church – Page 4 – Southwest Conference Blog

On Puzzles, and stories

Puzzles exercise the brain. This kind of workout is something I can do on a daily basis. Putting pencil to paper for a little Sudoku (a math puzzle – more entertaining than figuring out my bank balance) while cable news hosts keep me over-informed. Putting finger to computer for online jigsaw puzzles when I need a break from TV. Yes, my mind is sharp and my eyes are strained.

Get back to real life, you say? Can’t get away from puzzles.

Composer Richard Rogers sang on that subject. From The King and I…

There are times I almost think
I am not sure of what I absolutely know
Very often find confusion
In conclusion I concluded long ago
In my head are many facts
That, as a student, I have studied to procure
In my head are many facts
Of which I wish I was more certain I was sure!

Is a puzzlement

A great story set to music. The King of Siam reached out to Anna, the governess from England, to unravel some of the puzzles that persisted in his head. Through conversation and companionship, they both benefited by learning from (and disagreeing with) each other. They were like puzzle pieces representing Eastern and Western thought, and when their edges adapted and found a fit, a better image and understanding of the world emerged.

St. Paul’s is a puzzle. My next sentence choice could take take us in many directions, but the point I want to make here is that we are pieces that fit together. Surprisingly. Each one is the product of a different history. Our shapes vary. (Let’s not get into that.) Our ages may cluster around some vague measure of maturity, but our outlook on life is all over the map.

The analogy is obvious. When one piece is missing – when a unique voice, hug or smile is not present – the picture is not as colorful or meaningful as we’ve experienced before.

But our puzzle is not “done” even when all pieces are present and accounted for.

These short phrases are from a recently concluded TV epic with enough plot twists to boggle the most nimble puzzle fan.

What unites people?

Armies? Gold? Flags?

Stories.

There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story.

Tyrion Lannister
Game of Thrones
Final episode

In our church gatherings on Sundays or during the week, in our conversations, without a sense of hurry and in the embrace of trust, we share our stories. Mostly they are not epic. They are best told not in sound bites (or tweets), not in speeches, but in response to a skilled listener who lets the word images unravel from the head and heart of the teller. No prodding. No judgment. No subject changing. No filling a silence with commentary.

Storytelling is a waiting game.

Is the puzzle of a person’s entire story ever complete?

The picture on the box may be of a covered bridge in the fall, and every jigsawed piece has its place. But what does it feel like to ride a bicycle as a twelve-year old into that darkened corridor, the rhythm of wheels drumming on weathered floor planks? Beneath is the stream where you and Grandpa fished all summer, hooking more jokes than trout. Does this bridge connect home and school? Childhood and adulthood?

Stories: bridges into the heart. A story may be given away, yet remain owned. Maybe we don’t tell it the same way twice, as memories are rediscovered or put aside. Shared, it can linger with a listener. Or result in a joyful moment, like the flash of the silver trout, darting away, laughing.

Stories unite people. And puzzle pieces.

An Easter Story

by Abigail Conley

In the days before Easter, I was bombarded with Church—not my own church, but advertisements from the many churches hoping I’d show up there on Easter morning. They wasted advertising dollars on me, for sure, but it was also a reminder of all the anxiety of holidays in the church. Will there be enough food? Will people show up? What if we’re not packed for Easter? Like it or not, Christmas and Easter become the days we wonder if our churches measure up. Those are the days all our anxiety about our future can easily come to rest.

So here’s an Easter story that has absolutely no flash and is full of resurrection and is one of the best Easter miracles I’ve ever witnessed.

On Easter Sunday this year, our lone thirteen year old handed me a handwritten announcement. It was a carefully written invitation to her school’s production of Music Man. This is the first time she’s offered an invitation in this way, even though I know there have been several other plays and musicals. The adults sitting in front of her in worship have told me we should make sure she knows she can sing in the choir.

One of the performance dates is on my calendar. I have no doubt the production will be terrible in all the ways that middle school musicals are and wonderful in all the ways that middle school musicals are. I typed the announcement in this week’s email knowing full well this invitation is wonderful and terrible. I typed the announcement trusting that there will be another adult or two who show up just because this kid from church invited.

Most people don’t know this kid is in foster care. Hesitantly, we hear bits and pieces in prayer requests about other siblings and biological parents. Some people connect the dots while others don’t. Mostly, it doesn’t matter either way. I know more of her story because I’m her pastor, but I can’t share most of it. It’s not mine to share and, well, foster care.

Here is what I do know though: we are doing something right if any thirteen year old can hand an announcement to her pastor and trust it will be well received. That’s not just about the pastor, but a church that loves her and welcomes her and is interested in her life. We are especially doing something right if that kid has all of the baggage that comes with being in foster care and still can learn to trust her church.

The announcement is now tucked away in a special folder I keep full of notes and cards and letters to go back and look at on the hard days. They are little stories of resurrection, one and all.

So here’s to churches with one thirteen year old or one seven year old or none of those who celebrate any way. Here’s to churches with not quite enough bulletins or way too many and will make do either way. Here’s to the beauty that comes with community—as lovely as the woman headed back to the tomb, as lovely as a potluck breakfast with too many carbs. Here’s to all of us who live in the promise of resurrection, for Christ is risen, and we are rising, indeed.

Your Extra Hour

by Talitha Arnold

So what are you going to do with your extra hour?

You know—the extra hour we get the first weekend of November
when Daylight Savings Time ends and we “fall back” to Standard Time.
A full hour of free time on a Saturday evening or Sunday morning—
what a gift!

Of course, we’ll “lose” the hour next spring when we start
Daylight Savings again. But right now, what are you going to do with
the gift of those extra sixty minutes?

Because that extra hour is a gift. In fact, all time is a gift, going
all the way back to the beginning of creation. In Genesis, after God calls
forth light, God then set the great lights in the heavens—the sun to rule
the day, the moon to bless the night. God creates the days and the
seasons, and at the end of it all, God creates the Sabbath day—the
“Cathedral of Time,” as the great Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel
called it.

So what are you going to do with your extra hour the first
weekend of November?

We pay attention to time in the church. There’s the practical
aspect of making sure worship starts on time, keeping meetings within
time limits, getting the newsletter out on time. But as people of faith, our
relationship with time goes far beyond the practical. We set aside time to
mark special times in human life, from birth to death. We acknowledge
the passing of time, as when a child starts first grade or leaves childhood
to start adolescence.

Moreover, the church keeps time differently than the world
around us. We begin the “church year” with Advent, a month before
New Year’s Day. The liturgical seasons of Epiphany or Lent seldom
coincide with actual months like December or March. Some seasons
have specific lengths—twelve days of Christmas, forty days of Lent,
fifty dates of Eastertide. But Epiphany and Pentecost stretch from weeks
to months.

Time in the church gets confusing at times. As people of faith,
we always live in two different time zones—world time and faith time.
World time is “kronos” time—chronological time defined by the ticking
of the clock or the numbers on a digital watch. Faith time is “kairos”
time (from a word meaning “fullness of time’). Kairos time is measured
not by the passing of time, but by the fullness of time. Not by minutes,
but by meaning.

We are in kairos time when, no matter what we are doing, we
are aware of God’s presence in that moment. Kairos time is time filled
with God’s hope and love, or perhaps simply with the fullness of God’s
breath.

May this month’s extra hour be a kairos hour for each of us.

No matter how we spend it, may we realize that hour is a gift—just like
every hour is. Indeed, may all November be a kairos month. No matter
what happens, may we trust that God is still present in our time and in
this world. And in this kairos time, may we be fully present to God, one
another, and this world.

Blessed are . . .

by Abigail Conley

Each year, we bless backpacks for kids headed back to school. We’ll pray over teachers’ bags and college students’ bags, and the bag of pretty much anyone who wants, but it starts with the kids. I make luggage tags for their backpacks, reminding them they are loved. Like the lectionary, I rotate on a three-year cycle, figuring it can work for more than one thing.

Overall, I think the Episcopalians and the Catholics do a better job of blessing than Congregationalists of most varieties. I could be wrong, but blessing just doesn’t hold the same prestige in our understanding of church. I am far more inclined to say that the ordinary is holy than to reserve a thing as purely holy; that inclination is a product of the churches that formed me.

Not surprisingly, the most ready notion of blessing for me is the Beatitudes. Along with the Lord’s Prayer, they were one of the texts memorized in fifth grade Sunday school if one wanted to graduate into youth group.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:3-12)

I most appreciate interpreting the Beatitudes as pronouncement. By speaking it, Jesus makes it true that these things are blessed.

For we who join in God’s work, this is why we bless backpacks. By speaking a word of blessing upon them, we make the work they represent holy. One of the gifts of the church is that we can discern this together.

While education is transformative, it is not easy. For children, it is not always good. My grandfather bribed me to go to kindergarten and not cry. I was barely old enough for kindergarten and the teacher’s whistle scared me. It took months to coax out that truth of why kindergarten was so hard. In the meantime, my grandfather paid me fifty cents a day to go to school, not to cry, and trusted me to tell him the truth. He paid me in quarters every weekend. The price was set at fifty cents because it was the cost of a can of soda at recess.

Later grades would bring other challenges. I had the same terrible teacher for second and third grades. My elementary school closed. Middle school is terrible for pretty much everyone. Then I wonder if high school is any better and mostly, I think about how hard it all was. It was hard for me, who got straight As, who had plenty of friends, who never got picked on. I can only imagine what it was like for other kids. School itself, even with saintly teachers, is far from holy. It is blessed because we choose for it to be. It is blessed because the Church has decided to bless it.

I wonder what things we’re missing. What aren’t we calling holy? What things need our blessing? What is waiting for a word of transformation?

Faithful Decision Making – Rising to the Challenge of the Times

by Karen Richter

When Scott and I were first married, we had a friend named Glenn who worked with Scott at Barnett Bank in Florida. Glenn told us one evening about watching a teller at the bank flipping through a large stack of bills… She touched each bill for a fraction of a second and maybe once in the stack she would pull a bill out and put it to the side. These were the bills that she suspected were counterfeit. Actually more than suspecting, she just KNEW – knew from the slight variations of the texture of the paper and ink under the edge of her thumb.

What does that story have to do with discernment? Discernment is not like that. We very seldom ‘just know.’ Over a person’s lifetime, they make millions of decisions of all shapes and sizes. Over a person’s lifetime, maybe for one of those decisions, they “just know.”

The traditional practice of discernment – faithful decision making – as spiritual discipline owes much to the Catholic Ignatian tradition and to Quaker practices. There’s a history there and much ancient wisdom… but that’s not today’s blog.

Discernment is a practice suited well to the times in which we live. So let’s take a minute to talk about how we might understand these times. So many of us have a gut feeling that there’s something special different unique going on in our churches and institutions. Is it just our imagination or are things truly changing more quickly and more profoundly than in times past? Church historian Phyllis Tickle writes about this idea: that every 500 years or so, the church has a “great rummage sale” in which ideas and notions of the role of the church get all shifty (The Great Emergence, Baker Books 2012). The Protestant Reformation was the most recent of these great transitions (Luther’s theses were posted on Halloween in 1517 – early Renaissance social media LOL). The Reformation was a time in which the authority of the church shifted in a profound way – from the Pope and the hierarchy of the church to the scriptures.

1517… hmmm. Well… TICK TOCK Y’ALL. We’re due for another great rummage sale, and it’s happening all around us. Tickle’s thesis is that the transition in which we’re living now is another change in our source of authority: from the Bible to the Spirit.

Assuming that she’s right*, it behooves us to learn the best ways to hear the voice of Spirit. And that’s what discernment is all about. Spiritual direction is a great setting in which to dive into personal and vocational discernment. I think of direction as a container in which discernment can unfold.

In that container (or in whatever setting we are discerning), there’s an atmosphere of trust.

We trust the deep desires of our heart. When we ask discernment questions, we trust that our hearts are already leaning the right way. We trust that God somehow has placed those desires in our hearts.
We trust the goodness of Life at a basic level. In this way, we are able to hold our decision lightly… to remain open and receptive to the Spirit’s movement, letting go of our own agenda even if just for a time.
We trust our imagination and intuition. We allow our emotions and physical sensations to inform our decision making. My spiritual direction mentor and supervisor Rev Teresa Blythe has this go-to question: ‘where do you feel this decision in your body?’ It took me a while sitting with this question to grasp what it means.
Finally, we trust our community. We lean on one another’s wisdom.

Discernment is entwined with the Cs of our faith journey– commandment, commission, and commitment – and interacts with those concepts around the question of HOW. Discernment is all about the HOW.

How do we respond to the commandment of love? What does our call to love look like on the ground, in real life?
How do we live into the task before us – our commission to embrace this life and embody grace and peace? What part of this work is ours to do? What tasks have my name on them?
How do we sustain the commitment that’s required to build the house of Wisdom?

These are the questions of discernment continually lying before us: as a faithful community, as individuals, as a culture, as a species. May we make decisions that are life-giving. Amen.

*☺ I’m not at all qualified to argue with Phyllis Tickle! Her ideas are given the briefest summary/mangle here. The Great Emergence is a fab overview of church history for lay persons.

Please, Progressive Christian Blogosphere, Stop Telling People to Leave Their Church

by Karen Richter

Recently, I’ve heard increasing calls to justice-minded people of faith that sound like this: “If you don’t hear about (insert issue here) at church this Sunday, you should leave.”

Please stop.

Now I often agree with these folks on the issue at hand… immigration, racial justice, women’s equality, education. My problem is with leaving church as a protest or as part of the solution to the issue, and here’s why:

I’m loathe to tell anyone to leave their church as if I know best.

People stay in or leave relationships, including relationships with faith communities, for a wide variety of reasons. Do you know anyone who attends a church that doesn’t fully fit with their theology? I’ve been that person in a church before – always in tension between my friendships and my ideals and wondering when to speak up and when to just pray.

Plus there’s this uncomfortable truth. Church attendance continues to shrink. Let’s not be so quick to encourage people to leave.

Churches have a lot going on Sunday mornings and a lot of people to care for.

There was a season of grief a couple of years ago at Shadow Rock. We lost three beloved people from our congregation over about a month. During those few weeks, we didn’t have a lot of energy for the issues that we care about most. We wept; we held our friends close; we baked cookies for memorial services. The world with its beauties and horrors continued to spin, but we paused to grieve. Some times require an inward focus, a time of rest and healing, and self-care, even for our most activist, justice warrior congregations. Hear the call of the Spirit to be gentle with one another and hold one another in love.

Pastors/ministers/preacher creatures are not the only voices of faith in our churches.

You’re liable to get an earful from me on this point, friends! If your pastor is not speaking from the pulpit concerning an issue you’re passionate about, speak up! One of the glories of the United Church of Christ is our insistence that every level of the church is empowered to speak to every level of the church. Maybe we could say that we take very seriously (radically, even) the idea of the Priesthood of all Believers. If your church is silent on something that matters, maybe God is calling you to be a faithful voice in that place. Maybe your church leadership needs your encouragement. Maybe you need to get brave during Coffee Hour or adult education. Maybe what’s missing is YOU.

Perhaps (this is advanced citizenship in God’s realm!), we acknowledge to our friends and our pastors that sometimes we want to leave. We are genuine and honest about the push-pull of going and staying. It’s awkward! Yet painful conversation by painful conversation, we reveal to each other what we’re striving for and what keeps us awake in the wee hours.

Finally, religious consumerism is killing us slowly.

I tread carefully here. Of course I want people to love their churches. Of course I want people of faith to feel supported in faith communities. Of course I want churches to be strong forces of justice, peace, and grace – salt and light – all over the world.

BUT people aren’t perfect. Churches aren’t perfect. So when our communities disappoint us, when our leaders turn out to be clay-footed, when our church friends make bad or even terrible choices… we can go and try to find a better church or we can stay and try to make our church better. Both are valid. But when church people move on because of conflict or discomfort or fear, our communities suffer and our capacity to be the body of Christ in these troubling times suffers as well.

Please stay.

Quelling the Dumpster Fire

by Abigail Conley

I may have confessed my mildly embarrassing love of Buzzfeed before. They do some decent journalism, but I’m mostly there for the shopping lists and pictures of cute animals. Every once in a while, someone creates a list of pure things, or good things, or cute things as an antidote to whatever current dumpster fire is happening. I totally confess that I’m in dumpster fire mode right now. I’m preaching on the holiness of lament on Sunday. Like most of us, I don’t quite know what to do with everything. My congregation doesn’t have the bandwidth for addressing everything that is going on right now. It’s all so much.

So what would make the dumpster fire feel less threatening?

What if we talked about all the good things? What if we named the equivalent of pictures of animals to soothe your soul but it was as ordinary as any given Sunday?

Here’s some of my list, some of the things that make me smile, convince me the Church is actually amazing, and make me forget the dumpster fire for a little bit.

There’s this little girl who is exactly where she should be in faith development and so she’s concrete in everything. She’s doesn’t want to be a vampire or a cannibal, so she’s very weirded out by communion. As if that weren’t enough of the amazingness of this little kid, she talked to me about it. The next Sunday, I gave her a children’s collection of midrash, stories about stories in the Bible. She was curled up reading within seconds. I got a thank you note from her a week later, which is stuffed into my “Warm Fuzzies” folder to take out on the bad days.
People set up automatic bill pay for church giving. It’s a totally mundane thing that is deeply meaningful. It’s a sign of commitment to the church that is deeper than when it feels good. Also, I like being able to cash my paycheck, for a purely selfish reason. This all works because people choose to be faithful in so many ways.
AA. I wish AA were based in science. It’s not. It’s from the 1930s and abstinence is the only way according to the group. But you know what, it works for a lot of people. We have nine AA meetings a week at church and those guys are awesome. All of the leaders in our groups happen to be men. They will do the odd jobs the church needs help with, which is nice. More than that, they are among the shockingly faithful. They understand community and the importance of showing up. In some cases, they show up six days a week at 6:45 in the morning. Whoever is making coffee shows up earlier. It’s pretty amazing to watch and be invited into.
A young adult in our congregation is currently in a long-term residential addiction treatment program. We weren’t sure if we’d see him for the two years he’s in the program. He showed up to worship last Sunday along with fourteen other guys from his program. We started late because of all the hugging.
Someone buys the communion bread every single week.
The deacons tilt the Christ candle for the little kids to light. It started because, well, the kids were too short but we wanted to invite them to participate. What is hilarious is that it’s then how lighting the candle works in kids’ minds. As they grow, many of them don’t realize for a while they can reach the candle on their own. They stand, patiently waiting for the deacon to tilt the candle so they can light it.
People terrified of church still find their way to us. It’s not usually on Sunday morning. It’s the AA meeting or the gun violence town hall or the education forum. They make not funny jokes about the roof collapsing because they entered the building. They look nervous. And it’s all just fine. Because I am certain that God loves them, too.

Why don’t you take a few minutes and make a list of your own.

The Tyranny of Sunday

by Karen Richter

I was sharing work-related woes with a friend the other day. He was relating how there are some in his organization who have a penchant for making things more complicated than they need to be. Sometimes, he noted, work expands to fit the time available and some of us tend to be mesmerized by complexity.

“Your office needs a Sunday,” I told him.

Huh?

Here’s a glimpse into church life: Sunday comes after 6 days of non-Sundays every single week. Let’s say your church has a great Sunday: the pews are full, the offering basket is full too. The message is inspiring; the choir knocks it out of the park. At coffee hour, conversation is lively and welcoming.

Awesome. Now do it again in 6 days.

Let’s say, conversely, that Sunday doesn’t go so well. It’s a holiday weekend and lots of people are elsewhere. The microphone makes crazy noises; the coffee is burned. Someone forgets to grab the bread for communion and the congregation sings flat.

Awesome. Now do better in 6 days.

What I call ‘the tyranny of Sunday’ is this: whether things are good or bad, you get another chance the very next week. Buckle up, buttercups! At my friend’s workplace, they seemed to need the time crunch of a metaphorical Sunday to keep projects moving forward. Sunday is a cure for beleaguered decision-making, perfectionism, and micro-management.

This is the way calendars work, of course. But it makes for good theology.

The pressure is on! Every week, church clergy and staff and musicians and volunteers strive to put together a meaningful experience of connection to one another, connection to our lived experience, and connection to the Mystery we call God. People depend on their church family, and this work matters.
But hey, no pressure! We never know what someone brings with them on Sunday. We can’t foresee what might be touching or meaningful to the people in the pews. We can’t bat 1000 every week, so we do our best and leave the results in God’s hands.
The consistency of weekly worship guides us through the liturgical seasons. The combination of regular gatherings and the poles of the Church year (Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas) promote balance and growth.
A regular day is okay! I’m sometimes astounded when I recall that I really enjoyed the sermon on a particular Sunday, but now I can’t remember the topic. Being together as a worshiping community is often enough. Lifetimes are made from regular days and vibrant active churches are made from regular Sundays.

Maybe other weekly rituals and tasks work the same way. If you’re a Saturday Night Live cast member, let me know your thoughts.

Take care, everyone. See you… on Sunday.

A Rushing Wind From Heaven: Pentecost Activity Ideas for Children and Intergenerational Groups

by Karen Richter

I love Pentecost! The story of Pentecost Acts chapter 2 is full of exciting, energizing images and symbols that can make a meaningful formation experience for children of all ages and for multi-age, intergenerational groups. Here are some ideas for your faith community!

Wear red! Eat a red snack! Talk about the liturgical colors for different seasons.
Colors of the Church Year:
Collect red scarves or make finger-knitted red scarves. How to finger knit
Build a “campfire.” People in Jesus’ time knew the power of fire – to warm homes, to cook food, to destroy. Build a safe inside campfire with a camping lantern, crepe paper and construction paper and a fire ring made of classroom blocks. Tell stories around the fire! Here’s a fire we made earlier this year.
Language exploration: Invite people in your congregation to share snippets of other languages. Explore and discuss: what languages do you hear around you? Take note of the languages people speak in your school or community. When people don’t speak the same language, what are some ways we can communicate? Can we learn different ways to say “welcome?”
Make kites or windsocks.
Experience the power of wind… when air is warmed it MOVES! Stretch a small balloon over a water bottle. Watch the balloon inflate when you place the bottle in a bowl of hot water. How do we move when we are warmed by love?
Paper airplanes!
Song Writing: It’s birthday of the Church… a large multi-age group might have a lyrics context for a new birthday song. You may want to have an idea list of some familiar tunes to pair with new Pentecost words.
Sharing a snack or bread. In Acts 2: 42-47, we learn more about the early church, how they broke bread together every day.
Speaking up! Think about the strength in Peter’s words in verses 17-20 of Acts 2. Kids can take turns using their “outside voice” and talking about when to use a strong voice to speak out.
Visions and dreams: provide a large piece of butcher paper or bulletin board background paper. Groups can share their visions and dreams from verse 17. For a multi-week activity, turn this art and the group’s ideas into a banner or other art project.
What does church look like? For an older elementary or youth group, use a laptop and Google image search to compile a collage of churches in different contexts. Maybe begin in Jerusalem and move out in all directions.
Art Form Conversation: Print some decent color copies of Pentecost art (thank you again, Google image search!). Strive for a fully participative discussion of art using the Focused Conversation methodology (also called Art Form Conversation). Begin always with Observation before moving on to emotions and meanings. Focused Conversation Basics
DIY Godly Play: use wooden peg figures or Lego minifigs and classroom materials to re-create the Pentecost scene. You might have these materials on hand to spark creativity: felt sheets and yarn (clothes and such), crepe paper or tissue paper, wooden or cardboard blocks, small bowl and water (for tiny baptisms!), chenille stems. Peg people
Perfection is not the goal… Here are my Palm Sunday peg people. Their palms are weeds from my yard:

Let Pentecost be a Sunday for your community during which the Spirit breaks loose and sets fire to your imagination! Have fun with this wonderful liturgical holiday. If you use any of these ideas, share your experience. I can’t wait to hear those Pentecost / Happy Birthday words to Yellow Submarine or see your paper airplanes and windsocks.

Blessings on your Easter season and Pentecost.

Launching A New Church

by Ryan Gear

My wife and I are in the very early stages of planting a new church in the East Valley of Phoenix. We’re probably 9-12 months away from launching weekly worship services, so we’re prayerfully dreaming up what kind of church this will be. We planted a church six years ago and turned the leadership of it over to my successor who is doing a fantastic job of pastoring the church to continued growth of 175 in weekly worship. Now, we’re reimagining how we can start a new church that can reach some of the 1.5 million people who call the East Valley home.

Because church planting is a vital endeavor for any denomination or any congregation that wants to multiply, I thought I would share a quick overview of the process we used before and will use again to plant a new congregation. I did not invent this process, by any means. In fact, it is a collection of ideas from Adam Hamilton, Rick Warren, Nelson Searcy, Jim Griffith, and many other church planters and has been used countless times by church planters of every denomination or lack thereof.

Visioning Phase

Before you start telling people you’re starting a new church, you have to know what to tell them. In my experience, the most important task of any church planter is to answer these three questions that I first read in Adam Hamilton’s Leading Beyond the Walls:

Why do people need Jesus?
Why do people need the Church?
Why do people in your community need this new church?

Your answers to these three questions will determine what kind of a church you’re planting and why you’re planting it. These questions will also reveal to everyone you meet whether this new church is needed in your community or not. The Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) are perfect places to start, but your three answers will be specific to your theology, calling, personality, experiences, ability, hopes and dreams, etc.

In my humble opinion, the most powerful thing you can offer your mission field is to plant a church that is somehow different from the other churches in your area. If the new church is the same as the other churches in your area then, frankly, a new church may not be needed. It is differentiation that will fuel your congregation to growth and sustainability. How will this new church be different from the other churches in your area?

Gathering Phase

The usual goal of church planting is to attempt to get to 200 people in weekly attendance as quickly as possible, either by the Launch or soon after. Even when you know what kind of church you’re planting and why, when a planter is first starting, gathering 200 people to be part of a new church can seem like an insurmountable task. As the saying goes, however, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The first step to gathering people is to go public and say out loud to the world, “I am starting a new church.” Create a website, a Facebook page, and Instagram account for the new church, and start telling everyone you know that you’re starting it. Purchase Google Adwords to get your website noticed by people searching for a church in your area. Tell everyone you know your 30-second elevator pitch based on your answers to the three questions. Yes, some people will be indifferent, and some will not want to be part of it… but some will. That’s the first step.

There are many creative ways to gather people. You can meet with interested people one-on-one, host info parties, host felt-need classes in your home, join the Chamber of Commerce, volunteer and meet new people, go door-to-door, phone bank, create social media videos, etc.

As you gather people, you will be inviting them to serve on the Launch Team made up of the people who will accomplish tasks needed to start a new church— a worship leader and worship band, a kids ministry leader and teachers, a hospitality ministry team, an audio/video team, a portable church set-up and take-down team, etc. It can take 30-50 volunteers just to staff a fully functioning worship service. The Launch Team is a not a core group or a small church. It is a ministry team created with the sole task of getting to weekly worship services. Once weekly worship services begin, the Launch Team will disband.

Preview Service Phase

Once you have 20 or more people on your Launch Team and enough equipment and signage to give attendees a good idea of what your weekly worship services will be like, you can begin monthly preview services. Nelson Searcy recommends having six monthly preview services in the same facility you will use for weekly worship, likely a school, theater, or an existing church’s building. You challenge your current Launch Team to invite their friends and family, and then begin promoting that first monthly preview service at least a month in advance.

Your goal is to have more people at every monthly preview service and then to invite those new folks to join your Launch Team in the needed volunteer positions. With every preview service, your attendance grows, your Launch Team grows, and you and the Launch Team invite more people. Repeat.

Launch Phase

After six monthly preview services, it’s time to go weekly. This is the Launch of the church. Treat it the way a new store treats a grand opening. Put signs all over your city. Make it an event. This is your one chance at a first impression.

However, there is one extremely critical caveat. The new church must have critical mass in order to launch weekly worship. Critical mass is the number of people in your worship service required for the perception that the church is healthy and exciting. In the U.S, critical mass seems to be somewhere between 75-100 adults. Less than 75 adults will cause people to silently wonder why there aren’t more people there, it’s tough to recruit volunteers, and ultimately it is a momentum killer. Your goal is to build attendance through your gathering phase and monthly preview services so that you will have attained critical mass by your first weekly service or before. If you can launch with 200 people or more, even better.

Post-Launch Phase

After launching weekly worship, Sunday has a way of coming around every seven days. Before you launch, you will want to have prepared some sermon series, or a bank of sermons if you use the lectionary. You don’t want to be staring at a blank screen on Thursday nights wondering what you will preach about on Sunday. There are lots of resources available for great preaching.

In addition, you will want to continue being an outreach-focused church and use the same formula that you used to build the Launch Team. When you have new people, recruit them to serve in the church. They will, in turn, invite new people, then recruit them. Repeat.

To close the back door of the church and disciple the people who connect, start a small group ministry, have monthly or quarterly fellowship events, and help people develop lifelong friendships within the new church. While people usually come to a new church for the sermons and music, they stay because of friendships.

You did it! You launched a church. Now, you have the call and privilege of doing your absolute best to lead the kind of church that will live out your answers to the three questions.

Additional Resources

If you are interested in church planting, three resources I would highly recommend are Adam Hamilton’s Leading Beyond the Walls, Nelson Searcy’s Launch: Starting A New Church from Scratch, and Jim Griffith’s Ten Common Mistakes Made by Church Starts.