Subverting Mediocrity

Well here is the big news.  Carrie and I are leaving the BSU Ministry at the end of this school year to launch a church in Kansas City. This is happening because of a deep sense of God’s leading and direction in our lives. It is not because we are disgruntled or do not love the ministry we are currently a part of (quite the opposite actually). We love the ministry we’re a part of and still think college students are the most strategic people group in the US today.  It also isn’t because we think all the churches in the area we are going to launch suck.  We’re convinced we need all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people.
I wanted to take the next few days to write a series of posts discussing our move to KC, our hope for the church, our core DNA, and a bunch of other sundry items. But I think we will begin chronologically building some steam to the present.

I warn you, what follows is a bit long.  If you make it to the end without skimming you win a prize.

About 7 years ago (around the time we got married) I began to grow quite intrigued with church planting. At the time I was the typical punk kid who thought I had all the answers and so I was quite disgruntled over my church experience. Some of this may have been valid but I know in my case at least a lot of it was from an arrogant, haughty self-understanding. But, in retrospect, I guess God really can use even evil and sin for his glory because he began transforming my life and that experience formed a core piece of who I’m becoming.

Fast forward a bit. In 2001 D.A. Carson spoke on our campus (when I was in grad school). I was blown away by Carson and his brand of reformed theology that seemed more committed to the scripture than to the system. This was unique to me. It seemed as though Carson would give up his viewpoint if the scripture dictated it. On the other hand I was around people who seemed as though even if God spoke in a booming voice from heaven telling them they were wrong that they would still hold to the system.

Long story short, I began reading everything I could from Carson. Later that year I came across a book entitled Telling The Truth dealing with the postmodern turn on college campuses. It was based upon a conference held at TEDS, gathering campus leaders from around the world. This is how I discovered the Sydney Anglican Diocese (and Ministry Training Strategy and Mathias Media) because two contributors were part of a ministry to students in Sydney. Hang with me, this is all going to come together…

First, they have had to deal with the postmodern turn for much longer than we have in the US because they don’t have the same evangelical heritage and so they have been post-Christian for some time now. So they have some great resources for how to communicate the gospel to postmoderns (2 Ways to Live is the most popular in the states).

So, if you know me at all you know my philosophical ideology in regards to the internet. If your email address is on the web and I want to contact you I will find it and I will contact you, no matter how famous you might be (I’ve had some cool email exchanges because of this philosophy). So I made some contact and was bumped around until I met Archie Poulos (now with Moore Theological College…awesome place).

From here I began to learn more and more about their ministry. Basically they have blown apart the “traditional” campus ministry model of either 1. a parachurch ministry on campus or 2. a community church reaching students. They have a churches that meet on campus. This was unique, especially at the time because I didn’t know of anyone doing this at the time (in retrospect Campus Ministry Network was just beginning and Great Commission Ministries weren’t prevalent in our area). Now everyone is rushing out to do this in some form and so it’s somewhat commonplace.

I had been growing intrigued of the idea of church planting in collegiate settings. As as a campus person I always thought a church plant should partner with a campus ministry to find a place to meet and whatnot. Seemed like a good idea, why pay rental costs when you could have endless facilities on a campus.

So, wanting to find out more and take part in my first overseas ministry experience I took off for Sydney. Leaving behind my wife and 8 month old son….for a month (man she’s gracious). This may not seem like a big deal but you have to understand, Caleb was running by 8 months. A handful to say the least. This was the summer of 2002, their winter (of 70 degree days).

It was an amazing experience on so many different levels. I’ll just name a few. First off, Archie and Ainsley (some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met) let me stay at their house with them for a full month. And they refused to let me pay for anything. What! So for a full month I followed Archie around, went to their ministries mid-year conference b/t their semesters, hung with their ministry staff on campus, shared the gospel with people, visited their campus churches and got to see some sights (Sydney is one of the coolest cities I’ve been too).  The people I came into contact with were so gracious and generous, this was deliberately reflected in their lifestyles and level of living.

Secondly, now you have to understand MTS is an unique ministry. They are very biblically-theologically driven. They are gospel-centered which means certain things for them in terms of practice. So for instance, music takes a back seat to the preaching of the word (and their still reaching people in droves even in the shadow of Hillsong). Check this. At the mid-year conference (about 1,000 in attendance) we would have about 2 1/2 hour main sessions. We’d sing some hymn-like songs with little instrumentation, several real life stories/interviews, and then preaching. Now get this, the preaching went no shorter and no longer than 1 1/2 hours. Dead serious. I know this because the reason it wasn’t longer was because the tape they recorded onto was only 90 minutes. At 90 minutes they were done. And before you go off thinking that must have sucked, let me tell you it was some of the most amazing preaching I have ever sat under. Philip Jensen did a masterful job and I learned more about the resurrection that day than I have had. It was “tight” as the kids used to say.  (I spent several afternoons talking with Philip Jensen that I count as a great blessing and opportunity and honor.)

Okay, gotta wrap that up. So I left there with a great sense for church planting and a lot of questions about how that experience might translate for me here. That next year in ministry was a lot of experimenting; failing a lot but trying to be faithful to the gospel and to helping students grow. It was one of the best years of ministry in one regard because a good friend joined me in KC. Dude moved his wife from Louisville to take part in ministry with us. There’s lots I could say about them and how they encourage and challenge this greedy, self-absorbed guy with their generosity, but that’s for another post.

So on the verge of graduation from the seminary gig we had to make some decisions. We knew we wanted to take part in ministry on a residential campus. The long and the short of it is that you have far more access to students in a residential setting than a commuter setting and this seemed more strategic for us and more in line with our personalities. So we began looking at all kinds of opportunities, including church planting in a collegiate context.

At the end of the day we came to Warrensburg, with no reservation. Church planting was still in the back of my mind but I was still a bit disgruntled with my own church experience, thinking I could do it better, and on and on (oh the darkness of my own heart at times). Not a very pretty thing to admit, but I was  immature (and still am recovering, for sure).

A lot has changed over the last 3 1/2 years though.

I have these moments, maybe you do to, these moments that happen in a short amount of time but that moment gives shape and a picture to what is happening more broadly in my life.

One of those moments happened in the fall of 2004. I was sitting in a conference and a guy said something to this effect about the local church, “Anyone can deconstruct the church. But it’s quite another to say, ‘now this, this is beautiful, this is what we want to be about.’” That statement, believe it or not, began a crazy journey and as I constantly say, from that moment on church planting has haunted my mind. I went through the motives question (remember my own immaturity with this so this has been important wrestling), why do I want to plant a church, etc. I went through the, is this really what God wants for me or is it just another of the many ideas I’ve had (I’m a bit of a dreamer). As I jokingly said one time with tongue firmly planted in cheek, “I have lots of great ideas, now I just need someone to listen to them.”

Finally this past winter I decided I had to talk to Carrie. It’s a long story why I didn’t mention it to her before then, but this is already too long of a post. So I took her out on a Date in February of 2006 and talked to her about what had been happening in me. Another long story is how God has led both of us individually to this point (maybe we can convince her to write a post on that!). He has done things that without question lead us to the place we’re in now.

From that dinner at Players over a couple of beers (just seeing if you’re still reading and paying attention), we began talking to some close friends who know us well. I’m convinced of the importance of community in discerning God’s guiding, so I wanted to know what people thought. At every turn people said it was definitely fitting.

We also set an arbitrary timetable to have a decision, by the time we returned from our mission trip to NYC. But weeks before that I knew this is where God was leading us. After NYC we talked and decided it was a go.

It took some time, thought, and prayer but we have decided to launch in the Northland of KC (the I29, Barry Road corridor…for those familiar). This ultimately won’t be to the exclusion of the rest of the city (more on that in a few posts). But we had to wrestle between Midtown and the Northland.

Well, if you’ve made it this far congratulations.

So there you have it, in a bit more than a nutshell. It has been a crazy fall as we have quietly been recruiting people to join us (2 firm commitments at this point - remember that note is contractually binding ). And at the same time we’ve had great resolve to reach and grow students at UCM. I have yet to find my attention waning or my desire weakening. For that I thank God.

We definitely covet your prayers, which I think is a good kind of coveting :). We have a lot to do in the next 5 months before we land in KC in June. Not least of which is recruiting more partners, raising several hundred thousand dollars, selling a house, finding a place to live, and transforming the church of the mind to reality. We’re a bit scared, overwhelmed, and exhilarated all at the same time. But we know that God is leading us to this. We have no promises of “success” only that to be faithful to God’s direction we are to launch. Although failure is not an option in my mind (God has made me way to competitive for that sort of nancying around).  Carrie asked at one point in our journey, “if we don’t do this do you think we will be sinning.”  Without hesitation my response, “Yes, I think so.”

Well, there you have it. Feel free to drop any questions or comments. Some I may pass until a future post on the particular subject. But I would love to talk with anyone about our plans.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 10:22 am and is filed under Church Planting, Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.