Cool Churches on My Radar

January 28, 2006 in Churches with 37 Comments

I received a comment from Michael related to the most recent episode of the Simply Strategic Show. In that episode, I mentioned that I’m tracking about 100 churches on a regular basis. These represent all sizes of churches from pre-launch to the 20,000 range. They’re all over the world. In the marketplace, I guess they’d call this bench-marking. I just like to see what God is up to in other ministries. Of course, I’m also always on the lookout for a good idea we can steal to help reach people for Jesus in Granger, Indiana.

Well, at Michael’s request, I’ve listed all of the churches that are currently on my radar on the left sidebar of my blogsite. There are actually 88 currently on the list. I’d love to hear your recommendations on churches I should consider adding to round out a list of 100.

As time goes by, I’ll add and subtract from the list. If you want to keep up, I’m trying to make it easy for you. I’ve set it up on del.icio.us so you can subscribe to the RSS feed just for that list.

Since I’ve been such a good guy making my list of cool churches available to you, I hope you’ll be just as kind and link to it on your sites. Come on. You can do it. Show me some link love.

37 Responses to “Cool Churches on My Radar”

  1. Mark Howell January 28, 2006 at 11:42 pm #

    Cool list, Tony. And I love the feature. You’ve pointed out some that I hadn’t heard of. One you might look at is http://www.canyonridge.org/crccweb/ They’re a plant that Central did a few years back in Vegas, and doing some very cool things.

    mark

  2. danohlerking January 29, 2006 at 1:06 am #

    i agree with mark – great idea. i do the same thing – tracking about a hundred churches to celebrate with them, plunder ideas from them. learn the easy way what they learned the hard way, etc.

    but now i’m inspired – i’m gonna post my list. and you can bet there’ll be some link love in there for the source of the idea.

    i’d love to see what value you’d find in adding healing place church to your tracking.

  3. michael January 29, 2006 at 7:52 am #

    An RSS feed of Tony’s cool churches? Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot.

  4. Sarge January 29, 2006 at 8:48 am #

    Sweet! I do the same thing, now to see if any is not on my radar that I can add.

  5. Shawn Wood January 29, 2006 at 10:21 am #

    Tony – Thanks for the having us on your list. We are honored that you are following us – and know we are watching you too!

    Shawn Wood\Creative Pastor\Seacoast Church

  6. Tony Morgan January 29, 2006 at 10:48 am #

    Canyon Ridge was on my list, but somehow I skipped over them in the transfer to del.ious.us. I’ll make sure they’re added. And, yes, I’m familiar with Healing Place Church too. I’m going to start tracking them as well. Thanks guys.

    tony

  7. Tony Morgan January 29, 2006 at 11:33 am #

    I noticed this morning that I had a setting wrong in the coding. It wasn’t publishing the full list. (I think that’s why Canyon Ridge wasn’t showing up.) That’s been corrected. My apologies to the churches toward the top of the list that weren’t showing up.

    tony

  8. Ray M January 29, 2006 at 2:36 pm #

    I’m thankful to have been on staff at two churches on your list…Fellowship in Grapevine, TX and now at Springcreek in Garland, TX but in between working at these places I spent some time at a church plant that I see exploding… keystonechurch.com in Keller, TX. The Senior Pastor is Brandon Thomas and I would say to file that name somewhere…I believe you’ll be hearing it again. He and the other staff members are great guys and I love that they are as hungry to learn from others (when it comes to church stuff) as they are to implement what God would have them do. I went there a year ago when they had just over 100 and now they are at about 300. It’s been awesome to see how exciting a church can be whether it is 18,000 – 1500 – or 300.

  9. Darrell Jordan January 29, 2006 at 9:47 pm #

    Hey we made it :) I’m glad to see Southland on the list. We just started our podcast and our Sr. Pastor fill us in on some possible major changes coming in the future. Now, I have to start checking out some of the other churches on your list.
    dj

  10. eric bramlett January 29, 2006 at 9:51 pm #

    Much props to Tony from those of us at Community Christian – and for that matter, all the churches on the list who go by “CCC”

  11. Greg January 30, 2006 at 11:11 am #

    Tony,

    I was going to be mad at you for coming through Phoenix and not calling…
    However, making your list made up for it.

    Thanks for publishing this, it put some new cool churches on my radar!

    Greg

  12. Josh January 30, 2006 at 12:43 pm #

    Tony,

    Just wanted to say thanks for putting Keypoint Church on the list.

    I’m really enjoying your podcasts as well, and I’m going to be picking up your books — which says a lot, because I hate reading.

    Keep up the good work!

  13. Missy January 30, 2006 at 4:12 pm #

    A blog “thank you” for the inspiration Granger has been to me personally. I would highly recommend, “Living Hope Church” in Vancouver, Washington. We are launching five satellite locations at once on Easter (4 in theaters). Our Senior Pastor was the number two favorite blog for Josh Sargent’s Leadership blog website. We are extremely excited at what God is doing at Living Hope

  14. Springcreek Community Church January 30, 2006 at 4:39 pm #

    SCC is a cool church!

    You may be watching from the web or you may have attended one of our weekend services, either way you’re probably figuring out that Springcreek is not your average church…this weekend on the way out one of our guests commented…

  15. greg January 30, 2006 at 6:05 pm #

    Tony,

    Thanks for including Foothills Community Church to your list.
    So many of the churches on your list have been a great inspiration to us.

    greg

  16. Brian Howe January 30, 2006 at 6:31 pm #

    God is doing some incredible things in the Northeast at Northway Fellowship in Malta NY. Check us out at http://www.northwayfellowship.com

  17. Gary January 30, 2006 at 8:36 pm #

    My Life is now complete!

  18. Tony Morgan January 30, 2006 at 8:53 pm #

    Missy, thank you for helping me find Living Hope in Vancouver, WA. Love what you all are doing. Great stuff!

    tony

  19. Tony Morgan January 30, 2006 at 9:01 pm #

    Brian, I checked out Northway. All I want to know is where did they get all those widescreen TVs for their platform. Love that!

    tony

  20. Tony Morgan January 30, 2006 at 9:02 pm #

    Gary, I have to admit I thought for a moment about leaving your church off the list just to see how you’d react.

    tony

  21. Gary January 30, 2006 at 10:12 pm #

    You know I would have pouted like a little girl. :) Then I would have started a massive boycott on my blog. :)

  22. Adam Thomas January 30, 2006 at 10:20 pm #

    Check out The Chapel in Grayslake, IL. They are doing some great stuff! Their website is being totally re-designed right now – so you can’t get much from it at this time.
    The Chapel is getting ready to launch multi-site.

  23. John January 31, 2006 at 12:59 am #

    Tony

    Thanks for the encouragement. To be in the same list as so many God honoring churches is an honor. The words we say around Living Hope is simply “ONLY GOD.”

    I met a lady that went to Granger and has been attending Living Hope.

    Peace

    John

  24. Bick's Quicks January 31, 2006 at 10:17 am #

    We’re Cool!

    Recently, my Church, has been listed as one out of 88 or so other cool churches! Having served on the staffs of other churches I can truly say that Springcreek is the coolest church I’ve had the pleasure of working

  25. Matt January 31, 2006 at 12:59 pm #

    What a great list…as a previous comment said, it will be used to “celebrate with them, plunder ideas from them. learn the easy way what they learned the hard way, etc.”

    Thanks for sharing the wealth of info!

  26. Brenton Balvin January 31, 2006 at 6:46 pm #

    Tony, right on bro. Thanks for mentioning the Quarry. I love web networking with other pastors and church leaders. This is a small glimpse of how the body of Jesus can work together in 2006 and beyond. Way to go!

  27. ob February 1, 2006 at 9:32 am #

    no idea how warnbro community church made it onto your list, mate, but thanks for the inclusion… we’ll do our best to remain cool… :-)

  28. lowercase February 1, 2006 at 7:54 pm #

    mysterious recognition…

    ok, so, here’s a interesting and mysterious happening in the universe… got an email from hamo last night (a comment he left overnight) highlighting the fact that warnbro church had been posted on tony morgan’s blog as one of the…

  29. tony morgan February 1, 2006 at 8:00 pm #

    Mark, I believe you’re the first person that’s ever referred to me as “mate” on this site. I’m honored.

    How about introducing us to some other cool churches is Australia? Who else should we have on our radar?

    tony

  30. Bob Franquiz February 1, 2006 at 11:42 pm #

    Thanks for the props Tony. Like Gary, my life will be complete when I get added to your cool blogs list!

  31. Andrew February 2, 2006 at 5:21 am #

    Tony,

    Could you give me/us some idea as to what you are looking for in a ‘cool’ church? I can see from the random churches I linked onto from your list what the websites suggest but what are you actually looking for? What’s a cool church?

    Andrew

  32. Rob February 7, 2006 at 11:39 am #

    Okay, I’m new to the blogging world in terms of creating. But I’ve been following your blog for some time. I’m unabashedly, and with tremendous bias, suggesting our church, Mountain Christian Church, http://www.mountainchristian.org. Mountain was started in 1824 but had a crucible experience in 1984 which started a period of tremendous growth. In a heavily populated but disproportionately unchurched section of the country, Mountain has grown from about 200 in 1984 to just over 3000 today. We’re all about making disciples-more and better disciples. We’re planting churches-Community Christian Church (communitycc.net) launches March 5, 2006 with about 250 sent from Mountain along with 4 staff. Thanks for all you do for the Kingdom!

  33. Josh Surratt February 9, 2006 at 6:24 am #

    Tony,

    Check out Mosaic Church of Charlotte, NC. They launched 3 weeks ago. They had 430 at their launch and have settled in at about 360. Definitely a church to keep an eye on.

    http://www.mosaicchurch.tv/

  34. Big Chris February 12, 2006 at 1:12 am #

    Hey Tony, just an FYI – Eagle Brook Church’s primary campus is now Lino Lakes, MN. They still own and operate the White Bear Lake Campus, but that is not the primary site. I blogged the opening of their new campus December 3/4 2005.

    Big Chris
    Because I said so blog

  35. Big Chris February 12, 2006 at 1:15 am #

    I suppose if I was nice I would just give you a link to my post. GO HERE!!!

    Big Chris

  36. tony morgan February 12, 2006 at 6:21 pm #

    Chris, thanks for providing that update on Eagle Brook. I’ve made the correction on my list.

    tony

  37. Josh October 9, 2008 at 3:28 am #

    Hey Tony,

    some Australian Churches to keep your eye on.

    http://www.planetshakers.com
    http://www.metro.org.au
    http://www.generation.org

    Josh