Waiting on God and Important Conversations (part 2)

My second conversation this week was with a guy who is planting a cool new church in Nashville. He is part of the denomination I mentioned in the previous post, and he was a great help to me. He answered questions about his church, shared his experiences with the denomination and the church planting coach that I had spoken to earlier, and offered to help us out anytime we needed it. He's a great guy who gave us alot of peace about joining a denomination instead of being non-denominational and I'm looking forward to getting to know him.

Later, I had a long conversation with a guy who had earlier expressed an interest in being part of our launch staff. Although this dude and I haven't talked extensively in forever, I would be honored to have him join us. He and I were roommates in college and he was in my wedding. I really had hoped that he would want to join our staff, and then be our first supported church planter when we hit the 3-year mark of our church.

To make a long story short, this friend of mine shared that he had been praying about the possibility of joining us, but that he felt led by God to do a "replant" of an existing church. I have heard about this concept, but I didn't know anything about it. My buddy told me that it basically involves stepping into an existing "dead/dying church" situation and removing the people who are left for an extended period of time (there are usually about 20 or so peeps remaining). Then, you "replant" a church in the existing building, and as your church gets on its feet (in 6 months to a year) you allow the "old" members to reintegrate, if they so choose, under a new membership covenant.

This may be a great new idea for helping a dying church to become vibrant again. Not much stays the same, except the location and the building, but at least the "old members" get a chance to be part of the solution of creating a new place for people to meet Christ. I'm sure there are members of dying churches all over our country who'd love to get involved in a new plant, but they have difficulty leaving their family and friends to do so. This may give them that opportunity!

Church restarts sound like a lot of work for the "replanter" and it remains to be seen how well they will work out in the future. It's not for Emily and me, but I wish my friend the best!

Finally, I have an important phone interview with a church planting network guy on Tuesday. I am in the appliation process with this network; being part of it would give Emily and me a solid group of dynamic church planters who would serve as advisors, peers, and co-workers in the planting process. We are excited about the possibilities of being part of this group. They have a rigorous application and assessment process, but if God wants us to join them, he'll work it out!

Well, patience has been the name of the game in our church planting journey this week... Neal McGlohon's words of wisdom are not forgotten: "Spend this time waiting on God and journaling."

God has been working out all kinds of stuff for our future church plant behind the scenes while I've been touring New England with Emily and her parents. Wow. God's awesome!

Waiting on God and Important Conversations (part 1)

This week has been pretty crazy! After returning from the Dwell Conference in NYC on May 1 (which I still plan to blog about when I collect my notes and thoughts!), Emily and I spent one night in our apartment in West Virginia before she went on a ladies' retreat with the women in our missions organization. I visited my parents for that weekend. We got back to WV on Monday the 5th, and then we left to go to New Hampshire for a wedding with Emily's parents on the 6th.

Anyway, not alot of time for thinking about church planting! But, it's funny how God works even when we feel like we aren't. While on this trip (I'm in NYC right now--we are spending a couple nights with Emily's cousin Amy and her husband Joe in Brooklyn) I've had several important phone calls.

My first conversation was with a guy who is a church planting coach and mentor for a denomination that I had never heard of before the Dwell Conference. A speaker at the conference recommended this denomination to me when I privately asked for his help in finding a good denominational "fit" for our new church. My conversation with this planter/coach was very encouraging! He has planted churches himself, and coached nearly 100 planters of successful churches in the last decade. His denomination gives generously to church planters, and they have a free and extensive church planter assessment process that can really help you take wise steps on the path to planting.

This denomination is totally behind church planting among young and unchurched people--more than I thought any were right now. It is also focused on missions and being relevant to the people they minster to. We are very excited about the possibility of joining this group. Emily and I feel at this point that their theology and practices of reaching the unchurched are in line with ours. We are in the application process right now...

We believe God is showing us that having an accountability relationship with a church planting coach and joining with a denomination where there is a healthy "give and take" is the way for us to go. The key for us is keeping the autonomy of the local church. It's nice to find a denomination (or have it find us) that agrees with us on this subject!