Seven years in...

So continuing on from yesterday I want to continue to share a few of the lessons we/I have learn't from planting Grace Church.

1. Launch, learn, plant.  Then learn, relaunch and replant.

No matter how much preparation you do in terms of area studies, interviews with key people, none of it will ever prepare you for the reality of serving/living in an area.  You only really learn about the area, the need, the barriers to the gospel, the community DNA as you live day by day within that community.  That means you need to be flexible and be ready to adapt as you relearn things.  It also means you need to be clear on what the things you will flex on are and what you will not flex on and why.

There is a second area where you relearn and relaunch and that is in the church, as the church grows (whether in number or maturity) its needs will change too.  There has been much joy in being in a church where there are few traditions, where people are keen to flex and change.  I pray that God will keep us flexible as we look to take the gospel to a changing community and as we continue to change as a church in terms of needs, gifts, and comprehension of the gospel.

2. Area matters

There would be some debate on this but for me in our experience area matters.  I know people talk about us living our lives in networks but in planting a church area trumps network.  I think network functions more in cities but in our area community is key.  God in his grace has overruled mistakes we made early on as a church in meeting in one location but living in another.  But that made it impossible for us to reach the people who attended the school we met in.  Whereas since we moved Sunday mornings to the area we live in, where our boys go to school, where we shop, where we play, we have seen the benefits of being connected and plugged into the day to day of the community we love and long to see come to know Jesus.

If I had my time again I would insist that all those who were coming to plant lived in the area or sent their children to the local school we were going to meet in.  Why?  Because nothing says we care about people like presence, like committing to live our lives alongside them.  My prayer for Grace Church is that more and more of our congregation would move into the area we now serve, whilst we wait for that to happen in God's timing we need to provide the opportunities for connection between our church family who live out of area and our friends in area.  I think this living alongside of is vital, it's one of the most important things we have learnt.

3. Commitment matters

Planting a church is hard, however, you do it.  The excitement and adrenaline rush of day 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on give way to the more mundane service 156, 157, 158.  Growth is often slow after an initial buzz.  In our early days people who weren't happy at other places of worship came to join us as did some who hadn't been anywhere for a while.  Some stayed, some didn't.  That loss was felt keenly by those committed and excited by what seemed like early growth.  At other times people new to the area and looking for a church came along to taste test the church, each one felt like a potential cause of rejoicing or discouragement depending on what decision they made.  I think looking back I'd want to say to myself don't put your hope in growth, and take more time to teach the church to trust God long term.  

When people leave it should hurt.  If it doesn't hurt something is wrong.  Family leaving home is painful, even more so when we feel we have failed them, or don't understand why they've left, or when we later hear hurtful things that we didn't realise at the time.  Don't give up, persevere, keep going.  I'm not saying put your head down and ignore criticism, or don't stop and think about the situation.  But don't despair and give up, there have been times over the 7 years when that's been a temptation; big budgetary holes, personality clashes, family fallouts, and my pastoral failures have all led me to endure nights when sleep is hard won, when I've had to recognise my failings and ask for forgiveness from those I've failed.  Commitment matters in those times, a conviction that failure isn't final but that there's grace for our mistakes and that God will teach us through the pain.

4. You are a church from day one with all those pressure, joys and struggles.

In some ways this is the biggest lesson and the one I've been slowest to learn.  I wanted to plant a church which would reach those who didn't yet know Jesus, I wanted to be out there, to be building gospel capable friendships, defeating defeater beliefs, finding the wandering sheep, seeing the lost found.  But on the very first Sunday we met, we met as a church not a church plant with all the pastoral needs and care necessary to pastor a church.  I have been slow to recognise that, keen to keep on doing the out there, the building bridges in the community, when I needed to better balance the out there with the in here.  Pastoral care has been patchy because of that, others often stepping in to pick up what I've been too busy/distracted to do.  But when God calls us to plant he calls us to plant a church.

If I could go back 7 years I'd tell myself to spend more time on pastoral care, to feed the sheep well on Sunday yes, but also to take time to show them how to feed themselves during the week, to take time with them to water them, lead them away from danger and so on.  I'd spend as much time setting up a pastoral care team as an outreach team, because God's call was to set up a church.

Seven years in

On the first weekend in September it will be seven years since Grace Church was planted.  Over those seven years we've known ups and downs, joys and sorrows, but through it all can testify to the grace and goodness of God.  It has in many ways been the hardest seven years that I have ever known.  I had no grey hairs 7 years ago, and certainly more hair and fewer wrinkle!  If I had known then what we would face together as a church family I probably would have run a mile.  But my recent sabbatical has given me time to stop and think about some of the things I would do differently, some of the lessons we have learned and re-learned and relearned because God is a patient teacher.  I'm not sure these'll be of any use to anyone else but they have helped me as I think about them, here's some of them with more to follow:

1. God is great and gracious
I know that goes without saying.  But looking back I am amazed at where we are.  We began in one area and then moved to another.  We started with one leadership team and God has graciously brought us another as others have moved on or stood down.  We have grown and shrunk and grown and shrunk but we are still hear.  Above all God has time and again led the church to be patient and gracious with my leadership with all its flaws and failings.  And despite our imperfections and failings God has led people to new life in him and many others to hear the gospel.

2. Local context is key
Before and as we started out I visited many planters and many church plants as well as reading many books.  It was helpful up to a point but I was slow in recognising those limitations.  When we read of a great model we tend to want to put it into practice.  Here is the problem with most of the literature on Church planting: it is either American or if it is from the UK it tends to be focused on University cities.  That isn't to say there's nothing we can learn from these but rather that we need to work hard at differentiating between the principles that are transferable and the other things that are not.  There are very few churches planted into a context like ours - most of our young people will leave and go to university and not come back.  We will not have many young twenties, people in our community aren't asking questions that young twenties ask.  We will not have the man power that a student/young twenties church has and that is God's will for us because he has called us to this context.  Our growth will be slow not spectacular, our funding will likely have to be part external for a long time.

That context needs to colour the lessons we learn.  I've found it helpful to think carefully about our area in the following ways:
County - we are ministering in Yorkshire and that means we need to be a church that is for people from Yorkshire with all their God given uniqueness!  Yorkshire is a unique county with a unique people and history, that must be reflected in the way we do church and share the gospel.  City churches are more cosmopolitan than we will be, with people from across the country in more of a melting pot than our local area will be.  We need to be a Yorkshire church for Yorkshire people in everything we do.

Town - What is unique about our town?  What does it celebrate?  What does it do well?  What are its aspirations?  What is its history?  How does it feel about church?  What barriers are there to hearing the gospel and following Jesus?  Answering these questions has been immensely helpful and insightful.  It has also helped me to love where God has put me.

Community - We minister in a community, it is a smallish community with a unique history even within Doncaster.  That history is important to understand in order to connect with people.  For us where we are the days of the area being an RAF base still has huge influence.  It influences where people live and how those areas are thought of.  It influences many of those who live here who have some past connection with the forces.  Involvement in the community has been key for us, listening to peoples stories, building friendships, defeating defeater beliefs one at a time over years, serving people without strings, committing for the long haul, and loving the community not bad mouthing it have all been important lessons we have learnt.

3. Love tenaciously
To be tenacious is to cling tightly to something, to refuse to let go of it, to steadfastly resolve not to give up.  Peter writes this: "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins".  We are a broken people and we make mistakes, we sin and others bear the consequences, others are broken and they sin and we bear the consequences.  In that context ministry tales place, in that context a tenacious love is essential.  A love that doesn't cut and run at the first, second, third, fourth or seventy seventh sign of trouble or sin.  Love that forgives and welcomes.  Love that keeps building relationships even with those who initially want nothing to do with the gospel.  Love that humbly enables us to recognise and repent of our mistakes and to receive forgiveness for them.  Love that motivates us to visit, to rebuke, to challenge, to comfort, to rejoice, to mourn, to act.

There are times we have got this right as a church and times we have got it wrong.  There are times I have got this right and others when I have gotten it wrong.  But tenacious love doesn't allow itself to be shunted aside by past failure.  It doesn't say I got it wrong then so I can never do it again.  Tenacious love doesn't allow us to say I was hurt then so I'm not doing this now, or I'm not loving them now because of the past.  What enables us to love tenaciously?  Because that is how we have been loved:

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death –
even death on a cross!"

Phil 2v5-8