Archive - Vision RSS Feed

So It Begins

January 28, 2012 in Church, Planting, Scripture, Vision with 0 Comments

Last Thursday night (January 26, 2012), Allie and I hosted our very first church plant interest meeting. I invited some of our closest friends and family over to share with them my vision for the church I feel called to plant in Greensboro, NC.

I shared with them what God had been showing me through 2 Kings 2:18-21. Those few verses tell a story of a well-situated city (Jericho) cursed with dirty water and unproductive land until Elisha (a prophet of God) throws salt into it the water source out of a new bowl and God uses that salt to heal the water. The parallels to Greensboro are fairly simple: Greensboro is well-situated but full of people who are far from God (i.e. dying) and God will heal the land if we fill it with salt (Christians), but first we must consecrate (clean) ourselves to be like the new bowl.

The most powerful part of the passage for me as I studied it, and then as I shared it, was when I realized that before the people asked him to help,  Continue Reading…

I’m planting a church, and am utterly terrified.

May 26, 2011 in Church, Planting, Seminary, Vision with 0 Comments

The prospect of planting a church is petrifying. I have studied for the last 7 years for this moment, taken class upon class on the process that church planting requires, written church constitutions, bylaws, staff manuals, baptism and ordination documents, worked as an Executive Pastor where I created a church website, helped plan weekly services, helped develop a core team, launch team, and helped successfully launch a church. My studies have resulted in a Bachelor’s Degree in Religion, a Master’s Degree in Church Planting, the opportunity to preach and have lives transformed through that preaching, and a chance to study just about everything there is to know about starting a church from scratch. The last several years I have put weeks of time and thousands of dollars toward attending conferences for church leaders, conferences spanning 4 states, East and West from South Carolina to Texas and North and South from North Carolina to Florida, I have driven all over the country to learn from the leading sources in what it takes to plant, lead, and grow an effective church.

Yet here I sit at 4 AM, haunted by the prospect of planting. The self-appointed moniker “Completely Inadequate” certainly comes to mind.

I know that God has called me to this and I know that He is sovereign and it is His church to build (through me), and I trust that He will use my inadequacies to His glory, but my goodness, nobody prepared me for this. And the worst part… I’ve barely started.

Continue Reading…

Exponential Conference

June 28, 2010 in Church, Conferences, Exponential, Vision with 0 Comments

In April Allie and I took a week and went down to Orlando for the Exponential Conference. It was different than any other conference I have attended because instead of putting all of the attention on the big names in the church world it focused on lesser-known pastors and planters who have experienced a much more common level of success. It is always encouraging to see the guys who have reached thousands speak wisdom into my life but it was equally encouraging to see guys who have impacted hundreds, or tens speak wisdom as well. One side effect of being inundated with the “rock stars” of the pastor world is some of the expectations of what planting will be can become unrealistic. Paul’s ministry wasn’t typical but that doesn’t diminish the ministry of anybody else, nor does it mean that it is wrong to pray for and expect to have the impact that Paul had. David hoped to build the Temple for God and although he wasn’t the one to build it in the end he made great progress in making it happen. It was nice to see some of the unsung heroes of the church world getting a voice in a conference, it was a nice encouragement.

There were several things that we both took away but by far the greatest element for me involved a stretching of the vision God has given me. I am still struggling on nailing the vision down in a way that I can share confidently but on this expansion I have no doubt. I attended a break-out session with Ed Stetzer, a statistician, church planter, and pastor, who is pretty darn brilliant. He did this session on viral churches, a session based on his new book of the same name. I won’t bore you with the details but the basics was that many churches make the mistake of planting their one church and becoming a cul-de-sac on the Great Commission highway. Many churches plant and focus on growing but not on giving birth to new churches. His whole speech rocked my world because it made me realize that I should not be content with only planting one church but instead to be a catalyst for the planting of many churches. More churches mean more impact on my city and beyond. So, the new vision is to plant at least one new church every year and more if possible.

There are several avenues I may pursue in making this happen, I have yet to decide which is the most beneficial. One church planting organization that has really piqued my interest is set on planting a church in every city in the US with a population of over 100,000. There are around 250 cities (of which Greensboro is one) and each church plant then works on planting other church in the same city to create a movement in that city. With Allie’s passion for reaching some of the internationals in High Point I would love to be able to help plant a church that focuses on reaching them, just as I would love to plant a hip-hop church in the rough African-American part of town. I honestly wished that I was called to reach them because I see such a great opportunity and I think they are primed to receive some life change. While I don’t believe I have been called, nor equipped to reach them, I can make sure to equip somebody who is called and help them reach that community.

What is amazing is that in stretching the vision of what I am supposed to do God has given me more confidence that He is in control. I think that I could successfully plant one church and have it survive for a time with my own power but to start something that God has put on my heart will require His leadership for any measure of success to be obtained. As I have always said it is incredibly exciting and terrifying at the same time. Prayer is appreciated as always as I move forward in trying to articulate the vision, find a team, and plant the movement God has called me to.

Page 1 of 3123»