Outside of his love for God and his family, Wayne Hoag's greatest love is for the Body of Christ. For thirty-five years he has been a shepherd of God's flock. The past twenty years he has been the Senior Pastor of Sierra Bible Church in the mountain town of Truckee, California. Several years ago his attention was drawn to the New Testament admonitions that call God's children to either be or do something for their fellow believers in the local church. In fact, the call appears a total of twenty-nine times. Upon further study, Wayne became convinced that the twenty-nine one another admonitions were God's unique strategy to shape and mold His children into the image of His Son. He began to see that following the work of salvation in one's life, God then placed the new believer in a local fellowship where they would be further shaped and refined by and through their life with other believers. That is when the One Another Project was born. The Project was originally a ten week series of sermons that were then further explored in weekly home study groups. The questions that were asked and explored in the small groups are listed at the end of each chapter. Pastor Wayne has not only taught these truths to his Truckee congregation but also to others who want to more fully understand God's strategy of the One Another call. For further information and discussion about this topic please visit www.oneanotherproject.com. The key verse for this study is Romans 12:5, ..".so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another." As you read may you grow in your understanding of just how much you need your brothers and sisters in Christ.

It would be reasonable to estimate that multiple hundreds of thousands of people have become followers of Jesus Christ as a result of the modern church-planting movement. One characteristic of the literature of this movement has been an almost singular focus on the individual who is sent out to lead the new congregation, rather than on the vital role of the sending or sponsoring church.

Practically all the books are written with one target in mind: this individual leader, the pioneer pastor, usually referred to as the "church planter." "The Mother Church" is not written for pioneer pastors; it is written for the leaders of potential mother churches. It is designed to help leaders assess whether and when the birthing of a new church is a good idea for their congregation and to provide them with tools to birth and nurture healthy, thriving, life-giving new churches.

"Church leaders who desire to see their mission efforts survive and thrive need to give special attention to the hardwon insights of John Bangs' "The Mother Church." Bangs is not only a mission planter and pastor, but he brings the broader view of a church-planting leader ..."
-Charles J. Scalise, Ph.D., Professor of Church History, Fuller Theological Seminary

"The Mother Church will revolutionize the way we view and do birthing of mission churches."
-Kent J. Ingle, D.Min., Dean, College of Ministry, Northwest University

DAVID H. HIGGINS, M.A. (Cambridge), was Head of the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Bristol until retirement in 1995. His main professional field was the cultural and political history of Italy from Late Antiquity, through medieval to the Renaissance, together with comparative philology and linguistics. This was accompanied by an interdisciplinary professional interest in comparative early medieval British and Italian archaeology and history. His major publications include the critical apparatus of Dante's Divine Comedy in the World Classics series, Oxford University Press (1981, 2nd edition 1993, reprinted 2008), and many articles and reviews in journals such as Dante Studies, The Modern Language Review, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History and archaeological serials including the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, The Council for British Archaeology - South West, Bristol and Avon Archaeology and short works for the Bristol branch of the Historical Association.