I’M IN!!!

First post in a long time…I know.  The last two weeks have had me very preoccupied; whole bunch of stuff having to do with church planting.

First, let me fill y’all in on the process for becoming a church planter in the CRC…

The process begins with getting in contact with a Home Missions (HM) (the “department” that oversees church planting) church planter recruiter/assessor.  The trick to this is that you’ll never find a contact list for any of these people.  The recruiter puts you in touch with another assessor who then gets you started on a Gallup church planting online assessment test.  You take the test and then assessor #2 gives you a call to do an over-the-phone interview and let you know how the online test turned out.

You then get back in touch with assessor #1 and do an in-person interview.  Officially, the next step is attending a weekend-long church planter assessment workshop conducted at the CRC headquarters in GR.  Unofficially, they want you to arrive at the workshop with some church planting experience already completed (they want to see that you’ve taken some initiative).  If you make it through the workshop, you’re approved to receive HM funding for future planting efforts.  If you’re not approved, you can “go it alone,” but realistically, you probably won’t get very far.  In my case, following graduation I would then begin a church planting residency in which I am actualyl working with a local church and beginning to form a core group/vision team.  The residency is a minimum of 1 year and possibly more depending on growth needs and and thing like that.  Finally, you’re given the green light to plant and life is good.

Now here’s what’s been happening with me.  A few weeks ago, I contacted a couple planting a church in downtown GR.  My intention was simply to talk to them about their experiences and get some inside information.  Found out that the wife was one of these recruiter/assessors working for HM.  She filled me in on the process and offered to get things going for me.  Mishaela and I went home, talked about it, and eventually decided “let’s do it.” So I wrote assessor #1 back, she got me connected to assessor #2, and I took the online test.  Yesterday, I had my phone interview in which assessor#2 told me, “I think you’ll be very pleased with the results of your assessment and I like what I’ve heard from you today.  There’s an assessment center (the workshop) next spring and you sure as heck better be there.”

I am now waiting to hear back from assessor #1 to schedule my face-to-face.  Assessor#1 and her husband have already offered to put thing into motion at getting me HM funding to do my internship this summer with them and continue it through next school year.  That internship would qualify for credit toward my post-graduation residency.  Right now, we’re waiting to hear from HM as to whether or not they’ll agree to it…but I have faith.

Over Spring Break I’ll be meeting with some people in Portland to convince them that they need a church plant there.  Things have already been moving in my favor on that end.  So…it looks like I may actually be ding this.  I’m still a little hesitant to say it’s final – there’s a lot more steps to go through yet.  But it’s looking good so far.

Filed under: Church Planting, Leadership, Ministry

Church in Europe

With our plans to get into church planting starting to take off, I’ve been thinking: What’s happening with the church in Europe?  The city my wife and I would like to plant in has many of the same qualities/characteristics as do many European communities.  With religious trends in Europe about 15 years ahead of the States, I wonder if it isn’t helpful to understand what’s happening over there as a way of planning for the future of ministry here.

So if there’s any European Christians or pastors reading this, perhaps you would be so kind as to share some of your insights and experiences doing ministry in your particular context? What does it look like? How effective is it? Who is doing it?

I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Filed under: Church, Evangelism, Leadership, Ministry, Worship

Cosmology & Biblical Exegesis

I know the title sound daunting, but its not really; let me explain…

Cosmology is basically the structure of creation.  Sometimes we should talk about “cosmological geography,” that is, how we understand the universe – including ourselves – to be organized, structures, and where everything is in relation to everything else.  A more concrete example: The cosmological geography adopted by virtually everyone in the world (the only exception would be those tribes that remained buried deep in the jungle or African savanna – in other words people who don’t have contact with “civilization”) is that earth is round, we circle the sun along with eight (do we still have 9 planets?) other planets; our solar system is located in an arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, one of an infinite number of galaxies in the universe.  This understanding is generally regarded as common sense – it’s the way it is.

But this understanding of the cosmos (all of creation) is relatively new on the grand scope of human history.  This has only been the generally accepted view for about 400 years.  Granted there were those going back much further who theorized/professed our current model of the universe, back they were few and far between and never taken seriously.  We often forget this.

Filed under: Bible Study

A Painful Lesson

It may be helpful to read my post “Christianity and Homosexuality” for some background information before reading this one…

I recently learned a very painful lesson.  Well, perhaps saying I “recently learned” isn’t entirely accurate.  It’s something I’ve somewhat known about myself for quite some time.  I’ve even run into problems with it in the past.  But this time it really hurt.

I’m a member of an online forum set up for CRC pastors (I’m not going to tell you where to find it because we’re kind of an exclusive group and the forum is one of the few places we can go and “be real.”).  I posed a question to the group regarding a situation that I have actually never found myself in.  I thought the forum was a safe place to ask.  For brevity’s sake, I’ll simply say that the question had to do with  my reaction toward a gay friend and his partner.

Filed under: Leadership, Ministry