Denominations

Acts 29

On the sources. Read this profile knowing the shape of what is available. Acts 29 publishes its partnership covenant, its doctrinal distinctives, an FAQ and an assessment overview — all genuinely useful, and the covenant in particular is specific enough to source the money section precisely. Everything else the network publishes about itself is promotional, and it publishes no membership count, no financial statement, no bylaws, and no removal procedure. The gap is filled almost entirely by publications critical of the network, several of them founded to scrutinise it, together with removed churches describing their own removals. Neither body of material is neutral, and this profile uses the critical sources only for events and for the absence of published procedure — never for a judgment about the network. Four fields are left open rather than inferred, and the profile is marked partial for that reason.

Identity

Founded

Founded in 1998 by Mark Driscoll and David Nicholas as a church-planting network, its name taken from the idea of a twenty-ninth chapter continuing the book of Acts. The network's own public pages do not state a founding date; the date and founders are recorded consistently in secondary accounts, including those written when Driscoll was removed from the network in 2014.

Headquarters

No single headquarters is stated on the network's own pages. Acts 29 operates through regional directors across eight global regions — Africa, Asia Pacific, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Latin America, MENA and South Asia, and the United States — with the US further divided into West, Midwest, Southeast, North Atlantic and Texas. An executive team led by a president sits above the regions. The structure is regional rather than central by design, which matters for comparison: the regions set some of their own terms, including financial ones.

  • the body's own statement Acts 29, 'About' (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description

What it calls itself

Describes itself as "an organization and global network of churches bound together by relationship, theology, and mission," and states plainly in its own FAQ that "Acts 29 is not a denomination." It is open to dual affiliation: a member church may belong to a denomination at the same time, and many do. This site classifies it as a denomination all the same, on the functional test set out in the method — it takes regular money under a signed covenant, controls the use of its name, and removes congregations from membership. Two of those three would suffice. The disagreement between the network's self-description and this classification is recorded here rather than argued: both statements are true on their own terms, because they are answering different questions.

  • the body's own statement Acts 29, FAQ (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description
  • the body's own statement Acts 29, 'About' (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description

Congregations

Not established.Acts 29 does not publish a membership count on its public pages, and no authoritative figure was located for this profile. Third-party summaries circulate a figure of roughly 700–750 churches, but they do not cite a network source and are not relied on here. The absence is itself worth noting: a body that admits churches by assessment and removes them by board decision does not publish how many it currently has, which makes the size of the thing being joined unverifiable from outside.

Adherents or attendance

Not established.No attendance or adherent figures are published. Because member churches are independent congregations that report to no common statistical office, there is no equivalent of an annual church profile to draw on.

Property

Who holds title

The local congregation

Member churches own their own property outright. Acts 29 holds no title, asserts no trust, and takes no interest in congregational real estate; nothing in the covenant a church signs touches property at all. On this dimension the network sits exactly where the Southern Baptist Convention sits, and for the same underlying reason — the member congregations are independent legal entities that existed, or were founded, in their own right.

The instrument

None exists. No instrument encumbers the property of an Acts 29 church in the network's favour, and the covenant that governs membership is silent on property.

When a congregation closes

Not established.Determined entirely by the individual church's own governing documents and its state's nonprofit dissolution law. The network has no role and publishes nothing on the question, so there is no single answer to record.

When a congregation departs

A departing church keeps everything material. Because the network holds no property interest and no congregational assets pass through it, leaving costs a church its membership and nothing else — no payment, no release, no conveyance. What it loses is relational and reputational: the network's name, its cohorts and coaching, and access to its planting pipeline.

Money

Where the money goes Acts 29: Covenanted giving to church planting, contractual or licensed; some support flows back. The congregation Covenanted giving to church planting Contractual or licensed 10% of general offerings to church planting, of… support returns
Generated from this profile's own data rather than drawn by hand, so it cannot drift from the text. Rates are abbreviated here; the full terms and their qualifications are below.

Covenanted giving to church planting

Contractual or licensed — 10% of general offerings to church planting, of which 2% direct to Acts 29 (regional variations apply)

The covenant a church's elders sign states the rate rather than leaving it to the congregation. A member church allocates 10% of its general offerings to church planting, of which 2% is given directly to Acts 29 and the remaining 8% is invested in planting globally with a stated preference for Acts 29 churches; regions vary the direct share, with reported commitments of 1% historically and 2–3% in some US regions. This is a materially different arrangement from the Cooperative Program, where the congregation itself decides what percentage to give. Here the percentage is written into the instrument, and the covenant also directs how the larger, non-network portion is to be spent — which is a degree of influence over a congregation's budget that a body holding no property would not obviously be expected to have. The enum reads "contractual" as the nearest fit and overstates the legal position: this is a covenant signed by a church's eldership and renewed annually, not a contract enforceable in a civil court, and no mechanism exists to collect against a church that falls short.

What happens if it is not paid

The covenant is renewed yearly, and renewal is the enforcement mechanism: a church evaluates its ongoing alignment with the network's stated beliefs and commitments each year, and membership continues by that renewal rather than by default. No published procedure sets out what happens when a church gives less than the covenanted share, and no evidence was found that shortfall alone has led to removal. What can be said is structural: the network has no lever except membership itself, so any consequence for non-payment must run through the membership decision.

Money that flows down

Acts 29's stated commitments to member churches are services rather than money: promoting church planting, connecting churches relationally, equipping them with training and coaching, pursuing diversity, and building networks across continents. Money moves toward planters — the network exists to recruit, assess, train and support them — rather than toward existing congregations. There is no subsidy for a member church that cannot pay its pastor, which is the same absence found in the Southern Baptist Convention and the opposite of the United Methodist equitable compensation arrangement.

Who sets the pastor's pay

The local congregation

Each member church sets its own pastoral compensation. The network states no expectation, publishes no guidance that was located for this profile, and has no role in the decision.

Who pays the pastor

The local congregation

The congregation pays its own pastor from its own receipts. As in the Southern Baptist case, hiring, paying and dismissing sit in the same hands.

Minimum standards

None. No floor is set or recommended, and no fund exists to raise a church to one.

Pension and benefits

The network provides none, and its covenant commitments do not extend to benefits of any kind. A pastor's retirement provision is whatever the individual congregation arranges — there is no counterpart to Wespath or GuideStone, not even a voluntary plan a member church could opt into by virtue of membership. Of the three bodies profiled here, this is the only one where network membership carries no benefits infrastructure at all.

Clergy

Who credentials clergy

The local congregation

Ordination remains with the member church; Acts 29 ordains no one and issues no standing that could be suspended. What it does operate is an assessment, and the distinction matters. A prospective planter applies, completes written questionnaires and sits a formal interview, and the network charges a fee for the process; where an existing church seeks to join, the lead pastor initiates but the assessment engages the whole eldership, which must not merely assent to the network's doctrinal distinctives but actively teach and uphold them. So the network gates entry to itself rigorously while leaving ordination untouched — a filter rather than a credential.

How a pastor is placed

Called by the congregation

Member churches call their own pastors, with no involvement from the network. The distinctive Acts 29 pathway concerns founding rather than filling: a planter comes forward, is assessed, and starts a congregation — which is a matter of who may plant rather than of how an existing pulpit is filled, and is recorded under governance below. One standing constraint does apply to who may be called: under the network's doctrinal distinctives the office of elder or pastor is restricted to men, and a member church's eldership signs that it upholds this.

Employer of record

The local congregation

The congregation hires, pays and may dismiss. The network is not in the employment relationship at any point, and this is the enum's clean case.

Removal

A pastor is removed by his own church, under that church's governing documents. The network cannot remove a pastor from a congregation. What it can do — and has done at its own level — is remove a person or a church from the network: its board removed co-founder Mark Driscoll and his church from membership in 2014, and removed its then chief executive in 2020 following an investigation into his conduct in that role. Both actions establish where the power sits, which is with the board.

Security of tenure

None arises from the network. A pastor's security is whatever his congregation's documents and his own agreement provide, and network membership neither adds to it nor guarantees placement if a post ends.

Governance

The legislative body

There is none in the sense the other bodies profiled here use the term. No assembly of member churches meets to legislate, no messengers or delegates are seated, and member churches do not vote on the network's direction, its doctrinal distinctives, or its leadership. Acts 29 refers to a board and a council and is run by an executive team and regional directors. Governance therefore runs from the board outward rather than from the churches upward — the structural inverse of the Southern Baptist annual meeting, and the feature that most distinguishes a network from a convention.

Who oversees the congregation

A board of directors

A board that member churches do not elect. Acts 29 refers to a board and a council and is run by an executive team under a president, with regional directors across eight global regions; member churches have no vote in choosing any of them. Regional directors are the nearest thing to a personal overseer, and a member church is required by covenant to notify its regional director of any theological shift. What distinguishes this from episcopal oversight is not informality but direction of accountability. A bishop, however chosen, holds an office defined by the body's constitution and is answerable within it; here oversight is exercised by the governing body of an organisation the churches contract with annually, and the only remedy available to either side is to end the relationship.

Who may plant or close a church

Anyone may plant a church; only Acts 29 decides whether that church is an Acts 29 church. The network's stated purpose is to recruit, assess, train and support planters, and its assessment is the gate — a planter is evaluated before the network backs him. No body can close a member church, which remains an independent congregation throughout; the network can only end its own relationship to it.

Who owns the name

The denomination, licensed to the congregation

The name is the network's principal asset and its principal lever. A church may identify itself as Acts 29 only while it is a member; membership is conferred by assessment, renewed annually by covenant, and ended by the board — and the identification ends with it. For a body that holds no property, issues no credentials and pays no salaries, control of the name is very nearly the whole of what it holds over a congregation. One limit on this entry: that member churches use the name by virtue of membership and cease to on removal follows from the covenant and from the network's own account of membership. Whether Acts 29 also holds and enforces a registered trademark in the name has not been verified for this profile, and no claim is made about it.

Discipline

Discipline runs to member churches and to the network's own officers, not to individual church members or pastors in their congregations. The board decides, and no published procedure governs how it decides. This is the sharpest contrast with the Southern Baptist Convention, whose removals proceed through a named committee under a numbered bylaw and carry an appeal to the assembled messengers: Acts 29 publishes no equivalent bylaw, no appeal route, and no standard of evidence. Churches removed in recent years have said publicly that they received no prior warning and were offered no appeal, and were told only that they were no longer a good fit. That account comes from the removed parties and from a publication critical of the network; the network's own account of the same removals was not located. What is not in dispute, because the network's own structure supplies it, is that the decision rests with a board that member churches do not elect.

Joining and leaving

How a congregation joins

A church joins by assessment and covenant. The lead pastor initiates, but the assessment engages the whole eldership, and every elder must agree to the network's five doctrinal distinctives and the Lausanne Covenant statement of faith — actively upholding and teaching them, not merely assenting. The elders then review and sign the partnership covenant. Membership belongs to the church rather than to any individual, and dual affiliation is permitted, so a congregation may be Acts 29 and Southern Baptist at once. There is a fee for assessment, which varies by region.

How a congregation leaves

The congregation may simply vote to go

A church leaves by not renewing. Because the covenant is renewed yearly, departure requires no vote threshold set from outside, no approval, and no payment; the elders simply decline to renew, and the relationship ends. Nothing material changes hands, since nothing material was ever held. Departure is therefore cheaper here than in either other body profiled — cheaper even than in the Southern Baptist Convention, where lapsing is passive but no annual decision point exists to make the choice explicit.

What leaves with them

Everything except the name and the relationships. Property, assets, pastor and congregation are unaffected; the church ceases to be identified with Acts 29 and loses its cohorts, coaching and planting pipeline. No clergy standing is at stake, because the network never held any.

When the body removes a congregation

The board may remove a member church, and this is the network's only sanction — as it is the Southern Baptist Convention's. The two differ entirely in how it is exercised. A Southern Baptist removal runs through a standing committee under a published bylaw and may be appealed to the messengers at the annual meeting; an Acts 29 removal is a board decision with no published procedure, no stated criteria beyond the covenant's alignment language, and no appeal route that could be located. The network's most-cited removal is that of its own co-founder and his church in 2014, on the ground of what the network's letter called disqualifying behaviour. More recent removals have been reported by the affected churches as arriving without warning or appeal. Because the consequence of removal is loss of name and relationship only, its weight falls entirely on a congregation's identity and connections rather than on its assets. Whether that makes it a light sanction or a heavy one depends on how much of a church's public identity was built on the affiliation, which for a plant recruited and trained by the network may be a great deal.

Legal form

Corporate structure

Not established.Not established for this profile, and a caution is warranted for anyone trying to establish it. Several unrelated American nonprofits share the name "Acts 29," including bodies in Ohio and Oklahoma with revenues in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it is easy to attribute one of their filings to the church-planting network by mistake. A "Acts 29 Network" entity appears in nonprofit registries under EIN 26-3473513, but that record could not be retrieved and verified here, so no corporate or financial claim is made.

Tax status

Not established.Not established. Member churches hold their own exemptions as independent congregations, so no group ruling of the United Methodist kind would be expected, but the network's own status was not verified — see the caution about name collisions above.

Liability

Not established.Not researched. A network that holds no property, employs no pastors and issues no credentials would be expected to have limited exposure for the conduct of its member churches, but that is an inference from structure rather than a sourced finding.

Further reading

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