This is a big day.  Tonight Pastor Philip and I attend Cedar Grove Baptist’s Annual General Meeting.  This is a big deal for a few reasons, but I will explain.

Before Cheryl and I embarked on this journey towards church planting, we were just a nice couple with three kids attending a church of 1200-1500 people.  A typical churchgoing family in many ways – looking to be spiritually fed, moderately involved, comfortable where we were on the path of the typical Canadian family.   We could look to the future and see our children growing up in the church, attending youth group, going to Bible College maybe, taking the odd vacation to Disneyland, doing our 20th wedding anniversary on Kauai’i where we were married.  Dreaming of a boat and a cabin, maybe near Jasper or Banff was not out of reach.  We led a small group and Cheryl served on the worship team with joy.

Two things changed all that.   The first was after returning from a trip to a Mexican all-inclusive, we both felt burdened by the poverty we saw there, in a place where we were supposed to be just relaxing.  We decided the next time we were able to go on a trip like this, we would try to combine it with a mission trip of some type.  That opportunity came in the winter of 2005.  Pastor Kevin Cavanaugh had just returned from a vision trip to Rwanda and was planning to send 12 people on what was hoped to be the first of many trips to Rwanda to aid in the many needs that are present in this rebuilding nation.  It was at this time that we felt ready to go on a trip and were looking around for an opportunity.  The Missions Pastor, Paul Kostamo, suggested we apply to go on the 3 week trip they had planned for June 2006.  We did, and were amazed that we were one of only two couples selected.  We threw ourselves into preparations for this trip.

June came and went, and we returned at the beginning of July, trying to digest all that had happened.  After a couple of weeks we began to sense that God wanted more from us than just attending church.  At the same time, another factor entered into the picture: a couple of church planters named Philip and Beth Bryant.

They had journeyed all the way from Ontario on a dream of seeing churches start all across Canada.  They were part of a team that had been commissioned in 1997 to start a church planting movement.  They had begun two works in the Toronto area, but felt led to move to the West Coast and initiate a church here.  But first, they had to get settled, and Pastor Kevin had invited them to sojourn here, at Cedar Grove for a year.  When we first connected with them, we didn’t even know what church planting was.  We were comfortable here – Cedar Grove was home.  God didn’t want us to leave a place where we were seeing God work through us and others, did he?

God’s ways are not our ways, lucky for us!  His ways are better, always.  By November, God brought us to a place of open hearts, and we had dinner with the Bryants to find out more about their vision for a new church.  That night we joined the nascent core of Community of Hope.  That night we began a journey that would take us beyond comfort zones (we didn’t just get out of ours, we lost ours!  Is it possible to even get comfortable when there is always another challenge ahead?)  At first we thought we would be just helping out, then it became clear that God wanted to grow us as leaders… then we reached a place where risk entered in.  What if WE were to be the next church planters?  We already had a dream to move to Alberta where I grew up.  What if WE were to plant that church?

Now, we come to this annual general meeting.  It is funny because we still recall the AGM we attended in 2006, when we sat down at a table, and I glanced around, to look at the familiar people, and noticed Philip, looking at us and grinning and waving, and we didn’t even know him!  I turned to Cheryl and said, “Oh no.  You’ll never guess who’s staring at us again!”  She glanced and he was still there. Philip doesn’t remember that moment, but it was then that I determined to find out what the heck a church plant was, and why it seemed that the Holy Spirit was causing us to notice this church planting couple over and over again.

Now, we come back, to thank Cedar Grove for the love and support and opportunity to grow and thrive they gave us.  They provided the fertile garden we began to blossom in and prepared us for replanting in the wilds, where we could bear fruit for God.  We come back to also invite others to continue this journey with us, by praying with us, loving us and supporting us in any way they feel led.

Thank you, Cedar Grove!

I thought I would throw on the blog an archive of all our e-newsletters.  They have been a little more detailed than the blog has in the last 6 months, so for those of you who would enjoy a retrospective of the last year of our journey in 10 instalments, read on!

Who knew?  At the same time as a famous Christian blogger, Anne Jackson endeavoured to rekindle her passion for cycling I too began a journey back to a bicycle.

I don’t have her literary gifts, but my story goes like this: I got a bike when I was young.  Living in a pretty big city called Prince George (I think it had about 50 thousand when I was living there), we lived in a quiet, new subdivision called College Heights.  When I was 6 or 7 I was good enough on my bike to ride it from one end of College Heights to the other – a distance of several kilometers.  I rode it to the corner store to buy treats.  It was awesome and I thrilled to exploring every little street between that store and mine.  I remember being intimidated by the view across the sports fields, between the store and the big High School which seemed like a fortress to me.

Is it just me or does it seem like a different planet where a 7 year old can ride his bike all over every neighbourhood and forested trail within several kilometers of his house?  My wife won’t even let our 9 year old ride around the block on his bike! (more…)

In an effort to prepare for licensure with the Grace Brethren, I have been working on memorizing Scripture.  I’ve always just kid of absorbed Scripture incidentally, which has given me a lot of the Word in my heart but without address.  Heh.  Kind of like how people were before the invention of chapter and verse, hundreds of years ago.  But I digress.

I wanted to write a little about memorization.  Interesting trivia fact: the first piece of Scripture I memorized was NOT John 3:16!  Growing up in a home that didn’t put a high priority on God, it simply didn’t come up much.  In fact, my first memorized section of the Bible is also the longest I have ever memorized – and it came courtesy of Charles M. Schulz.

Yes, that’s right.  The creator of Peanuts.

He was actually a devout Christian, I have heard.  Whether or not that’s true, in his Christmas special, “It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas”, the question of the true meaning of Christmas comes up, and Linus, Lucy’s little brother recites Luke 2:8-14.  From the King James.  I watched that show so many times, that passage sank into my heart, and remains at the tip of my tongue.  It is a very poetic passage, recounting the angels announcing to the shepherds the arrival of the Messiah as an infant, and where he could be found.  Oh, to be a shepherd that night!  That would have been amazing!  Here it is, from memory:

And there were in the same country, shepherds – abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, and lo – the angel of the Lord came upon them.  And the glory of the Lord shone ’round about them. And they were sore afraid, but the angel said unto them, “Fear not!  For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the City of David, a saviour: which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you: ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a heavenly host praising God, and saying: “Glory to God in the Highest!  And on earth, peace, good will towards men!”

I wonder how many other children have this passage riding in their hearts as a result of Mr. Schulz’s little animated special which has become a Christmas institution for so many North Americans.  The takeaway idea here is that when you are engaged emotionally and you are experiencing something on a number of levels, there is much more of your brain working on committing something to memory.  When I experienced Scripture in the context of a story, presented by a character of interest, and I heard it repeatedly voluntarily, all these things allowed me to commit to memory a big chunk of text effortlessly.

Next up: what’s working for me to memorize!

So, yeah, Mark Driscoll.

As I was watching a couple of his newer sermons, what I really enjoyed and admired is there are elements of theology that are very important for people to grasp, like how salvation works, that he has so systematized that he can just work it into his message at will.   I am thinking that if I hope to develop my preaching/teaching style, I need to get a lot better grasp on things than I currently have.  I fly by the seat of my pants, when I start talking theology generally.  I grasp and concepts and verses as they float into my head, but that doesn’t communicate well.  I need to lock some concepts down into concise packages, that are accessible as the situation arises.  I have already done this with some subjects I know well.  For example, I can talk this way about just about any era of church history, denominations, and cults.  That is a result of most of my training being in those areas.  However, despite having taken a number of theology courses, I have never systematized my theology to the point of ready access.  That is definitely something I need to work on.

The cool side effect of having done this is that I don’t see as much sermon preparation being necessary.  I watched him speak and he had a page, maybe two, of notes.  He almost never referred to them.  I don’t think he has a photographic memory.  I think he just notes down the stuff he wants to talk about specific to the message, and then just shorthands different places where he has “prepackaged” material already in his head.  This allows him to do less sermon prep but still have a full message.  The rest is just practicing pacing and awareness of time and organization.  Skills that can be learned.

Of note: no curse-words or vulgar language was used in either of his sermons I watched.

Also note: no expression of agreement or disagreement with his theology.  I was primarily watching to learn style.

I encountered this article in a 2000 issue of a Church Planting newsletter produced by Outreach Canada.  Definitely food for thought.

What did you do last summer? At first you may think what Alan Braun did last summer can’t be reproduced. But perhaps it can…

Large Volunteer Core Recruited

Alan is pastor of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Penticton, BC. Last spring he invited volunteers from associated churches in the USA to come help, and they did—all 250 of them. An administrator was hired for three months to coordinate this volunteer team. What did the volunteers do?

Following orientation and training, the volunteers surveyed five nearby communities, informing residents that a new church was to be planted and offering a “Vision Video,” where the vision of the new church was shared. In addition, the door-to-door volunteers invited children to a community Vacation Bible School (VBS). Finally, the volunteers staffed seven distinct VBSs and made numerous follow-up home visits.

Results: Five New Churches and a Saturday Evening Service! What happened? 140 children attended a VBS in West Bank where volunteer follow-up calls gathered a new church, which is now meeting with its own full-time pastor. A new congregation is also meeting in a hotel in Osoyoos and three new plants are underway in Penticton.

In addition to these results, a new Saturday night service was started in the mother church. Over the course of the summer mission, 121 persons indicated professions of faith in Christ and are now being discipled.

How Does a Local Church Come to Take Responsibility For Planting?

Abundant Life Christian Fellowship’s vision was to plant a daughter church each year.  When its denomination, the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptist Churches, set the “God-sized” goal of planting 1,000 churches by 2010, ALCF went back to prayer. It concluded that, because of its size and strength compared to other churches in the denomination, they would be responsible for 100 of the envisioned 1,000 church plants. This commitment led, in turn, to the goal of planting five of these 100
churches during the summer of 2000.

What Can We Learn?

Missionary supervisor, Jim Graham, offering support to the project, suggests several potential lessons for all:
1. Concentrated sowing will produce a harvest.

2. Volunteer missions can be the key to reaching large numbers of people.

3. Church planting movements can happen in Canada.

Perhaps we should add a fourth: When denominations set church planting goals beyond their ability to control the outcome, God recognizes dependence and responds.

Who’s Alan?

Pastor Alan Braun arrived to pastor his first church, then with ten people, in 1989. The church now draws 400. He says he has gathered a governing board to look for results. Would he do anything differently?

“Yes,” says Braun, “I would communicate earlier in the process with the ministerial where we intend to plant.” Braun’s reflection on the shrinking influence of the church in Canadian life is: “We’ve been in retreat long enough—let’s get moving.”

I was reading another few pages from Planting Missional Churches by Ed Stetzer this morning, and in the early going he rides the importance of cultural exegesis hard.  I was already familiar with the concept as I just took a course this spring on “Christianity and Culture” from Bruce Guenther over at ACTS (awesome course by the way).  One of the most important texts in the course was called Everyday Theology – a compilation by Kevin Vanhoozer.  This book was awesome for giving a framework to analyze cultural trends in light of Jesus.  It’s given me a very different angle on looking at my culture ever since.

So the two of these sources collided with me while I was driving to work this morning.  Two songs on my iPod came on – “It’s Probably Me” by Eric Clapton and Sting, and “Your Life is Now” by John Mellencamp.  It occured to me that both of these songs have very Christian overtones, though I somehow doubt the writers thought of that.  (Actually, in retrospect, from what I know of Eric Clapton’s spiritual journey, maybe that one wasn’t unintentional.)  I was picturing actually opening a sermon by having everyone come in with that song playing, or the worship team playing (given the mad skillz of Eric Clapton, maybe I had better play the CD).

I was even thinking of doing some kind of youtube, or powerpoint set to coincide with the lyrics to illustrate some profound points to ponder as the music washes over you.

Just some crazy ideas for the future, I guess.  Two of my favorite things are music and movies.  I will be spending more time thinking about how to exegete them and teach with them as illustrations or foci for points.

It occurred to me the first post I did on how we got here, I didn’t really get into much detail about how we leaped from a short term missions trip to Rwanda to where we are right now.  The real impetus came in the fall of 2006.

We heard there was a church planting couple hanging out with our church.  At the time we were attending Cedar Grove Baptist Church, a church of 1200-1400 people in North Surrey.  It’s easy to get lost in a big church like that, but I saw them around once or twice in the halls and at general meetings and such.  It seemed like every time I looked at the guy, Phil, he was looking at me and grinning.  I was thinking, “Who’s this guy grinning at me?” I finally decided that God, or something, wanted me to talk to him.

One sunny day in August, I caught up to him at the bike racks (seriously!)  I was just curious at that stage about what their plan was to plant a church.  I had no idea how one goes about planting a church at that stage.  He invited me out to their core team small group.  At that time, it consisted of themselves and two other couples.

I went home and asked Cheryl if she’d like to come.  She was fine with me going, but “I am NOT interested in planting a church!” (more…)

Shane was a boy from the Edmonton area, just moved to the coast to follow his roots and keep a promise to God that he would take Bible College for a year.  He liked the outdoors, but also computers.  He joked before he left Alberta behind that he was “going to the coast to meet his wife”.  It turned out it wasn’t a joke.

Cheryl was a girl who grew up on the coast.  She’d been an award-winning vocalist as a child, and had been to film production school.  Her family had run a BBS so she too was a computer person.  She had grown up helping her mother with special needs foster children in their home.

We met on the internet in October, 1997.  By Christmas we were engaged.

In the summer of 1998, we got married.  She thought she was going to be a nurse.  He thought he would work in Forestry.

In 2000, we had our first child, while she was in her 3rd year of University.  He decided to change careers to computers.

In 2003 we went to Mexico.  We both realized we never wanted to vacation on the backs of 3rd world poverty.

In 2004 He nearly quit his job, but realized that God was teaching him something.  He decided to stick it out.

In 2005 we decided to go on another trip, but this time to do something to serve God while we enjoyed someplace warm.  We didn’t leave until 2006 – to Rwanda.  We didn’t realize it, but that changed everything.

Upon returning from Rwanda, we met a couple of church planters.  We ignored them until the fall, when Shane met with them for the first time.  He tried to get Cheryl interested, but she said no.  Two months later, out of the blue, Cheryl asked to meet them too.  We joined their nascent planting core and began our education of what a church plant is.  In 2007 that core grew to forty by the end of summer.  Community of Hope launched September 9, 2007.

By early 2007, we recognized that God wanted more from us than floating along wherever life takes us.  We decided to aim our lives for something – planting a church of our own in five years.  We are now on that journey – walking with an open hand, waiting for God to take the lead.

God has lots of work ahead of us to prepare us for this.  We have skills and gifts, but no experience.  But that too will be brought to us with time.  Join us on our journey.  Subscribe to the blog via RSS or via email updates (see sidebar).  Encourage us along the way in the comments.  But most of all, if you feel God calling, use us to begin your journey.  We will add resources and information as we find it to help those who come after us.

God bless you on your journey.