BiVo/Freelance/MicroChurch Archives

Planting Churches Bivocationally: Priscilla & Aquila by Phil Claycomb (2 of 2)

Biases, both positive and negative, are part of everyone’s life. So what’s behind my aversion to bivocational pastoring and self-funding strategies? I’m not certain I can answer that… but as I confront my bias I am finding that a close look at Paul and his friends, Priscilla and Aquila, helps me rethink this strange aversion.…

Airport Adaptations

The new airport clubrooms are amazing. It seems that the COVID break helped them analyze how to better serve their customers. Having spent too many hours inhabiting these spaces, I’m glad for the renewal. Last week en route home from New York, I found myself in a super-confined space—and I enjoyed it. The…

Rapid Microchurch Multiplication in Kenya from Hawaii via WhatsApp

Randall Ishida has stage four cancer. He’s on some kind of wonder drugs that actually might save his life. However, someone spread a social media rumor that he died. A Facebook “friend” connected with him to ask why Randall had spread such a rumor if he was still alive and hanging around. The conversation turned…

Is Micro/Underground an Option For You?

News coming from China is depressing if you love the church. The army and police are destroying buildings – buildings where I have preached. But the saddest news is that the traditional underground church is paying a price for seeking higher visibility. On a trip just prior to COVID, I taught a seminar to a…

Never Too Small to Multiply

Think you’re too small? Think again! How would you function if your church maxed at 80 people, shrunk back to 20 and then swelled again to 80 and did that repeatedly for 35 years? Some would give up, but not John Bacigalupo. Dyslexic, he cheated his way into the U.S. Marine Corps (click the 3-minute…

Microchurch: How to Multiply Without a Lot of Money

It was an intimidating moment. The pastor of a church three times the size of anything I ever led demanded that I “justify” the existence of a Microchurch since it would be too small to host an elder board. Before I could answer, a friend jumped in, “Ralph, don’t answer him until he first justifies…

Singalong, Marketplace Bible Study or Microchurch?

It began with a question: Why not turn it into a church? We were under my VW van replacing brake pads when my new friend, Loyd, told me that he and his brother had started a “Sunday night singalong” in Kobe, Japan. They were teachers in a “Christian” English school, owned by a church but…

Six Steps Toward Multiplying MicroChurches–Lessons from Britain

If you read my Exponential.org book, Mega.Multi.Multiply you met my friend Surekha Hulugale. He moved to London from his native Sri Lanka a couple of decades ago when his company transferred him as an IT professional. He immediately touched off a church multiplication movement. I’m publishing Six links here to help you understand just how…

Planting Digital Churches in Response to COVID-19

So, tell me… Are you responding to the pandemic or merely reacting to it? Some who react struggle to survive while other reactors have simply moved the program out of the box and onto smartphones or whatever. Disciplemaking churches, on the other hand, see this as an opportunity to multiply disciples, leaders and groups. To…

Jason Shepperd & Church Project–a microchurch network

A few months ago, I interviewed my friend Jason Shepperd–in a car outside an Exponential event in Houston. The result is a great podcast. One that promises to expand the footprint of your church and lighten your load in the process. Jason is a self-confessed church reductionist. His team minister to thousands each week. House…