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Nathan Creitz

I help disciples make disciples.

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Five Marks of a Spirit-Empowered Disciple

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Before Jesus left the planet, He promised His followers that they would become Spirit-empowered disciples pursuing His mission.

When the promised Spirit filled them on the day of Pentecost, He turned ordinary fishermen into extraordinary fishers of men.

Simple Galileans began preaching the Gospel in the languages of the nations. Peter, who had denied Jesus three times preached a powerful message of the Gospel and 3,000 people were added to their numbers.

A movement began.

The next day, and the next, and the one after that, the new believers committed themselves to one another and to God.

Acts 2:41-47 is a record of those first few days and weeks of the movement. These verses reveal some key traits or marks of a Spirit-empowered follower of Jesus.

1. Wholehearted Worship

Then fear came over everyone…

Wholehearted worship is active. Worship is sacrifice. Whether “in the temple complex” (large gatherings) or “from house to house” (smaller, more intimate gatherings), when we are together with other believers, our worship should be filled with energy and praise.

Worship is both ritualistic and relational. A spirit-empowered disciple will dedicate himself to the celebration of communion, to prayers, and to other elements in a consistent way with other believers. On the other hand, worship is also spontaneous and from the heart. There ought to be a holy awe that permeates our corporate worship and our private worship because God’s Spirit is on the move.
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Three Reasons To Reach Cities With The Gospel

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Tim Keller, the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, often speaks about God’s mission for the great cities of the world. Below, I’m including a 16 minute video of Keller’s plenary session at Lausanne Cape Town 2010 Congress in which he shares God’s global urban mission. 

Here are a few thoughts from Keller’s talk about why we must reach the great cities of the world with the gospel and a few of my own reasons for sharing the Gospel in New York City specifically.

Reason #1: Cultural

According to a Foreign Policy article:

The 21st century will not be dominated by America, China, Brazil or India but by the city.

In an age that is increasingly unmanageable, cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built. Time, technology, and population growth have massively accelerated the advent of this new urban era.

Already, more than half the world lives in cities and that percentage is growing rapidly.

Just one hundred cities account for 30% of the world’s economy and almost all of its innovation.

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My Top 11 Posts In 2011 // Plus A Free Gift!

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I thought I’d take a minute to thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing my blog posts in 2011!

As a way of showing my appreciation, I’d like to give one of my readers a new NIV Archaeological Study Bible from Zondervan. I’ll explain how you can get a copy below.

But first, here are my top 11 posts from 2011:

  1. Making Disciple-Making Disciples – “Sermons, seminars, and classes need to be extra-curricular to the more risky and time consuming core curriculum of modeling a transformed life in front of others.”
  2. Bible Translations, Tools and Tech for the 21st Century: HCSB – “After 2,000 years of church history we have never been more advanced technologically nor have we ever had more ancient manuscripts and a better understanding of the ancient world than we do now. My view is that the Holman Christian Standard Bible does the best job (not perfect job) of utilizing all of these new innovations and ancient manuscripts to give us the most trustworthy English translation yet.”  [Read more…] about My Top 11 Posts In 2011 // Plus A Free Gift!

Seth’s Secret to Viral Church Planting

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If you are involved in church planting and have never heard of Seth Godin, you need to pay attention.

Seth Godin
Seth writes mostly about new marketing but I think you’ll find his ideas are refreshingly compatible with Biblically healthy church practices.

This morning I ran across a post Seth wrote a couple of years ago called First, ten. Check it out and let me know in the comments how his marketing “secret” applies to church planters and leaders:

First, ten

This, in two words, is the secret of the new marketing.

Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you…

Those ten people need what you have to sell, or want it. And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they’ll each find you ten more people (or a hundred or a thousand or, perhaps, just three). Repeat.

If they don’t love it, you need a new product. Start over.

Your idea spreads. [Read more…] about Seth’s Secret to Viral Church Planting

Downline Ministries: Making, Maturing, and Multiplying Followers of Jesus

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I recently ran across Downline Ministries that exists to “equip Christ followers to make disciples”. It looks like they’ve got training resources, books, and articles to help promote making and multiplying disciples. I haven’t really explored their content very deeply but it looks great.

Check out this video for a look at what Downline is all about:

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What do you think?

The irony is that I recently wrote a post entitled Disciple Making vs. Downline: Practicing God’s Presence Or Pyramid Scheme. I wrote that post because I had been hearing some negative voices criticizing discipleship as some sort of multi-level marketing pyramid scheme. Those negative critiques spoke disparaging about discipleship as some sort of “downline”. Personally, I don’t care what you call it and if what I do to make disciples (in obedience to God’s will) looks like a pyramid scheme to critics, then so be it.

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Arrival in Queens + Church Planting Goals for Week One

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This is just a quick update to let you know that my family has arrived in Queens and we are settling into a temporary residence while we look for an apartment. God has provided for our immediate financial needs and lots of helpers for the move. Our hope is to find an apartment somewhere in the Flushing, Fresh Meadows, Bayside, or Whitestone neighborhoods.

The goal is to make disciples and plant churches in the heart of Queens, NY. We will eventually be working with the North American Mission Board. For now, we are just getting used to the idea that we are now New Yorkers.

Today is my first opportunity to sit down and get organized.

Here are my goals for the week:

  1. See as many apartments as possible until we find the right one for our family and our ministry;
  2. Send an email update to our prayer partners with more details about our church planting and disciple making activity in Queens and our prayer requests;
  3. Touch base with our ministry contacts in NYC to begin the commissioning process with NAMB;
  4. Get a NYC driver’s license and health insurance;
  5. Eat lots of New York pizza and bagels.