Ed Stetzer, Ph.D., has planted churches in New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. He has trained pastors and church planters on five continents, holds two masters degrees and two doctorates, and has written dozens of articles and books. Ed served for three years as a seminary professor at the Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and has taught at ten other seminaries. He has written Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age, Perimeters of Light: Biblical Boundaries for the Emerging Church (w/ Elmer Towns), Strategic Outreach (with Eric Ramsey), Breaking the Missional Code (w/ David Putman), and Planting Missional Churches (also forthcoming, May 2006). He serves as the Missiologist and Research Team Director at the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, GA and co-pastor of Lake Ridge Church in Cumming, GA. He is married to Donna and they have three daughters.

David Putman is a devoted husband, loving father, missional church planter, experienced coach, strategic thinker, and strong catalyst.

He currently serves as one of the pastors at Mountain Lake Church (MLC) in North Atlanta. MLC has grown to nearly 2000 in its six short years of existence. At MLC David’s responsibilities focus on issues related to “growing” the church’s impact in its community and around the world. David has been a part of MLC prior to its inception. For him, this journey began 9 years ago when he moved into the rural Cumming, GA community and began praying for a new church. A founding member, he joined the MLC team in April 2004 to serve as Executive Pastor. David is passionate about what he is learning at a code breaking church and keeping issues of the Gospel and culture close to everyone’s heart.

Prior to joining the MLC Ministry Team, David served with the North American Mission Board where he first met Ed Stetzer, a young church planter getting it done in the tough harvest fields of Pennsylvania. David was tasked with developing the Nehemiah Project, a church planting intern strategy, which has launched hundreds of church planters into the North American Mission field. Together David, as the chief architecture, and Ed, as the first Professor of Church Planting and Director of Nehemiah Project, influenced the culture of North American church planting.

In addition to the Nehemiah Project, David was tasked with setting the church planting strategy for the North American Mission Board, an organization that helps facilitate about 1500 church plants annually.

David planted his first church back in the late 1980’s. Since then, he has coached hundred of church planters across North America. He is recognized as one of the catalyst of the current church planting movement. He and Shawn Lovejoy are co-founders of ChurchPlanters.com, a coaching ministry for church planters.

In 1991 he wrote a chapter entitled “Getting Off to a Big Start” which can be found in Church Planting at the End of the Twentieth Century by Charles Chaney. He served as one of the editors and authors of Seven Steps to Planting Church, one of the North American Mission Boards flagship resources. He coauthored the book Breaking the Missional Code with Ed Stetzer. He and Ed are currently working on a sequel entitled Breaking the Formation Code which defines what it means to be a missional Christian in today’s context. He is also working on Best Practices of Effective Church Planters which applies proven leadership principles in the context of church planting.

David has a passion for planting missional churches and loves to help others make practical sense of this emerging missional movement. He lives in Cumming, GA with his wife Tami and their daughter Amanda who plays collegiate tennis and their son Dave who is serving in the US Army.