Here I sit at Newark Liberty airport after 3 days of the “Movement Day” annual conferences in Manhattan, sponsored by Redeemer Church. It was a great time. As always, I contributed a little, and I learned a whole lot. Let share a few key take-aways from that meeting.
1. Church Planting remains the number one way to reach lost and church disenfranchised people. And, urban church planting like we have done with Sanctuary and our other locations, is really important. Urban church planting is difficult. It’s hard to find a good meeting place. Hard to attract people. Hard to connect with neighborhoods. Hard to have an impact. Think of the likes of Sanctuary, Awake and The Harbor right now: Each has a clear impact in their immediate neighborhood with the likes of Path Preschool, The Aurora Commons and The Green Bean Coffee House. Each of these announces a loving, inviting and nurturing presence in a particular neighborhood. And, while we are all small churches by mega-church standards, we are holding our own and ministering to entire families and to individuals in various stages of life. What Movement Day says is hard, is happening here. It’s nice to be so affirmed that we are on the right track.
2. Church Planting has to be intentional and ongoing. As a parent church, we must delight in what has worked, mourn what has struggled and also press ahead toward what is new and next. We have planted quite a few churches, but in just a few months from now, we will mark our third year of time passed since the last plant. It’s time to, as my dad, the colonel, would say, “Pick ’em up and lay ’em down”. That was his way of saying, “run for it.” “do it now”.
3. God blesses Gospel-centered churches. We must take seriously the full magnitude of what the Good News of Jesus Christ entails and run forward with that boldly. The Gospel calls us to share the message of salvation in Christ, of redeemed and reconciling Christ community and the restoration of a broken world through acts of love, justice and mercy. Being a gospel centered church is hard work, but such work is met with blessings from the hand of the Almighty God.
4.There is no success without some failure and struggle. Our failed church plants are case studies for learning and are still often a reflection of much hard work and dedication. We must learn to celebrate defeats as well as triumphs in the work of the kingdom. Failures can be launching pads to great successes. Watch out! I may use the Thomas Edison and 10,000 tries to invent the light bulb adage. Oh, I did use that. Well….
We are a pretty successful church planting church….and it is my hope and dream that we will keep it up. Please pray for our church planting team as we add new members, Lorelle Jabs and Leah Rivers to our existing members, Jeremy Schertzinger, Dan Moses, and me.
Randy Rowland
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