Great Resources

When you're planting a church it seems like your ears and eyes are always open as you look for solid information and tools that are going to help you in this journey.  If you're looking for a "model" to follow, you will come up short.  Every church is different, every city has different needs and sub-cultures.  But there are great resources that can offer encouragement and direction as you and God work through what your church model is going to look like.


Here are some of the resources on our short list that we have found encouraging and helpful:
(give us your comments and let us know what resources you have found that are helping you!)


Church in the Making (Ben Arment): Could hardly put this book down.  Ben does a great job of laying out the church planting process and "reality checks" you must take while on this journey.


Simple Church (Rainer and Geiger): Most church planters have the rare opportunity of creating the church culture for their new church.  Through this book you are able to see that less is more.   This book encourages you to work diligently toward defining how you are going to take people through the discipleship process and more importantly, how you are going to communicate this process to your church.


Living Your Strengths (Winseman, Clifton and Liesveld): This is a must read!  At the end of the book there is a code that you can use to take the strengths finder test online.  As we build our team we will make it a priority that every one of them takes this test.  


nazarenenewchurches.org:  A place to begin for start-up resources, demographic studies, training events and networking.


newchurchspecialties.org: NewStart Assessment Center is very helpful!


collisionmedia.tv: Designed our website and promotional material.  They have a special place in their hearts for church planters and seeing them succeed.


dcpi.org: Church Planting essentials are offered through nazarenenewchurches.org and are definitely worth your time.


cp4us.org: Tons of information.  We especially love the "5 Hard Truths for Church Planters" by Dustin Neeley.


creationswap.com: Awesome graphics and many are free.  If you are looking for graphics to add to a blog, website, e-news or mailer this is a great place to start.  FREE is always music to a church planter's ear.




Be encouraged today!

You Are Not Alone

"You are not alone!"  The reality of this statement is one that, as a church planter, I find myself clinging to. There are many days that the weight of the task at hand is heavy on my shoulders. There are many days, though, that the momentum builds within my soul as I look ahead and dream of what's to come.  I have to constantly remind myself that I am not alone.  I have to remember to continually reach out to those who can offer help along this journey.

HE IS WITH YOU   

God hasn't called you to the wilderness only to leave you stranded, but He is inviting you on a faith journey like none other.  He has asked you to step into the unknown and walk blindly towards an end that isn't yet in sight.  Don't forsake your time with Him- make it a priority.  I realize each day in a fresh and new way that my ears must be so closely in tune to Him that when He whispers it is heard.  I can't take for granted my time spent with Him; it is critical, it is vital.  Without this time with Him I end my day filled with discouragement.  Paul put it this way in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 when he says, "…pray continually."  Never stop praying!  There is too much at stake to walk through your days without His Almighty presence.  The enemy trembles when you are on your knees, the deceiver's lies are silenced when you are in constant communion with your God and he is powerless against the bold prayers you offer up with a trembling heart.  YOU ARE NOT ALONE!  So never walk through your days as if you are!  Lift your eyes towards your God and walk forward in His Almighty presence.

LOOK AROUND YOU

Whether you are planting a church from a sponsor church or starting a church from scratch, there are people around you in whom God is stirring up within the desire to be a part of this new adventure with you.  It's our job as church planters to help cast the vision behind what God is calling us towards.  These individuals will be an incredible support and encouragement for you.  You need to know in those moments when you feel defeat that there are people behind you that believe in what you are doing and are cheering you on.  

We have the privilege of being a part of a district (South Texas District Church of the Nazarene) that is passionate about seeing new church plants thrive.  From the very beginning of our journey we were afforded the opportunity of visiting churches within our district to raise awareness and support.  We have been so blessed by these churches that have given sacrificially and offered their time and prayers.

We did not want to be alone in our prayers! In just a few short months we have a prayer force of over 150 and that number grows with every church we visit.  God's heart is stirred when His people pray. We know that we can't lose sight of the reality that prayer MUST be at the very core of the foundation of our church.  We feel that this is the very first line of defense for us.  We need all of the prayers we can get and this dedicated group of individuals is praying weekly for our work.  Every Monday we send them an updated prayer needs list for the week.  We are very specific about the prayers we ask them to pray.  If we are meeting with a family, we ask them to pray specifically for that conversation.  If we are working to build relationships in the community, we ask them to pray specifically for the places we will be going that week.  We still have a lot to learn on this journey of church planting, but one thing that we have learned is that without a prayer force you are behind in the game.

Look around you.  Seek out the leaders within your sponsor church or denomination that can help support your efforts.  Keep them well informed and bring them alongside you in this journey.  We are in this together! We need to pray for unity.  Healthy churches that are following after Christ desire to see the bigger picture.  Seek out these churches, share your heart with the pastor and ask for the opportunity to raise support through their congregation.  You don't have to do this alone - you shouldn't do this alone.

Be encouraged today!

A Day in the Life Of...

As a church planter what does your day look like?  If you are a church planter you have, no doubt, tried to answer this question many times over.  I find myself sometimes thinking back to the "glory" days when I was on staff at a church.  Everyday I could look forward to going into the office to talk and dream ministry with the fellow "staffers."  There were people to be ministered to and needs to be met.


For the church planter this dynamic looks completely different.  Your church office might be at home, at a coffee shop, at a rented office space or it might change from day to day.  Your schedule looks different for right now - it isn't spent preparing for staff meetings or sermons.  Hopefully, your time is spent meeting new people anyway you can think - whether that is through frequenting the same local businesses, playing a pick up game of ball at the park, joining "clubs" throughout the city, registering your kid for a sports league.. you name it!


I think I'm getting better at embracing this new reality.  God is continually challenging me and my ideas of ministry.  I realize that as a church planter I have the rare opportunity to help create the culture and mindset of our church.  This is an opportunity and a great responsibility that I don't take lightly.  I've always talked about how important it is to "be in our community" but I must confess that now there is not other option BUT for me to be in the community around me.  There's no one walking through our church doors.  People don't have our church on their radar yet.  So, if God is going to use me to build His church, I better close my "office" doors and get out there, where the God-appointed conversations are happening.


Now with all of this said, here are some of the things we have done so far that might help you answer the question, "As a church planter, what does your day look like?" These are some of the projects we have worked on and the things we spend "our days" on right now. I hope this can help give you some ideas on where to start.  Don't forget though, these are just ideas.  Start each and every day on your knees.  God is steering this ship, you just need Him to tell you were to paddle today.

• Design and go "live" with website and Facebook page.  We made the decision to begin with a website and Facebook page.  I cannot tell you how many people we have met that have gone home, friended us on Facebook and seen our link to our website and church Facebook page.  The next time we meet with them, their first question usually is, "So, you and your husband are planting a church in the area?"  Although the website and Facebook page are bare bones right now, we are intentional about utilizing it to explain who we are and how to get involved.
• 2-3 Sundays a month - speaking at churches throughout our area to raise awareness and support.
• The Sundays that we are at home are spent visiting area churches to get a "feel" for the church culture in Beaumont. 
• Men's Basketball Night.  We intentionally bought a home in a neighborhood that has a community pool, basketball court pavilion and tennis courts.  Our pool has been a great tool for us.  We pray every day that God would send us "God-appointed" conversations, so we don't consider it a coincidence when the HOA president comes up and sits down for a chat around the pool.  We've had multiple conversations with people asking us who we are and what brought us to Beaumont.  HINT: be prepared to give a 30-second concise answer.  It might be your only chance.
• Scheduled our first community window survey.  We already have a building for the church plant, so we know our target community.  If you don't have a building yet, you have a greater challenge ahead as you target your key communities. 
• Met with administrator from Lamar University.  We have discovered on Lamar's website that there are some Christian fraternity and sorority houses on campus.  We are very interested in meeting the leaders of these groups and seeing how we might partner with them.  
• We have enrolled our son in Little League Baseball.  There are over 500 kids in his particular league.  OPPORTUNITIES are abundant to meet people and connect.  
• Our church building is directly across from a brand new elementary school.  Chris has introduced himself to the principal/vice principal.  We will "love" on this school throughout the year and make ourselves available to them.
• We have some "20" somethings that we know from a previous ministry we were a part of in the area several years ago.  We will begin a "game" night with them this fall and hopefully through our encouragement they will bring more and more of their friends. (Free, home-cooked food is always a bargaining chip with young adults.)  We hope to establish a small group the beginning of next year with our "game" night "20" somethings.
• Chris has met with the director of a homeless shelter in the city (Chris' eyes light up when you start talking urban ministry.)  One of our dreams is to have the CEO of a corporation worshipping beside a man without a home, realizing together that they are connected through the transforming love of Jesus Christ.  Now that's exciting!
• We are planning a major renovation for our church building next year.  Even though we own the building, we are nowhere near ready to begin meeting there.  At this point, we are working on identifying who our core team members are.  Because we are a parachute plant, we do not have any key players from a sponsor church to build a core group with.  Our core group will be built out of the relationships we are making with people right now.  With that said, we have the time to create a game plan for our renovation.  Over the next several months we will work with contractors and architects to design the set up we feel is going to create the church "culture" we feel God is calling us towards.
• Clubs and organizations.  We are getting involved in many of the community clubs and organizations - Mom's clubs, Sports clubs, Non-profit organizations, School clubs, Boy Scouts.  Connections must be made first and people must see that we are concerned with what concerns them and want to be a part of their lives.  We pray often that our motives would be transparent to those we are meeting.  Our main priority is to build relationships.
• RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS.  I could add to this list all the time as we continue to seek out ways to meet people in our community.  This is absolutely the most important task we have right now. 

So there you have it, in a nutshell.  I hope this helps you and encourages you.  Right now our efforts are almost completely spent on getting to know people.  It's discouraging at times, and more times than I care to admit I question whether or not this is going to make any difference at all.  Wouldn't it just be easier to open our church doors and let people come to us?  UGH.  Did I just say that?  Isn't that the mentality I've been fighting throughout my ministry?  And if we are really honest with ourselves, isn't this the mentality the church world has been fighting for years and years?  But now, here, where I'm on the playing field, the easy way is tempting.  God reminds me often that if I truly want to be the pastor of a church that is pushing believers beyond their comfort zone and leading them to passionately seek out building relationships with those outside the four walls of our church, then I HAVE TO do the same thing at the pregnant stage of our church.  I have to fight for a relationship-driven mindset, not a ministry-driven mindset.  

Be encouraged today church planter!  We are in different boats but we have the same captain.  Work on those relationships, open yourself up to anyone who might welcome you in.  Don't be afraid, this is a God thing.  Just get your paddle and start moving! 

Put flesh on this for me, PLEASE!

What does this look like?  Where do I start?  Who do I target?  Please put flesh on this whole process for me, please!  If you are a church planter you have found yourself asking these questions.

We moved into Beaumont, Texas the weekend of the 4th of July.  I have to tell you that there were quite a few mixed emotions for us.  We pulled up to our house late at night, no welcoming committee from a church, no strong men to help us move furniture, no food awaiting us from the best cooks in the congregation.  It was just us.  Most of our moves before this one have been to cities where we had accepted a position on staff at a church.  The silence was deafening.  

The loneliness was real.  

The "What have we done!?" questions quickly flooded both of our minds.  We had both left successful ministries for the unknown territory we felt God pulling us towards.  But at that moment all we saw was the fact that we were in a brand new city, with only one couple that we had made contact with and a city full of people that we didn't know.

After spending an entire week getting settled (something that you NEED to take the time to do) we began to try to wrap our minds around what was ahead for us.  Let me save you some time by telling you, "You can't wrap your mind around it!!"  It's impossible to put flesh on something that has yet to be born.  There are models you can follow, training that you would be wise to seek after, but in the end every church plant looks different.  The demographics are unique, the opportunities are different and God is calling each of us to help build a church that is designed as a "One of a Kind."

So with this in mind, how do you begin putting the pieces together?  We are learning that it literally is a day to day process.  As a church planter, you don't yet have the luxury of walking into a church with dedicated church members, thriving ministries and dedicated staff.  If you are a church plant that has a sponsoring church you are a little ahead of the process.  You will hopefully begin with a core team of individuals that, with your leadership, will help you begin to work towards your launch.  If you are a "parachute plant" (like we are) you have a little more work ahead for you.  You must work diligently the first several months to a year to establish relationships and identify key people who you feel can be instrumental in helping you launch.

There are no shortcuts to this process.  Jesus took the time to teach His disciples and help them wrap their minds around what ministry looked like.  In the same way, we must not get in a hurry to force relationships around us.  God is calling us to make disciples, He's not calling us to find warm bodies that can help us with the tasks that lie ahead before we launch.  Relationships take time, they take effort.  Building relationships takes you, as the church planter, putting yourself out there time and time again, willingly making yourself vulnerable to people you barely know, if you know them at all.  It takes seeking out every opportunity you can find to build relationships with people.

I've heard it said several times that planting a church is much like riding multiple trains on multiple tracks, hoping that in the end they all arrive at the train station simultaneously.  While you are riding on the track of relationship building, you also must be riding on the track of developing your ministry plan.  Ok, we know this by now, right?  So now comes the whole, "put flesh on my ministry plan" challenge.  What we are discovering is that our ministry plan is there to serve as a reminder of why we are planting a church in the first place.  In our ministry plan we chart out the demographics of our city and what our timeline is going to look like.   We share our vision and our calling in our ministry plan and what we hope our church will one day look like.  But what our ministry plan is NOT is a day to day checklist for us to mark off at the end of the day with everything we accomplished.  Now hear me out.  You have to know where you are going, and you have to have order in your day and things you want to accomplish.  But building relationships in this very pregnant stage of church planting is not something you can mark off on a checklist once it is accomplished.  We've discovered that there are many days that we question if what we accomplished today amounted to anything more than a hill of beans (insert my Texas accent here and you've got this phrase down.) These are the days where you spend time getting to know someone, or a group of "someone's," and wonder if you made any impression on them at all.  Never forget that God can transform lives during the church planting process and you can see great victories long before you open the doors of your church.  What you are doing right now is making a difference.  You are helping build a church block by block.  It takes time, patience and perseverance.  Keep moving and don't give up!

The Journey Begins

I love road trips.  There is just something about packing up for a trip, loading the car, making sure everything is in place and then heading towards a new adventure.  One of our favorite places to go for vacation is Destin, Florida. We absolutely love this place.  And the closer we get to Destin during our road trip the more giddy we become. We start talking about what we think our vacation rental is going to look like, how blue the water is going to be and what restaurant we are going to stop at first.  The anticipation makes the trip not seem so long. 

I'm discovering that starting a new church is much like our beloved road trips.  Just a little over 3 months ago we accepted the opportunity to come down and begin a brand new work here in Beaumont, Texas.  From that moment, we began to pack up (mentally and literally) for this new adventure, we began to dream HUGE dreams of what God could do if we would just be available to Him and then we set out towards our destination.  But we are discovering quickly that there are many scenic stops along the way.  We are the first to admit that we still have so much to learn.

For many church planters I believe that it is the scenic stops that can frustrate us.  


If patience isn't your strongest quality, well, let's just say that church planting will help you perfect this quality very quickly.  Oswald Chambers spoke incredible words when he said, "We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us.  What we call the process, God calls the end.  His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now.  God is not working toward a particular finish; His end is the process- that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea.  It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God." What freeing words for a church planter!  I have to remind myself often that church planting is like no other process I have experienced in my years of ministry.  It doesn't look the same, feel the same or even work in the same realm of reality.  Planting a church takes a completely different outlook.

I love the Message version of Matthew 16:17-18, "My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am.  And now I'm going to tell you who you are, really are.  You are Peter, a rock.  This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out."  This declaration take an enormous amount of pressure off of the church planter.  It isn't you or me and our talents and abilities that are going to build His church.  God has declared for all to hear that He will put together His church in His time and on His terms.  And THIS church will be able to withstand even the strongest attacks thrown against it from the very gates of hell.  I don't know about you, but this is the kind of church I want to help build.  I don't need to be the architect, I don't need to be the general contractor - just give me a hammer, tell me where to hit and I'll get to work.


The journey has begun, the Master Draftsman has drawn out the plans, it's time to go.  But know this, you only get to see the plans that apply to the here and now.  Don't expect to see the final draft.  Your tasks will be handed to you piece by piece.  Don't be discouraged.  Don't worry that you don't know all the details.  Just trust that TODAY God has work for you to do.  The upside...you get to see God make something out of absolutely nothing!

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