Church Planting

A few years ago, I read Simple Church by Thom Rainer.  It was a life changing book for me.  It really helped to alter a lot of what I believed about church for the good.  Previously, I believed that the way I grew up was the only way to do church. (Arrogant…I know)

Since then, I have embraced a new philosophy.  The more simple, the better.  I’m not talking about content but about programming.  Why do we need a different ministry for every little segment of the population?

Here’s what I’m realizing:  that when people are given too many choices, they choose nothing at all.

At Freedom, we’ve chosen to do just a few things but to strive to do them well.

At Freedom, we are very interested in helping people that are far from God to experience life in Christ.  Very interested.  In fact, it is the reason that we do everything we do!  It is not a goal.  It is the goal.

One of the things that is important is that you have to start where people are.  You have to accept them, as is, and allow God to do the work in their lives.  Every church in America would agree with that statement.  However, I wonder if every church takes strides to do so.  To be honest, not much catches me off-guard anymore.  We have people in all phases of the journey.

The truth of the matter is we have no choice.  We can’t make someone be deeper along in the journey than they are.  We can’t force spiritual growth.  Our desire is to help them to move to the immediate next step, not become a small group leader in 10 days.

One of the things that we are constantly doing at Freedom is trying to determine how we are doing.  This is important to us because we want to be as effective as possible at helping those that are far from God to experience life in Christ.  Measuring success is difficult but here are a few of the things we use to track how we’re doing.

a.  Hard Measurements:  We track almost everything.  On a weekly basis, we look at attendance, financial, groups, children’s ministry numbers and percentages.  We track almost everything on a 10 week average and even compare our data to what was going on 1 year ago.  This helps us to know how we’re doing.

b.  Soft Measurements:  We realize that you cannot attach a numerical value to all that God is doing.  We also make it a point to talk about feedback and stories of life change.

With over 120,000 people in a 5 mile radius of our meeting location, it is vitally important for us to gauge how we are doing.  Measuring our success helps us to determine how we’re doing at helping those that are far from God to experience life in Christ.

I have recently had a couple of people say to me, “I’m dreading going to work today. Just have to go put in the hours and get the paycheck.” I’ve been there. I’ve had a job that I hated and it was a chore to get out of bed to get to work.

That is certainly not the case now. There has not been a day when I have not been excited about the privilege of working at Freedom. I get the opportunity to serve with a great team at a great church.  I’m loving life!

In the words of Kris Kross… this is what ‘I was born to do!’  Doing anything else would be ‘wiggity wiggity wiggity wack!’

It’s ok Superman.  We know that you can’t do it alone.  Why don’t you just untie the cape?

When we don’t bring people alongside us for the journey, I believe it is a form of pride.  We feel that we’re the only people who can do this task right.  We think the whole world is going to collapse if we don’t complete the current project by the end of the day.

Look for high capacity people and bring them on the journey with you.  You’ll be glad you did.  Besides, the journey is so much more fun when you involve others.

Oh, and about that cape, don’t forget to untie it.  I just took off mine.

Here are some pics of our new location.  Enjoy!

The cat is officially out of the bag (Whatever that means!).

Barber here we come!

One of the interesting things about being a portable church is that you never know what you will find when you show up on Sunday.  This past Sunday, we found out that they were doing a bike race all around our campus, therefore closing all access roads except one.  Upon learning this, I processed through all of the options:

a.  I could hide in the bushes and tackle the bike riders one by one.

b.  I could go yell at the coordinator of the event.

c.  I could quickly go into Plan B mode and work through the details.

A wasn’t really an option(but would have been really fun).  B wouldn’t work either.  The people had permits and permission to have the event there.  Plus, I’m pretty sure that the guy didn’t go to church, so I didn’t want to do anything that might affect his feelings about church/God in the future.  C was the only option.  I met with the coordinator, campus security, and police to get the details of the event and communicate our needs. 

Then I met with Kurt, who puts out all of our signage and helped him formulate a plan to re-direct traffic.  Our parking team worked hard to make sure people would know where to go, since they had to park in a totally different lot.

All this to say, as a portable church, you have to be flexible.  You have to be willing to work within whatever circumstances you have been given, at the same time getting accomplished what needs to be accomplished.  A HUGE thanks to our team who always rises to the occasion.  In spite of the chaos, we still had a great day and God did His thing at Freedom Church.

Can I just say that I absolutely love what I do!  I really feel like God has placed me where my ’sweet spot’ is. 

Here are a few things that I love about my job:

a.  I get to work with a great Pastor and staff.

b.  I get to go to a really cool and fun church that is leading a revolution in the City of Acworth.

c.  Our people are phenomenal. 

d.  We are seeing God do some really good stuff.  Life change is happening every week.

e.  We are constantly striving to move to the next level. 

f.  We have been able to connect with some of the sharpest minds in the church world.

Being a huge fan of In The Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, I couldn’t wait for the release of Wild Goose Chase.  The book did a great job of dispelling the myth that the safest place on earth is the center of God’s will.  Mark Batterson helped us to understand that many times God calls us to do things that make no sense and are even dangerous. 

He also does a great job of encouraging the reader to develop a list of life goals.  He is a big believer that you aren’t going to accomplish things in your life by accident.  You must have a goal and work towards it.  This book is a great read.  The church planter in me resonates very clearly with the pages of this book.

I encourage you to pick it up immediately.  You won’t be disappointed!

You can pick it up here.