.

Throughout the book, Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird advocate the core belief that "Church planting is good. A vision for a church multiplication movement is better."