It must have been the fifth similar telephone conversation in the past month. I listen intently as a missionary pastor unpacks his anxiety about declining and disappearing financial support for his ministry and his turbulent concern about not being around to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the many receptive postmodern people in his ripening urban mission field.

Even after eight years of biblical and theological training, plus accurate and redundant explanation in the seminary classroom, plus five years of parish ministry in Minnesota and Michigan, plus numerous sermons on the parables … I still did not 'get it'…the Kingdom of God, I mean.

Several years ago Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Santa Clarita, California, north of Los Angeles, considered planting a daughter church in a fast-growing area nearby. But Rev. Marty Brauer, Bethlehem’s pastor, soon realized the church could not afford to buy land and build a new structure. “At this point,” Brauer says, “we realized we had to think outside the box. We were landlocked, but our ministry was growing and there were still a lot of people in our valley who needed the good news of our Savior. So we wondered: what if we started a church without walls?” This thinking led Bethlehem’s leadership to the multi-site church model.

At the most recent Basic Mission Planter Training, we discussed the importance of a website as part of the overall marketing and outreach strategies of new church plants. In today's culture, people learn a lot about a church from its website, and the lack of a web presence can reflect poorly. Below are some things to keep in mind as you design and work with your church's site

There are times when I am struck by simplicity. Such a moment came while reflecting on a familiar mission text in Luke 10:1-3, "After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come. And he said to them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'"