Building a Diverse, Jesus-Centered Network: An Update for Early 2023

Dear Renew.org Network,

We hope you will be encouraged by how God is using all of us to build Renew Network. Together, we are a collaborative community of diverse church leaders, churches, and disciples of Jesus who rally together around the DNA of clear biblical theology and a focus on being disciples of Jesus who make more disciples. Our network is currently focused on six channels (click here for a downloadable summary):

1. Daily Digital Discipleship of the Mind (Renew.org)
2. Published Books
3. Learning Communities for Senior Ministers/Pastors
4. Mentoring/Coaching Partnerships
5. National and Regional Gatherings
6. Church Planting

I want to share some exciting developments that are transpiring for our network in three of these areas and then describe an important need where I hope that you can help.

Regional Gatherings

Our multi-ethnic, multigenerational, diverse Restoration Movement-focus was highlighted for me in a recent Renew regional gathering. A little over one week ago, we helped bring together church leaders from all over Arkansas in Little Rock for the Ministers and Shepherds Conference. God granted us success as we focused on making disciples and brought together leaders from Christian Churches, Churches of Christ, and Baptist churches. We featured church leaders who were white, black, and Latino—and we had equal representation of older preachers/pastors and younger preachers/pastors. I was told this was the first time in Arkansas history that this kind of diverse group of church leaders had come together in unity with a focus on disciple making.

We plan regional Renew gatherings this coming week in LA (Tuesday) and Phoenix (Wednesday), which we anticipate will also display a diverse background of church leaders coming together.

Published Books

We are excited to share that our systematic theology (the Real Life Theology Collection) has just been published in Spanish. Renew had a track on disciple making and culture at Ozark Christian College’s Preaching and Teaching Conference, and I was able to give the first Spanish copy of the book to Mario Yarnell-Gonzalez, Lead Pastor of Western Hills Christian Church (pictured below).

We are very grateful to God that this popular collection of thirteen books for church leaders is now widely available for all our Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters (click here to order the Spanish version of the book).

Church Planting

We are leading a pre-conference, a main track on discipleship, and a lunch featuring Jim Putman at the Exponential Conference, a church planting conference on March 6-8 in Orlando. We are also very excited to announce that Renew Movement Church Planting will be leading a track and hosting a night at Top Golf during the conference. Todd Wilson, founder and former CEO of Exponential, is now leading Renew Movement Church Planting. He will be joined at Exponential by Brett Andrews, Donnie Williams, and other Renew Leaders.

How can you help?

Tribes and networks need national gatherings. I want to urge you to consider coming to our National Gathering in Indianapolis on April 25-26 in order to encourage, and be encouraged by, your brothers and sisters in the Renew Network. We need each other! We need to be encouraged toward biblical faithfulness in chaotic times. If you haven’t yet, please consider joining us on April 25 for topic-based conversations and on April 26 for teaching, prayer, and discussion. To register for the 2023 Gathering, click here. Hope to see you there!

For King Jesus,
Bobby Harrington, Point Leader of RENEW.org