I am very excited to share a brief update that came as an unexpected result of the CPD Partner’s Meeting held on January 10th. Rachel and I have been struggling for some time with some misgivings and uncertainty concerning the exact location where God was calling us to plant. When we initially began this process two years ago, we felt called to plant a church in Midland. You may read more about that here. However, after some reflection, we began to waver in that decision – questioning whether it was indeed God who had called us here or following our own desire as to where to plant.

During the course of our conversation in the partner’s meeting, that decision was confirmed for us. I remember a two specific instances where the sense of calling became crystal clear. I remember listening to myself describe certain elements of Midland and the city’s culture and being struck by how obvious it was that this was indeed where God had called us to plant. I also remember being surprised that no one interrupted us to draw attention to this fact.

Following the meeting Rachel and I spoke about this during our car ride home. After I had shared with her what it was that I felt the Holy Spirit speaking to us during the meeting she confirmed that she was thinking the same thing. She was also surprised that no one addressed this – because it seemed so clear and obvious to the two of us.

Without any expectation of addressing that specific issue during our time together, God in His good providence spoke through His Holy Spirit when we least expected it. We rejoice in this answer to prayer and look forward to planting in the location where God has clearly drawn and planted our family. We know that the timing of our answer was a direct result of the time that we set aside to humble ourselves, fast, and pray as a couple and the direct result of prayers on our behalf.

We have been excited to share this update. Please join us in praising God for His answer to prayer and for His mercy, faithfulness, and loving kindness extended to the wrong people.

Nathan Gritter, the pastor of Community CRC, facilitated the meeting which had four primary objectives. First, to follow up on a coaching report that I submitted to Home Missions and Classis Lake Erie in December. Second, I wanted the opportunity to address some of the variables that lead to my withdrawal from the church planting process in August of 2011. Third, I also wanted to ask for the blessing of Christian Reformed Home Missions, Classis Lake Erie, and Community CRC to move forward and continue with the new church work. Finally, a large portion of the time was to be spent laying out specific details of a strategic plan for the birth of Trinity Grace.

The meeting was a great encouragement to Rachel and I. We are grateful for the support we received from all of the parties involved in the meeting. It was humbling to know that everyone traveled in from out of town to come along side us in prayerful discerning the next steps in this journey.

In the end a skeleton strategic plan was formed. One of the primary objectives to emerge from the meeting was the formation of an CDP Partner Advisory and Support Team. The team will formalize a strategic plan and oversee a 12 month residency period that will begin in April. Our team has its first meeting scheduled for February 7th. We should be able to share more definitive details following that meeting.

Why Church Planting?

The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for 1) the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and 2) the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else–not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes–will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting. This is an eyebrow raising statement. But to those who have done any study at all, it is not even controversial.

So, why is church planting so crucially important? Because…

We want to be true to THE BIBLICAL MANDATE

Jesus’ essential call was to plant churches. Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith. The ‘Great Commission’ (Matt.28: 18-20) is not just a call to ‘make disciples’ but to ‘baptize’. In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshipping community with accountability and boundaries (cf. Acts 2:41-47). The only way to be truly sure you are increasing the number of Christians in a town is to increase the number of churches. Why? Much traditional evangelism aims to get a ‘decision’ for Christ. Experience, however, shows us that many of these ‘decisions’ disappear and never result in changed lives. Why? Many, many decisions are not really conversions, but often only the beginning of a journey of seeking God. (Other decisions are very definitely the moment of a ‘new birth’, but this differs from person to person.) Only a person who is being ‘evangelized’ in the context of an on-going worshipping and shepherding community can be sure of finally coming home into vital, saving faith. This is why a leading missiologist like C.Peter Wagner can say, “Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven.“

Paul’s whole strategy was to plant urban churches. The greatest missionary in history, St.Paul, had a rather simple, two-fold strategy. First, he went into the largest city of the region (cf. Acts 16:9,12), and second, he planted churches in each city (cf. Titus 1:5).

We want to be true to THE GREAT COMMISSION.

New churches best reach a) new generations, b) new residents, and c) new people groups. First, younger adults have always been disproportionately found in newer congregations, and second, new residents are almost always reached better by new congregations. Last, new socio-cultural groups in a community are always reached better by new congregations.

New churches best reach the unchurched–period. Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10-15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other congregations.

We want to continually RENEW THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST.

It is a great mistake to think that we have to choose between church planting and church renewal. Strange as it may seem, the planting of new churches in a city is one of the very best ways to revitalize many older churches in the vicinity and renew the whole Body of Christ. Why?

First, the new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body. There is no better way to teach older congregations about new skills and methods for reaching new people groups than by planting new churches. It is the new churches that will have freedom to be innovative and they become the ‘Research and Development’ department for the whole Body in the city.

Second, new churches are one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Body.New congregations attract a higher percentage of venturesome people who value creativity, risk, innovation and future orientation. Many of these men and women would never be attracted or compelled into significant ministry apart from the appearance of these new bodies.

Third, the new churches challenge other churches to self-examination. The “success” of new churches often challenges older congregations in general to evaluate themselves in substantial ways. Sometimes it is only in contrast with a new church that older churches can finally define their own vision, specialties, and identity.

Fourth, the new church may be an ‘evangelistic feeder’ for a whole community. The new church often produces many converts who end up in older churches for a variety of reasons. Ordinarily, the new churches of a city produce new people not only for themselves, but for the older bodies as well.

As an exercise in KINGDOM-MINDEDNESS

All in all, church planting helps an existing church the best when the new congregation is voluntarily ‘birthed’ by an older ‘mother’ congregation. Often the excitement and new leaders and new ministries and additional members and income ‘washes back’ into the mother church in various ways and strengthens and renews it. Our attitude to new church development is a test of whether our mindset is geared to our own institutional turf, or to the overall health and prosperity of the kingdom of God in the city.

SUMMARY

New church planting is the only way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city and one of the best ways to renew the whole Body of Christ. The evidence for this statement is strong–Biblically, sociologically, and historically. In the end, a lack of kingdom-mindedness may simply blind us to all this evidence. We must beware of that.

Simple questions should never be this difficult to answer. “So, you would like to plant a church? That sounds interesting. Where at?” My answer: “Well, I’m not sure.”

It’s been over four years since I first sensed a call towards church planting. Since that time I have sought to clarify and objectify that call as much as possible. As my confidence grew and we were gaining a greater sense of clarity, one question still alluded me, where?

Since the church plant’s initial conception it has been my desire that we would be a missional church community who lives in and loves the city in which God has called us to serve. So I prayed accordingly, asking God to give Rachel and I a love for the city to which we were being called. This is how I asked God to direct us and confirm his call.

For many years I tried to fall in love with a few cities that seemed like a suitable and, sometimes, strategic location. However, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to make a commitment. Even when I tried, I still didn’t have a deep love for the location. That was until recently.

For many months Rachel and I had been exploring a plant location in the city of Saginaw; a very suitable location in many ways and the idea seemed to make sense. I still didn’t have what I would describe as a love for the city, but I did care for it and the people there. It seemed like a location worth pursuing and so we did. Three weeks ago, however, a comment was made that helped us to realize that we had fallen in love with a city – it just wasn’t what we were expecting.

We have been working and worshiping in and around the greater Midland area for about three years; almost ever since we originally felt the desire to plant a church. Although we enjoyed living here, we never gave planting in Midland much consideration. This lack of exploration was due to a number of reasons

First, we were a part of a healthy, growing church that was doing a great deal of good in Midland. It simply did not make sense to pursue planting in the same community as we were currently serving and worshiping.

The second reason was that Midland already has high concentration of churches. Although, there are mixed feelings about this depending on who you talk to, it still remains true that you could possible see six or more churches on the same stretch of road. Does Midland really need one more church? Really?

In a moment of clarity one statement was made that seemed to cut through the fog that was preventing us from committing our lives and ministry to a particular city. When discussing were we should move and settle to plant the statement was made, “I don’t want to move to another city. I love Midland. I want to stay here.”

“I love Midland.” Those where the exact words we were waiting to hear. It was a moment of clarity for both of us. Over the past three years we had fallen in love with Midland and it wasn’t until we considered leaving did we realize that God had answered the prayer from many years before.

It is true that it wasn’t the answer that either of us anticipated and we still had to wrestle with some of our natural objections, a few of which I mentioned above. Still, we finally had a sense of confidence that God had directed us and brought us here to seek the welfare of the city where we have been sent. As we seek to plant an incarnational expression of the gospel within our community we do so with the confidence that God has providentially directed us here to invest our lives in this city.

It is my hope and intention to post some brief updates pertaining to Trinity Grace over the next few weeks. If you would like to follow along we are on both Facebook and Twitter. Please understand that the plant is only in it’s infancy stage. Because of this, updates may be few and far between.

We do greatly value and appreciate your prayers as we seek to walk in faith and obedience to God’s call. If you have any questions or would like more information, please feel free to contact me: shawn@trinitygracecrc.org.

The organization is still within it’s infancy stage, but has an incredible vision for pastoral training and church planting in Haiti. Recently, Rachel forwarded a newsletter she had receded from another board member, Nate Yonker. The newsletter contained testimonies from the time Nate spent in Haiti over the summer. I decided to share a couple of those stories here to help promote the mission and efforts of Ebenezer. If you would like to find out more about Ebenezer DTC you can visit their website as well as find them on Facebook.

This from their recent newsletter:

The goal of Ebenezer is to help Haitians that they are the missionaries in Haiti, and that they are much more effective at witnessing than those of us who don’t exactly fit in with the culture. We were able to see this in action from our first day in Haiti. In our first week we saw almost twenty people accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, all of them witnessed to by Haitians that were working with us. By the end of the summer the number was in the hundreds, to the point that we lost count. The great thing is that they were not forgotten. Every new convert was followed up on, discipled, and integrated into a local congregation. We were able to witness much of the follow up, and it was refreshing to see. There was often a steady stream of people coming into the Ebenezer grounds to meet with pastors there.

One of my favorite people of the summer, and stories, was John Rene. When I was in Haiti in January I met John as he showed me the damage of the little village behind Ebenezer. He walked me through, showed me the damage, and introduced me to many of the people there. When we returned in June one of the first things I did was go back there again to see how the people were doing. Right away I met John again and he showed me how things had, or had not progressed. After we toured the village we went back to his house where he proceeded to ask a question about God, and why all of the destruction was allowed. The two Haitian men I was with, Boss and Jacob, answered his question and proceeded to share the gospel with him. Within 10 minutes he fell to his knees and accepted Christ as his savior. In following visits with him he shared with me how Pastor Marc had continued to check on, and take care of the people around Ebenezer, and how that impacted him, and how our love shared the truth about Jesus. When I asked him if he needed anything, he answered, ” I needed two things. One was to get right with God. Now I am, and the other does not matter.”

A little over a month ago, a good friend of mine sent me some links which directed my attention to the work and revitalization that is taking place in Detroit. Enclosed with his message was a brief note about how these documentaries had stirred him. After viewing, I understand why. The stories are moving – tales of beauty from ashes and a testimony to the resiliency and ingenuity of the human spirit.

Personally, I was very excited to see some of the creativity blossoming amidst the blight and ruin. I found myself resonating with desire to take something that is aesthetically displeasing, and from it, create something beautiful.

At the same time I was grieved by what I heard and saw. Not just because of the pain and hardships that remain, but because of the apparent lack of the gospel in what is happening within Detroit. That is not to say that the gospel is no where present in Detroit, I know that not to be the case. Still, there is a need for more; especially among the young and creative.

There where two lines that stood out to illustrate such a need. The first is when one business owner declared that “Detroit doesn’t need saviors… we need entrepreneurs, artists, do-it-yourself’ers, and thinkers.” Another gentleman said that “it’s the perfect opportunity for the American Dream to be realized… that something can come out of nothing.”

I believe and hope that they will be successful in their endeavors. I be will rejoice at what God has enabled those in Detroit to accomplish through common grace. The language used, on the other hand, speaks to man’s achievement as an autonomous being – independent of creator and outside of any need for salvation. There is little talk of the corrupt and sinful nature of man which has brought about such a tragedy in the first place.

All of humanity is in need of grace. We are fallen and sinful. Often we are blinded to the extent of our indwelling sin and our need of rescue. The playing field is leveled. This is true whether you are an upstart entrepreneur or innovative artist in Detroit or an corporate executive living in Manhattan – even the middle class Joe who lives a quiet life in the suburbs. We need the gospel preached to bring us to the end of ourselves and point us toward our need for redemption. We need to recognize our need for a savior who has enacted a plan of revitalization and restoration and offers eternal life in a new heavens and new earth.

It is my hope and prayer that church planters will be called to Detroit, both from within and from abroad, who will live, dwell, and plant the gospel within these communities as they join in their labor of revitalization. Ultimately, it is my hope that the transformation that ensues from these efforts would be all of grace and all to the glory of God as men and women in the city of Detroit join God in the renewal of all things.

Here are is the exploration produced by Palladium Boots. If you are one who is offended by foul language, please proceed with caution. If you find yourself interested in partnering with a church plant in the city of Detroit, Act 29 candidate, Mike Hanafee would be a good person to contact. I have included some of his information at the bottom of this post.

Detroit Lives: An Exploration from Palladium Boots

Pastor: Mike Hanafee
Church: Restore Church
City: Detroit, MI
Contact Info: mikehanafee@resdetroit.org
Facebook: Church - Restore Church, Pastor - Mike Hanafee
Twitter: Church - @resdetroit, Pastor - @mikehanafee

The GCM Collective website just launched as of this past Monday. Already there has been some outstanding ongoing discussion within the groups. I have personally found the conversation both thought provoking and helpfully. Well worth a look.

This from the GCM Collective website:

It is a gospel community that lives out the mission of God together, as family, in a specific area and to a particular people group by declaring and demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms. God is moving to create thousands of new gospel communities on mission around the world. Be a part of this movement.

(HT: Acts 29 Blog)

Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism by Michael Horton
Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism audio recordings from Dr. Horton’s Adult Sunday School classes at Christ United Reformed Church.

Free Sermons from Tim Keller
Redeemer Presbyterian Church has just made a great resource available in offering 150 of Tim Keller’s sermons free for download. Each sermon is clearly classified and labeled making the site extremely easy to navigate. Please take advantage of this great resource.

This from Redeemer’s site:

Redeemer’s Sermon Ministry has been faithfully recording, cataloging and reproducing all of our sermons for the past 20 years. To celebrate all 20 years of our history, and to meet the growing demand for our church’s teaching in New York City and around the world, we have created this resource of 150 sermons and lectures covering a broad array of topics, completely free to download and share.

The recordings chosen for the Free Sermon Resource were culled from classic sermon series as well as lectures and seminar addresses delivered to various Redeemer ministry gatherings, and are intended to present to the listener the full scope of teachings they would receive over several years of active involvement at Redeemer.

You can visit Redeemer Presbyterian Church’s free sermon resource here.

New Worship Podcast from Mars Hill Church

Here are some brief excerpts from Mars Hill:

Mars Hill Church is an amazing movement to be a part of. When I came to Mars Hill 10 years ago it was an almost 3-year-old church plant of about 200 people. By God’s grace it is now a movement of 9 campuses across 2 states drawing well over 8000 people together on a Sunday to hear God’s word and respond to him together in song. Music has always been important at Mars Hill, and as the worship pastor I have seen God build a whole movement of worshiping musicians leading well over 25 different bands all across Mars Hill.

The Mars Hill Church: Worship podcast will highlight worship leaders and songwriters from across the church as well as brief insights into the theology of worship and why we respond to God the way we do at Mars Hill Church. There will also be new songs with every installment. Join me for the first episode, which includes an interview and new song from Cam Huxford of Mars Hill Downtown Seattle and another song from my band Ex Nihilo.

Download the Mars Hill: Worship podcast here and subscribe to the feed to get all future content.

John Frame Reviews Christless Christianity
John Frame offers a lengthy review and critique of Michael Horton’s book, Christless Christianity.

(HT: Vitamin Z)

Acts 29 Interview from Tim Challies
As part of his Meet the Ministries series, Tim Challies recently posted and interview he conducted with Scott Thomas, Chairman and Director of the Acts 29 Network.

(HT: Church Planting Novice)

I don’t uses this system because I am a time management and genus. On the contrary I rely on the GTD system because I am not. To be quite honest I am absent minded, unorganized, prone to an artistic temperament that relies upon inspiration to be motivated towards productivity, and was in the past an awful procrastinator. My only redeeming quality in all of this is that I was at least honest enough to see and admit that and then get help.

With all of the roles and responsibilities that come along with launching a church plant in the next two years, I knew that I needed some form of system or tools to help not only manage my time but help me to accomplish all that I have to get done. Hence the name, Getting Things Done. The call to love, protect and cherish my wife, love and disciple our children, train and study, plan and prepare for not only the pastoral responsibilities but the additional to-dos that come with a church plant are all far too important to be left to my own devices.

As I said before, I knew enough to know I couldn’t trust myself. Now I do have a system that I can trust and is tailorable to each new transition, role, and responsibility. That, I can honestly say, has made an incredible difference!