Planting Churches Among the City's Poor - Volume 2

P ART I: C OACHING U RBAN C HURCH P LANTERS • 167

Associations and Urban Church Planting Movements The Efficiency and Reproductive Power of Standardization* Rev. Dr. Don L. Davis

Aggressive advances of the Kingdom of God through integrated church planting movements allow for standardization, i.e., the ability for Christian workers, missionaries, pastors, and congregations to employ a common set of values, resources, practices, and structures to establish, sustain, and multiply its members, leaders, congregations, and church plants.

I. Standard practice in Christian worship

A. Observing shared celebrations of the Church Year (i.e., Advent, Easter, Pentecost, etc.)

1. Christian formation through the Church Calendar

2. Celebration of the Church’s holy days and seasons

B. Suggested Orders of Service (for ordinary and special occasions)

C. Understanding and administration of the sacraments/ordinances

1. Lord’s Supper

2. Baptism of new believers

D. Use of the Lectionary for reading and preaching (e.g., the Revised Common Lectionary )

E. Sharing services of specific dedications and commemorations (e.g., child dedication)

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* This outline is merely suggestive of the kinds of shared processes and practices that a coherent, integrated movement might employ to give expression to its particular understanding of the elements listed in the complimentary document, That We May Be One: Elements of an Integrated Church Planting Movement among the Urban Poor.