Diary of a Church Planter

This is from a piece I wrote for a district newsletter. Enjoy!

So I’ve been thinking about the Holy Spirit. The Baptism, if I care to be precise.

Acts 1 states this, “For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit”

And,

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses…” (You may have read these before)

Two things have been stirring inside of me about these verses. First, is the our understanding of the word baptism is often affected by our ritual of baptism.

People go into water, go under, and come back up.

But, as all of us know the word used here really means, “To immerse.”

We don’t come back up when the Spirit comes.

Jesus is telling us that the Spirit wants to immerse us. To keep us under. Perhaps that why Paul speaks elsewhere of being filled with the Spirit in the Greek tense that suggests that it is a never-ending constant activity. We stay under. We give Him control.

My conviction is that I don’t dare lessen this reality by limiting it to a brief event at the end of a church service. Lessen it by limiting it to acquiring any Spiritual Gift.

This other statement by our Lord flows out of the first. The point of the power and authority we have by the immersion of the Spirit is to reach the lost.

To be witnesses.

I firmly believe that the Spirit moves the most where God’s people, motivated by love, are pioneering the Gospel. The rampant use of Spiritual Gifts without this leads to, well, First Corinthians.

So may the Holy Spirit of our God immerse you. May you stay under so the He can work through you. And may you, I, and our churches manifest His power as witnesses to those lost and hurting without Him.

Most people know, but I was honored to get to travel twice this month to officiate friends weddings!

After two different weekends of plane travel it is nice to be home and ready to focus on this fall. A lot to do!

Could I get a quick shout out to Jesus from ya’ll?

We are looking to rent this building on a “rent-it-per-use” basis.

They are a little iffy about it, because they want a lease. But, the building has sat unused for almost two years.

I’m about to email them one last time. Pray that they are open to us renting it, (For cheap!). This would be a great location for us, because a lot of the people we are trying to reach respond better if we are meeting in a “church building” as opposed to a storefront!

Thanks!

Another core value of our church is:

We understand that God intended the collection of books that are known today as the Bible to be our foundation of truth. However we also acknowledge that many things in the Bible are hard to understand. Therefore we approach Scripture with humility and openness.

I know this can be hard for me personally sometimes. Heck, I spent a long time in school learning how to read and understand and interpret scripture. But, as we have seen in recent news, many people spend a lot of time trying to unlock the secrets of the Bible and turn up wrong. The extent of free will vs. the extent of predestination has been argued since before Jesus walked the earth.

To approach scripture with humility is saying that we know that this book has been used in support of great good and great evil. Many southern pastors at the time of the civil war used the Bible to support slavery and that some people were predestined to be second class citizens.

We have to careful. We have to be humble. And we rarely are. We are sure we are right.

So were the pharisees.

Hey Everyone!

Our first Newsletter is done and only one day late! Check it out.

PittsburghChurch Newsletter – Issue 1

Another part of the Creed of this new church we are starting is this:

We believe that the Church is intended to be hope for the entire world and that God has no other plan to bring the reality of Jesus into the world besides her.

The Church. That’s it.

I don’t know about you, but I’m been a part of this Church thing for a while and let me tell you, it’s messy.

If you and I, as followers of Jesus, are the Church then we have to realize that God has no other plan. Zip. Nadda.

Jesus did the work, to redeem us by His death and resurrection, and then left us, the Church, to let everyone know about it and to represent a new redeemed community here and now. To take part in God’s present redemption of creation.

You are the Church. I am the Church. We are God’s plan A until Jesus returns.

There is no plan B.

Something Perry Noble said is sticking in my head.

He basically said, “When planning our church we didn’t do X because Jesus didn’t tell us to.”

Trying to figure out if there is anything I’m doing because it seemed like a good idea at the time, but is outside of what God is calling us to do, or to be as a church!

For any of us pastors or leaders, this should be a constant thought.

Our first church plant newsletter is going to release on June 1st! We are packing in full of information and will be sending it out to our email list.

We are doing newsletters by email exclusively, as part of our Launching Cheap campaign.

We will post it here as well, but if you would like to get it by email let us know in comments!

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill. Acts 17

I choose to position myself and our new church in the midst of the post-post-modern culture and in the midst of lots of people who don’t like what the Church stands for. Or at least what they think the Church stands for.

The first part of our creed for this new church states this:

We believe that our God is love and that the implications of this should be the foundation of everything that we do and who we are.

Planting an urban church is a challenge, but we believe the heart of God is to love people in the city. Most of the churches near where I live are either: A: Empty. B: Restaurants/Bars. Or C: Condos.

Paul went and preached and starting new churches in hard places. Mars Hill was so hard that Paul goes on at length about how it changed him when he went to Corinth.

But, we will position ourselves to present Jesus in this city, because God loves this city.

Hey friends!

Been a busy week here. Some highlights:

Spent the beginning of the week and the end of my vacation with a 100 degree fever.

Worked on my strategy statement for the church this week. Hoping to have a draft to send to my coach next week.

Having our first Bible study in our home tomorrow and we are going to be exploring 1st Corinthians. I’m calling it Church Fail.

Also bough plane tickets. We are going to the Exponential conference at the end of the month (and sneaking over to Disney World for two days)

Thats been this week.

Grace + Peace!