ARC Magazine - Volume 2 - Issue 1

APRIL

Accepting the Challenge W HAT DOES IT LOOK LIK E TO BRE A K GROUND ON HARD, ROCK Y SOIL? W E TA L K ED TO FOUR A RC PL A N T ERS W HO A RE PURSUING A DIF FICULT PAT H IN A RE A S L IK E S A LT L A K E CI T Y A ND ME T H MECCA CENTRALIA, ILLINOIS. THEIR STORIES GIVE US MUCH NEEDED I N S P I R AT I O N A N D I N S I G H T S FO R P L A N T I N G I N A N Y C O N T E X T.

PLANTER SPOTLIGHTS: Monte and Olga Young, NOLA Church Seth and Karis Baltzell, City Hope Church Jason and Erica Parrish, The Well SLC Elias and Melisa Recinos, Limitless

ARC Global A LIF E- GIVING CHURCH IN E VERY CI T Y

AND COMMUNITY IN THE WORLD ARC is coming alongside planters for global and eternal impact

2017

Who Is Your Matthew?

by Darian Rains

‘I Wanted to Quit’

by Matt Fry

Making Room at the Table

by Marlize du Plessis

Through the Waves

An Interview with Dino & DeLynn Rizzo

Launch Essentials to Reach Your City

by Chris Hodges

INCLUDED INSIDE: PRACTICAL IDEAS FOR LAUNCHING & GROWING YOUR CHURCH

Make Prayer a Pre-Launch Priority / The Value of Staff Prayer / What Makes a Church Effective?

J R .

H I G H

H I G H

S C H O O L

C O L L E G E

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M OT I O N M OT I O N

ST U D E N T S T U D E N T

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FIRST WORD

A NOTE FROM THE ARC TEAM

ARC MAGA ZINE -

See Your City

Volume 2 • Issue 1 • April 2017 The Official Publication of the Association of Related Churches

"This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out." –Matthew 16:18 MSG

PUBLISHER -

When you read this verse, do you ever think deeply about the honor and privilege it is that God would call US to be part of this amazing mission of bringing the Gospel to lost humanity?

Vicki Ohlerking

EDITOR Lindy Lowry

CONTRIBUTORS ARC Lead Team Marlize du Plessis Matt Fry Natalie Gillespie Anita Palmer Darian Rains

DE SIGN & L AYOU T David Song

SALES & MARK ETING Shaun Ray Aly LaBorde

HOW TO REACH US Association of Related Churches 1201 Lee Branch Lane Birmingham, AL 35242 (205) 981-4566 info@arcchurches.com arcchurches.com

Rest in the fact that this is not a burden for us to carry. We don’t have to make it all happen. That’s God’s part. In fact, He has already put it together and set this power in place, so all we have to do is obey, walk it out, do only and exactly what He has told us to do: Walk out of the gates. Get going!

Get the road ready for the people.

Build the highway. Get at it!

Clear the debris, Hoist high a flag, a signal to all peoples!

Yes! God has broadcast to all the world: “Tell daughter Zion, ‘Look! Your Savior comes, Ready to do what he said he’d do, Prepared to complete what he promised.’”

Zion will be called new names: Holy People, God-Redeemed, Sought-Out, City-Not-Forsaken.

–Isaiah 62:10-12 MSG According to this passage, our role is to make way for God, to build the highway and signal the people. God will redeem our cities. He has promised that our cities will not be forsaken.

How do you see your city? Is it broken? In bondage? Do you see hurt and pain? Do you also see what God sees: a city with potential, a city healed, a city redeemed? Our cities are filled with the beauty of diverse humanity, desperately in need of Jesus. So let’s get going! Let’s work together to send out more couples to plant more churches that will bring Hope to cities. Let’s signal the people.

Let’s make way for the Savior.

As you read the pages of this issue of the ARC Magazine, we hope you will be inspired by the expression of the Church around the world and see the Church that God sees - coming together for one purpose - to build a Church that makes way for people to find hope in Jesus.

THE ARC TEAM

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CONTENTS

ARC MAGAZINE VOLUME 2 • ISSUE 1 • APRIL 2017

COLUMNS

FE ATURES

p21

p 32

Who Is Your Matthew?

How to get full-time, energized, passionate commitment when you can’t pay for it

by Darian Rains p25

‘I Wanted to Quit’

Firsthand counsel from a churchplanting leader who has been there

by Matt Fry p29

Making Room at the Table

How can we bring together all ages for a Kingdom experience?

by Marlize du Plessis

Accepting the Challenge What does it look like to break ground on hard, rocky soil? We talked to four ARC planters who are pursuing a difficult path in areas like Salt Lake City and meth mecca Centralia, Illinois. Their stories give us much needed inspiration and insights for planting in any context.

Interviews by Natalie Gillespie p 50

ARC Global: A Life-Giving Church in Every City and Community in the World ARC is coming alongside planters for global and eternal impact

by Natalie Gillespie p61

DEPARTMENT S

p10

Launch

Ideas and resources for the months, weeks, and hours leading up to opening day p14

Connect

Ideas and resources for engaging with your team and church planting peers p18

Equip

Ideas and resources for outreach and ministry

Through the Waves For ARC leaders Dino and DeLynn Rizzo, church planting has been a series of paddling, wipeouts, and big wave riding. Now in their second half—celebrating 25 years together in ministry—the couple stays side-by-side with planters and their families, preparing them to identify the swells and catch their own distinct wave.

Interview by Lindy Lowry p67

Launch Essentials to Reach Your City Chris Hodges draws from his early days of ministry to give planters invaluable wisdom and practical counsel for truly knowing your community and context­­­—and the strategy behind your location and marketing to bring them to a life-giving church.

by Chris Hodges

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䠀 䤀 䜀 䠀 䰀 䄀 一 䐀匀 䌀伀 䰀 䰀 䔀䜀 䔀 ⸀䌀伀 䴀

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partnership@onechildmatters.org

719.481.0400 x 298

L AUNCH

IDEAS AND RESOURCES FOR THE MONTHS, WEEKS, AND HOURS LEADING UP TO OPENING DAY

Make Prayer a Pre-Launch Priority CHECK OU T T HESE EIGH T WAYS TO REGUL A RLY ENGAGE YOUR PRAYER PARTNERS

By Dave DeVries

as a critical component for starting new churches. Even though many church planters pray personally and believe in the power of prayer, rarely do they invest in developing a prayer base before setting out to plant a church—a critical part of any church launch. Below, Dave DeVries offers practical ideas for making prayer the anchor point of your upcoming launch and regularly engaging your prayer partners.

PRAYER IS TOO OFTEN OVERLOOKED

1. P R I O R I T I Z E P E R S O N A L P R A Y E R . You can’t ask

people to pray daily for your church if you aren’t committed to daily prayer. It starts with you: “Speed of the leader, speed of the team.” Start praying and asking God to raise up prayer warriors to pray with you.

2 . D E V E L O P A P R A Y E R B O O K . Write out prayer

requests for your city and your church plant and compile them in a booklet. Consider a different prayer request for each day of the month. Then give the prayer book to all of your prayer partners.

3 . O F F E R A P R A Y E R W O R K S H O P. Invite your

prayer partners to join you for a two-hour workshop on how to pray effectively. Encourage them to bring friends.

4 . C O M M U N I C A T E D A I L Y P R A Y E R P O I N T S . Send

5. HOS T A VIR T UA L PR AY ER WA L K ONLINE.

Post pictures and prayer requests for others to pray for your city. Even if they’re far away, they can see where you’re planting and how to pray for your launch.

6 . T W E E T U P D A T E S . Create a Twitter account for

sending out your prayer requests. (If necessary, make it a private account.) They key is to send out daily prayer requests to your prayer base.

7. S C H E D U L E P R A Y E R W A L K S . Identify regular

times for praying while walking through the neighborhoods in your community. Invite your prayer partners to join you in praying “on site with insight.”

8 . P R A Y F O R O T H E R C H U R C H E S . Pray for the

three prayer points every day via e-mail or text to your prayer partners.

churches in your city, and ask them to pray for you. Keep in touch with their prayer needs and let them know how to pray for you.

59

674

THE NUMBER OF CHURCHES ARC HAS L A U N C H E D I N S P R I N G 2 0 17 *.

THE NUMBER OF CHURCHES ARC HAS L AUNCHED TO DATE, WORLDWIDE.

(*January through April)

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APRIL 2017

LAUNCH

CONTINUED

Four Tips From a First-Time Church Planter Zack Harris and his wife, Nicole, planted Life City Church in Denver, Colorado. Here, they share four of the essentials they’ve learned in the process: LATE LAST YEAR,

0 1.

02.

03.

04.

D R E A M B I G ! If your vision doesn’t scare you, it may not be big enough. As

we stepped out, it was scary. But we’ve learned to ask and believe that God is going to do immeasurably more than we can imagine. Dream big, and trust that God will show up!

B E O N T H E S A M E P A G E W I T H Y O U R S P O U S E . If you’re married, both spouses need to be all-in—both of you have to be called to ministry.

B E R E A D Y T O S A C R I F I C E . If you’re not willing to “bet the farm,” you

shouldn’t do it. If you aren’t willing to give everything for your calling, you may want to reconsider. When my wife and I looked at each other and asked that question, and the answer was yes, it really compelled us to move forward.

L E A D W I T H A N O P E N H A N D . Give things away to other leaders!

Empower other people to lead and make decisions on your behalf. I’m always asking myself, Can I give this away? Can I empower someone else to do this?

Investing in Invested Volunteers

IN THIS RECORDING from his app ses-

sion at #ARC16OC, Shaun Nepstad says building a thriving team of volunteers that help the church launch strong doesn’t happen by accident.

It must be intentional. Planters must be willing to "give ministry away" and stop being like one-man bands.

Shaun, founding/lead pastor of the Fellowship Church in Antioch, California, says the key to launching strong is to grow attendees who want to see the church grow.

“A lot of people attend your church and they enjoy it,” Shaun says in this audio resource, “but they don't care if it grows or not because they're not invested.”

Listen in as he shares how Fellowship has grown from a small congregation with burnt-out volunteers to a church with more than 3,000 people, half of who serve in some capacity. Shaun unpacks the specific ways his church has become “a machine of inviters” and how your church can launch and grow in this same way.

Find out more by visiting: arcchurches.com/building-dream-team-volunteers.

ARCCHURCHES.COM

11

PIERCING THE DARKNESS IN EUROPE VISIT THE EI BOOTH TO FIND OUT HOW YOUR CHURCH CAN BRING HOPE TO EUROPE

YOU CAN HELP PLANT

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CONNECT

IDEAS AND RESOURCES FOR ENGAGING WITH YOUR TEAM AND OTHER CHURCH PLANTERS

Find More Time To Do What You’re Called To Do GOOD ASSISTANT = BETTER EXECUTIVE to do what you’re called to do? Pastor Matt Keller and his assistant, Cheri Williams, share how an assistant can make a leader better. Matt, founder of Next Level Church in Fort Myers, Florida, and Cheri say that executives can be more effective if their assistants: NEED MORE TIME IN YOUR DAY

THINK FOR YOU.

Leaders, help your assistants learn the “why behind the what, even in the smallest things,” says Cheri. “The most important hour of your week is the hour you spend with your assistant."

FILT ER, CONSOLIDAT E, A ND FOCUS L A RGE QUANTITIES OF COMMUNICATION.

With a good assistant, a leader “can process 30 email messages in five minutes,” Matt says, adding that his assistant has learned what to toss, what to hold, and what to put in front of him.

T U R N A 10 - S T E P P R O C E S S I N T O A T WO-STEP PROCESS.

An empowered assistant can research, conceptualize, and price out your great idea, and then hand it back to you for implementation. “It's the perfect example of two people doing one job,” Cheri says.

THINK AHE AD OF YOU.

That’s everything from small needs (white board at that meeting?) to the annual calendar and family plans.

Listen to the podcast series, “10 Ways an Assistant Can Make an Executive Better,” at arcchurches.com.

14

APRIL 2017

PROTECT YOUR SCHEDULE.

Not just from outsiders. “A great assistant protects my schedule from me,” Matt says.

CONNECT

The Value of Staff Prayer POWERFUL BENEFITS OF DAILY CONNECTION church planter Brian Tome to lead prayer with his staff every day, Brian wasn’t thrilled. But after a successful one-month trial run, Brian saw the impact of praying together. Now all of Crossroads Church’s sites pray together ever day, connecting to God and each other. If daily prayer sounds too distracting or time-consuming, check out the benefits that Crossroads has experienced: WHEN A FRIEND CHALLENGED

PR AY ER M A K E S US MORE EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIV E.

The time I give up to prayer comes back to me in effectiveness. Prayer has given me an idea or insight that has saved me tangible time later in the day.

CORPOR AT E PR AY ER BRINGS US CLOSER TO GOD.

We want to see a mighty move of God in our land, so we must pray.

CORPOR AT E PR AY ER BRINGS US CLOSER TO EACH OTHER.

What better way to bond as a team than in a room praying together to the One who has made us and commissioned us?

PR AY ER M A K E S T HINGS H A PPEN.

We’re engaged in a heavenly battle, and that requires the unconventional weapon of prayer.

Y O U ’ R E B E I N G P A I D T O P R A Y.

Years ago, I would have never signed off on staff praying for a half hour on company time. I was wrong. And, it’s part of our job description.

CONTINUED

A Vital & Necessary Resource PARTNERSHIP CONNECTS STRUGGLING LEADERS WITH BIBLE-BASED HELP and your staff for guidance and support when struggling. That's the way it should be. But to whom do you turn?

YOUR CHURCH FAMILY TURNS TO YOU

Recognizing the need for Christ-centered care for church leaders, Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, has partnered with a new facility to come alongside pastors struggling with burn out, depression, and more—leaders who are leading and living on empty—and connect them and their families with Christian mental health treatment.

“Struggling congregants seek support from their pastor, but whose support can the struggling pastor seek?” asks Kerri Weems, co-senior pastor at Celebration Church.

“Too often, the answer is unknown, and pastors find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into a spiral of unhealthy patterns, isolation, and shame. In many ways, the pastorate is a set-up for failure.”

As ARC Lead Team members, Kerri and her husband/co-senior pastor, Stovall, say they have personally encountered a high demand for mental and behavioral treatment services, yet have found very few available treatment options.

“We feel called by God to bring solutions,” Kerri says.

Celebration has partnered with Honey Lake Clinic Florida to offer biblically based rehabilitation and mental health care.

If you’re struggling, or know a church leader who is, go to arcchurches.com/pastors-do-you-have-it-all-together to learn more.

ARCCHURCHES.COM

15

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Pastor Steven Furtick Elevation Church, Matthews, NC

EQUIP

IDEAS AND RESOURCES FOR OUTREACH AND MINISTRY

Welcome Those Who Are ‘Differently Abled’ PLAN AHEAD TO CREATE A CULTURE OF INCLUSION welcome and provide for adults and children with disabilities? If you’re planting a church, have you thought about this specific group? As followers of Christ, we should have hearts that reflect His love, compassion, and grace, even for those who are oftentimes very different from us. Jackie Mills Fernald, director of the Access Ministry at McLean Bible Church, offers insights to help equip you and your team to plan ahead and intentionally include anyone who might come to your church.

DOES YOUR CHURCH

S E E A L L P E O P L E as created in God’s image (the imago

C R E A T E P R O G R A M S A N D C O M M U N I T I E S for

V A L U E P E O P L E (regardless of ability) over programs—

S E E Y O U R C H U R C H A N D A C T I V I T I E S through

dei). Train your team to respond to others in light of the truth that all are made perfect, and that our God does not make junk. being intentional to develop a culture of inclusion.

Whenever possible, include those with disabilities in existing programs. Often times, however, a specialized class or group might be the best place for them.

A S K F O R H E L P. Enlist the help and expertise of those

in your church, community, and other churches who have backgrounds in special education or disabilities.

T E A C H A N D T R A I N new staff and volunteers to greet and respond to those who are differently abled. Any volunteer training should include this vital area.

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APRIL 2017

those who are differently abled. Think about ministry from cradle to grave so that a person always fits in at your church regardless of age or stage of development. an inclusive lens. Equip your team to think about how a person with a disability might perceive or experience something. Train them to ask specific questions: “How accessible is this? What changes do we need to make so that persons of all abilities can participate?”

P R A Y for wisdom and direction. As your church becomes more inclusive, pray that God would increase your capacity to love and respond to those who are different from you.

EQUIP

Getting Clear on Your Lack of Motivation SIX QUESTIONS FOR FINDING CLARITY IN YOUR LIFE AND MINISTRY these days? A little murky?

Church planter and author Peter Haas shares a tool to help you understand why you may have lost your focus, and what to do about it.

HOW’S YOUR MOTIVATION

Peter says that when it comes to setting goals, we can get overwhelmed by options—often leading to “analysis paralysis.”

Here, he shares six telling questions that help him “get my goals out of the ditch”:

0 1.

02.

03.

04.

05.

06.

CONTINUED

What one thing could you do (or stop doing) on a regular basis that would make a tremendous difference in your personal / professional / spiritual life (for example, exercise, Bible reading, date nights with your spouse, etc.)?

If God suggested an adjustment in your life today, what would He tell you? What area(s) would He point out?

What would He call you to do?

What are some goals for this specific area? What will you actually do? (Hint: Make your goals numerically assessable with deadlines, such as, “I will go on a date with my spouse twice a month.”)

What could potentially stand in the way of accomplishing each goal? Create a list of obstacles and baby steps that are critical to your success.

Prioritize your goals: Some goals are complex enough that they require multiple sub-goals. Should you focus on certain goals first? How might they look on your calendar?

Who will hold you accountable to accomplish your goals?

Brainstorm a list of potential accountability partners.

Will they have the availability or honesty to effectively help you? How often will you meet with them?

What Makes a Church Effective?

DISCUSSION STARTERS FOR YOUR NEXT TEAM MEETING

is changing at lightning speed. How do you stay effective as a leader and a church? Drawing from his church-planting experience, missiologist Ed Stetzer says that we need to look both inward and outward. Here, he offers three questions he believes all church leadership should be asking. Use these discussion starters with your team to facilitate some important conversations: OUR CULTURE

0 1.

How will we engage our community now in a way that we didn’t engage them before? Are there specific ways people might receive the gospel with more openness?

02.

How do we partner with our people to be most effective in evangelism and outreach? Effective churches look at their congregations and find ways to play to people’s strengths when it comes to witnessing.

03.

How can we innovate better? Our goal as leaders entrusted with the greatest message on earth is that we would lead with courage and clarity.

ARCCHURCHES.COM

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COLUMN

Who is your Matthew?

HOW TO GE T FUL L-TIME, ENERGIZED, PA S SION AT E COMMITMENT WHEN YOU CAN’T PAY FOR IT

By Darian Rains

hit the eight-year mark.

We have purchased a 32,000-square-foot facility with 10 acres northeast of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’re doing three services and about to move to four on the weekend. How did we accomplish this? Our teams.

At Your Place Church, we have a full-time staff of 26 people, and all but four of us are volunteering (unpaid) our guts out. They were all farmed right out of our community.

Our entire staff has hired their own high-level leaders and built their own teams to help them in their ministry roles, all while having careers outside of our church.

I know what you’re thinking: “How do you raise up a team of 26 full-time/volunteer staff members?”

“How long can you sustain that?”

THIS YEAR OUR CHURCH PLANT

TAKING OUR CUES FROM THE MAS TER

We see something similar happening in Scripture: As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’

he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him (Matt. 9:9).

We know that Matthew’s original name was Levi, a Jewish name for a Jewish guy. But Matthew was a tax collector. A cheat. A jerk. Scum of the earth. Unclean by the standards of his own people. Here’s the rub: Jesus didn’t wait for clean, perfect, or ready-to-go leaders to show up.

He found them, recruited them, and then grew them.

Are we having dinner with the Matthew’s in our church and community? Who are we spending our time with? So many times, we’re looking outside our churches for staff and seasoned leaders to help us in our journey— when the Matthew’s are right under our noses.

FROM ‘I CA N’ T PAY YOU’ T O ‘FOL LOW ME’

In my 23 years of ministry, I’ve realized this generation isn’t as interested in working long hours in the marketplace. They saw their parents do it and as a result lose their marriages and their relationships with their kids.

This generation has no desire to repeat that cycle, but they ARCCHURCHES.COM

21

are interested in giving their lives for a cause, something that will truly make a difference.

In the early 2000s when money flowed into our offering plates, we paid everyone. If we wanted a leader to rise up, we simply had to offer them money.

Inadvertently, we shot ourselves in the foot. There was zero leadership development, and very few people actually tapped into their specific gifting because we never created space for them to be involved. I don’t have to tell you we don’t live in that world of plenty anymore. So we’ve had to figure out how to provide people the chance to lead even when we can’t pay them.

Where do you need to change the filter in how you’re thinking about hiring staff and leaders?

In my coaching with planters, tons of pastors tell me, “Man, I’d love to do that, Darian—if I just had an all-star that would volunteer his guts out 40 hours a week, but I don’t.”

“Jesus didn’t wait for clean, perfect or ready-to-go leaders to show up. He found them, recruited them, and then grew them.”

A BIA S TOWA RD ‘ Y ES’

I remember hearing Tommy Barnett say, “The miracle is in the house.” Just like God has tapped on your shoulder to go and plant that church, He has tapped on the shoulders of others in your church to help you build it. They just don’t know it yet. They may not look or act like what we expect or even hope for, but they’re there. My next campus pastor is sitting in my young adults group right now. Our next worship leader is already here. I don’t even know yet that he or she plays an instrument or sings.

Jesus just walked up to people and said, “Follow me.” Most people are not doing what they’re wired to do in life. They’re not adding significant value to any area of real importance. But they all want to! They are just waiting for you to ask them. Your people already love you, love the church, love where you’re going.

They are settled in and have planted roots. And even better, they get the culture.

What better employees than people who already get it?

Leadership expert and author John Maxwell has said, “This generation genuinely believes that there is no one out there who genuinely believes in them.”

Who is sitting in your church right now that is potentially going unnoticed?

Who are you saying, “Oh he would never do that” about or, “She doesn’t have the time”? We have to stop saying “no” and operate with a bias toward “yes.” If people do turn us down, then we have to learn how to cast a better vision and point to their potential.

In what areas are you “waiting for people to be ready” and overlooking what God has placed inside them?

Don’t wait for perfect.

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DARIAN RAINS is the founder and lead pastor of Your Place Church in rural northeast Oklahoma, as well as a church-planting coach. What started as a handful of families in a local coffee shop is now a thriving community of believers. He and his wife, Tyra, have two teenagers and one pre-teen that keep them young and hip.

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COLUMN

‘I Wanted to Quit’ FIRSTHAND COUNSEL FROM A LEADER WHO HAS BEEN THERE

By Matt Fry

is just plain painful. After serving as a youth pastor for 13 years, our family moved to North Carolina in 1998 to plant C3 Church. Even though we were meeting in an elementary school cafeteria and I had never before led a church, we saw rapid growth from nearly the beginning.

People’s lives were being changed, and they were bringing their friends. As a three-and-a-half year-old church, we purchased 33 acres of property and built a 20,000-square-foot building. We call it a miracle on an old tobacco field.

SOMETIMES, PLANTING AND LEADING A CHURCH

WHEN YOU’RE BLINDSIDED

In the months leading up to getting into our building something happened that I didn’t see coming. A handful of people in our church started talking negative, and often it was about me. I’m not sure what was said, but I knew it wasn’t positive. Some of these people I had prayed with during times of need and had even baptized them. And

now they were talking about the church and me behind my back.

Even though the church continued to grow, we saw approximately 100 people leave before we entered our new building. I was blindsided! After we celebrated and dedicated our new building in March 2002, I wanted to quit.

I’m not cut out for this, I thought. I need someone else to take the church from here.

I didn’t want to quit on God. I didn’t even want to quit ministry. I just wanted to quit being a senior pastor and go back to being a student minister or associate pastor.

I even had a ministry job opportunity I wasn’t really looking for. I shared my frustration with my leadership team, and they told me to take a break.

PEOPLE COME AND PEOPLE GO

So I took a three-day sabbatical to Charleston, South Carolina, where I had the privilege of spending some time with [ARC President] Greg Surratt whose church was ARCCHURCHES.COM

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thriving. We had contacted his office and though he barely knew who I was, he took some time to hang with me. At that time, Greg golfed every Monday and even though I had only been golfing maybe two times in my life, I jumped at the opportunity to spend some time with him on the golf course. I’m a pretty good athlete, but I was horrible that day! I just hacked it up. I’m guessing it was probably because every time I hit the ball, I thought of someone in our church that had hurt me. Increasingly, the goal became to whack the ball with all my might instead of just hit it.

Later that day, Greg and I sat in a coffee shop and I shared with him all that had happened and that I just wanted to quit. I still remember how he patiently listened to me talk about all my hurt and disappointment and then continued to say, “Matt, people come and people go. It’s part of building and growing a church. Not everyone is going to stay with you forever. People have gotten mad at me and left the church. It’s part of the deal.”

That conversation gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going and not give up. I went back with more passion and vision than ever before.

“Now I’m the one saying to discouraged planters, ‘Don’t take everything personally.

Much more is going on than what you see. Stay the course.”

A TOUGH SKIN AND A SOF T HE ART

Looking back, I’m so thankful that I didn’t give up because a few people hurt me. It’s not the last time I’ve been hurt, but you learn to trust God and lean on others. I’ve learned to grow tough skin and a soft heart. Now I’m the one saying to discouraged planters, “Don’t take everything personally. Much more is going on than what you see. Stay the course.”

Perhaps you’re where I was, feeling beaten up and ready to hang it up.

Maybe you’re even entertaining some other job opportunities like I did. Before you leap, let me give you a few suggestions I’ve learned firsthand.

Reach out to someone for help – Like I did with Greg, find someone who’s perhaps older and has godly wisdom and then just share with him what you’re going through.

Don’t do life alone – God didn’t create us to do life alone. We need each other!

Scripture tells us, “Two are better than one, because they have good return for the labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up” (Ecc. 4: 9-10). Let me encourage you to find your tribe. If you don’t have one, I highly recommend ARC. It’s not just a church-planting network but also a tribe of life-giving relationships.

Don’t Quit – Make a decision that you’re not going to quit. Other people are counting on you! You have influence, and we need you to stay in the race! Aren’t you thankful that God didn’t give up on you when things got hard?

Remember that you can trust God – He’s your good shepherd! When we put our total trust in Him, we live out of that security. So when others hurt us, it doesn’t make as much personal impact.

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MATT FRY is the founding and lead pastor at C3 Church in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area. He and his wife, Martha, have a passion to help train and equip others to build life-giving relationships. Matt also serves on the ARC Lead Team and recently wrote a book called I AM: Encounter the One Who Gives You Purpose and Peace in a Crazy World, releasing May 2.

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COLUMN

Making Room at the Table HOW CAN WE BRING TOGETHER ALL AGES FOR A KINGDOM EXPERIENCE?

By Marlize du Plessis

will come back to Jerusalem, sit on benches on the streets and spin tales, move around safely with their canes—a good city to grow old in. And boys and girls will fill the public parks, laughing and playing—a good city to grow up in (Zech. 8:4-5).

When I discovered this scripture, its beautiful imagery awakened something in my heart: What if we could cultivate church communities and create environments that reflect this Kingdom picture? The prophet Zechariah interpreted an image that was not just for people of every race and creed—but also for every age—to flourish within the same space.

We know that God exists in community. Think about it: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not merely co-existing, but actually flowing together in unbroken continuity.

OLD MEN AND OLD WOMEN

ACROSS THE GENER ATION DIVIDE

Like the workplace, today’s Church is experiencing some tension as the two largest generations learn to do life and leadership together. We refer to these groups as Boomers

(born between 1946 and 1964) and Millennials (born between 1981 and 2000). I fall somewhere between these two groups. As a Gen-Xer, I’m identified as the “latch key kid, street-smart, not overly tech savvy but at least functioning on all necessary platforms.” My intention, here, is not to categorize us all but rather to recognize that we often come to the table with different experiences, outcomes, and expectations.

It’s striking that even in the Bible, one of the ways human community became disrupted was the generational divide. In 2 Chronicles 10, Rehoboam ignores the advice of his father’s advisors and follows the advice of his young friends. As predicted, the northern tribes form a nation separate from Judah.

Can you imagine those boardroom conversations?

Rehoboam essentially split the team into two teams: the “young emerging leaders” and the “rapidly aging Boomer leaders.” What do you think happened? Of course, they gave opposing advice! Makes you wonder if they could have flourished in the same space together had they been led differently?

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In sharp contrast, Joshua 4:4-8 shows us how God instructed the nation to make time and space for the children to ask questions. The children had been part of the troubles, but they were also part of the victories. They experienced it together!

“Some things can only be achieved through an intergenerational experience.”

MISSING THE INTERSECTIONS

I’m not unfamiliar with the challenges of a multigenerational environment. Just today around the lunch table, we shared how an older gentleman had mistaken the complimentary earplugs we provide at the doors for candy! (Tip for the guest services team: Stay away from candy-striped earplugs.) In the same breath, we constantly seek ways to create an accessible spiritual journey for our littlest ones.

I understand it can’t always be a “one size fits all” experience. However, if we create only multigenerational environments for each group, there’s still no intersecting happening. We miss something that can only be achieved through an intergenerational experience.

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but over the last two years this tension, and the beautiful imagery in Zechariah, have informed my decisions and fueled my prayers. To that end, I’ve recently introduced some simple practices into my leadership: Ask: Engage in unbiased conversations with people from all generations.

Ask questions and then listen.

Share: Don’t forget to tell stories. Everyone’s story matters. Psalm 145:4: “Tell one generation to another of His marvelous works.”

Make Room: Invite all generations to the table constantly all the time.

Validate. Affirm. Include.

Turns out that Sue, one of our office volunteers I often just briefly greeted on my way in every morning, has a lot of wisdom to offer from her 68 years. I’d never have known this if I hadn’t pulled up a chair to listen. That day, I drank from a fire hose of knowledge. In her earlier years, Sue worked for Kodak, one of our city’s most prestigious, high-ranking companies. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Sue had young professionals in her small group. Her stories and experience forever impacted mine.

As I type this article, I hear the roaring laughter of the creative Kidsmin teams upstairs. They are a loud, gregarious bunch, mostly in their 20s, and I thank God for what they bring to us. Such life and innovation. We need all of it—the testimonies of God’s faithfulness, the wisdom that comes from the journey, and the learned insight shared by spiritual fathers and mothers. And we also need the curiosity, energy, and wonder that comes from those who are younger. Our churches need both!

While every generation brings something unique to the table, I believe God’s heartbeat remains for one church. In John 17, Jesus prayed His final prayer on earth: “May they be one even as we are one.” Let’s make room in our churches and at our tables for this “one-ness.”

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MARLIZE DU PLESSIS, born in Johannesburg, South Africa, relocated to the United States with her family in 1999 to lead The Father’s House, a multicultural, multigenerational, and multisite church located in Rochester, New York. Side by side, she co-pastors The Father’s House with her best friend and all-time favorite preacher, Pierre.

They have two young adult children, Chloe and Caleb, who are actively involved in building the local church.

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Accepting the Challenge W HAT DOES IT LOOK LIK E TO BRE A K GROUND ON HARD, ROCK Y SOIL? W E TAL K ED TO FOUR ARC PL A N TERS W HO ARE PURSUING A DIF FICULT PAT H IN A RE A S LIK E S A LT L A K E CI T Y A ND ME T H MECCA CENTRALIA, ILLINOIS. THEIR STORIES GIVE US MUCH NEEDED INSPIR ATION A ND INSIGH T S FOR PL A N TING IN A N Y CON T E X T.

By Natalie Gillespie

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A SOWER WENT OUT TO SOW. And

as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear (Matt 13:3-9).

To any Christ-follower today, Jesus’ metaphor-laced illustration of the Kingdom of God is a familiar passage. In the first-century Church, the concepts would have been everyday scenes for the largely agrarian society Jesus preached to that day. But any church planter who has stepped out in faith, taken the risk, and planted in an area known for hard, rocky, rootless, and thorny soil has a special relationship with the 11th parable Jesus shared. For these planters, Matthew 13 offers a vivid picture of the people and cultures they face every day.

The four planters we talked to for this article have brought the gospel to difficult and diverse contexts: New Orleans; rural Centralia, Illinois; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Los Angeles. As you’ll soon discover, common threads run through their individual stories.

A DEEP CALLING

Each planter felt called to the people of the area they chose, as they sensed the spiritual darkness of the city or town. Seth and Karis Baltzell dreamed of planting a church on the East Coast. But each time they returned to Seth’s hometown of Centralia, seeing the oppression of poverty and drug addiction, they sensed an assurance.

“We would pull in crying and pull out crying,” Seth shares. “We just knew it was where God wanted us.”

UNEXPECTED ADVERSIT Y

Also universal in their journeys are the moments that almost broke them. Each of these planters can point to very specific dark days when the arrows kept coming, piercing deeper with each blow. Whether it was the loss of a meeting place (this is a challenge common to all planters, but especially difficult in tough areas), a dire lack of finances, or even a crisis of belief, unforeseen adversity characterizes their path.

BRE AK-DOWN DESPER ATION

Each of these planters has confronted that point of desperation, which almost always results in transformation of a situation or often, a heart. Like the city official who in desperation begged Jesus to heal his son, or the bleeding woman who in desperation reached out her hand in faith, it seems the faith of desperation stirs God’s heart to action. These planters can tell story after story attesting to that truth.

The soil is hard and rocky. Some of the seeds will never make it to the dirt; some will be choked out or be dried up in a day. But Jesus’ Kingdom parable reveals what these planters already know: Our Savior has asked us to take and “scatter” His Kingdom everywhere—even to the hard places.

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Q+A MONTE & OLGA YOUNG NOLA CHURCH

On the Frontlines in New Orleans MONTE YOUNG NEVER DREAMED A MARDI GRAS PARADE WOULD CHANGE THE CALL ON HIS HEART AND LIFE.

AS A NATIVE OF BATON ROUGE,

Louisiana, Monte Young served in and around ministry in the city, then branched out on his own. In his 20s, he joined church staffs in Anchorage, Alaska, and Orange County, California, where he met his wife, Olga. A trip to introduce Olga to his hometown in the Deep South upended his plans. He and his family moved to the Crescent City, negotiated space, and planted NOLA Church. Monte readily admits he knew nothing about church planting and thought if he offered a place to meet, “the people would just show up.”

They didn’t. He wondered if he got the call wrong. Then, a seemingly chance meeting set him on a new course and gave NOLA Church a fresh start. In this Q&A interview spotlighting church planting in tough

places, Monte shares how diligence in ministry gives you a front-row seat to watch miracles.

Monte, take us back to the start of NOLA Church. What brought you back to Louisiana from the West Coast?

Well, I fell in love out there and married a girl, and she thought everyone from Louisiana lived in the swamps.

So I brought her back home to see where I was from. We went to the [French] Quarter, because everyone who visits wants to see the Quarter, and got invited to a Mardi Gras parade. We weren’t prepared for the depravity. I remember thinking in my head, Yeah, these people are all going to hell. That’s when I felt a punch in my throat and the Holy Spirit saying, Yeah, what are you going to do about it?

For the next hour, I walked around the Quarter crying. And I’m not a tears person. But they wouldn’t stop. My wife finally looked at me and said, “We’re moving here, aren’t we?” I said, “Yes.” It took a couple years of struggle to birth NOLA Church. The labor was intense.

The Youngs moved into Monte’s godmother’s house in Baton Rouge and made the two-hour trek to New Orleans each way to hold Sunday services that didn’t grow.

Seeing how deeply discouraged the couple was, Monte’s godmother offered to take them to lunch one Sunday. Sitting in the restaurant was ARC Executive Director Dino Rizzo, who kept looking at Monte.

At one point, Monte introduced himself to Dino who said, “Oh, you’re the guy.”

He gave Monte his business card and told him to call him.

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What were you thinking when Dino said that?

I didn’t know what to think. I just felt like he had been staring at me, so me being the typical Type-A personality, I went over to talk to him because I knew he looked kind of familiar.

Evidently, a mutual friend had been telling Pastor Dino about what I was trying to do in New Orleans and told him we should connect. I called him, and he offered to pay our way to ARC’s church planter training in Birmingham, Alabama. I had never even heard of the ARC Conference or [Church of the] Highlands, but the moment we got there I said, “This is awesome.” I fell in love with the whole life-giving motif immediately. We ended up going through the whole ARC launch process. I knew it was my tribe.

Even though you went through ARC’s training, your challenges weren’t over, right?

I think everything that could go wrong went wrong in our first two years. We launched right after Hurricane Isaac struck in September 2012. Everyone was still in crisis and cleanup mode. We lost three families on our team who had to relocate because of the hurricane. The movie theater we moved into began leaking, so we had to move into another theater space, which cost more money.

We finally started to grow and found a school to move into, and from November 2013 until May 2014, things went great. Then I got a phone call that we needed to move out right away so they could remodel. Only one other school could hold us, and they said no.

As a new church plant, we had to face negotiating a permanent lease, which fell through the day before we were supposed to get the keys. I remember crying out, “You called us, God. You gotta have something for us.”

Through a real estate agent, Monte found a warehouse in an industrial park. The owner was atheist, but he agreed to lease it. NOLA Church met the following Sunday in the big, empty space.

We gutted what had been the

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showroom and just started having church. In the move, we lost 150 people and one-third of our team. We could barely afford the rent, let alone any furnishings or construction. There was no heat or A/C. But we were in a building that was ours. A contractor in the church offered to help build out the space, but soon after he started we discovered he didn’t pull a permit. He ended up leaving the project. Slowly, we made little improvements, with my wife and I paying for most of it. But it was a long way from finished.

“I think everything that could go wrong went wrong in our first two years.”

How did you keep going? What finally turned things around?

Two years into all this, we prayed, God, you put us here. There must be a reason. And we launched NOLA Serve in January 2016. We were not numerically strong as a church, but we knew we were supposed to help people. We took on one project a month in the community and no matter how big or how small, made it work for a year.

By August, we had a vision to break into small groups around the city and have each group do a monthly project.

That was right before the great flood hit Baton Rouge, and we had our first opportunity to provide disaster relief.

Our NOLA Chow Team fed 2,500 people, just cooking up food and taking it to people. We mobilized crews to start cleaning houses, gutting them, helping people get their stuff out. We were able to serve families that lost everything. Moving our projects to the small-group level just took over the church and created such a culture of serving. It changed everything.

When the emphasis shifted from building a church to connecting with people, Monte says miracles occurred. A few months ago, he saw a man walking down the street whose long beard caught his attention. The next Sunday, “Beard Dude,” as Monte refers to him (the man prefers to remain anonymous), walked into NOLA Church for Sunday service.

Because we’re in an industrial park, we can’t really have signage. Our advertising was limited. I don’t know how he found our church. But “Beard Dude”

walked in with his wife, and I noticed he was crying throughout the sermon.

As soon as I dismissed, he made a beeline for me and said, “God spoke to me and said I’m supposed to help you with your building. Here’s my card.

Call my office.” His card didn't even say what he did, but I called. Turns out, he is a general contractor. He had just finished a big project and wanted to bless us with the tithe from it and build out our space. Every week now, guests are coming in, people are finding out about the church and meeting God. I feel like we were supposed to go through all this to become stronger.

It’s almost like God said, “Now you’re ready for this.”

How is NOLA Church serving now?

Just a few weeks ago, tornados hit and a family that had just started coming to our church lives in the neighborhood where the biggest storms were.

We set up teams in their yard to help in what looks like a war zone. We’re finally in a place where we can help financially. We were able to help another church that got wiped out.

God has completely turned our situation around and used our struggles to place us right where we are supposed to be.

What difference did ARC make in this entire process?

The biggest help has been the relationships. ARC really is family. As you can imagine, in that two-and-ahalf years of pastoral hell, there were multiple times we got to the end of our rope and thought we couldn’t do it anymore. Every time, without fail, I would get a phone call or an e-mail from someone in ARC that uplifted me, sometimes from people we didn’t even know.

One of those times was last year when our family vehicle broke down for the last time on a Saturday. We had to rent a car to get to church the next day. On Monday, I got a call from a guy saying God had told him to help give us a car. He told me a couple of ARC pastors and this man’s pastor in New Orleans were actually going to buy the car, so I was to reach out to

“God has completely turned our situation around and used our struggles to place us right where we’re supposed to be.”

these pastors and thank them. The last pastor I spoke to didn’t really know anything about me, but he said he was glad to invest in me and my family and the NOLA vision. Then he told me, “Don’t you dare give up.” It was a random phone call out of nowhere, and one of the many examples of how God kept us going.

Monte, his wife Olga, and their four young daughters saw their own faith grow stronger through the entire church-planting process.

If God says He’s going to do it, I don’t even doubt it anymore. I heard that all the time growing up as a pastor’s kid, but I think I just kind of wrote that off as “preacher-ese.” Now I’m living it.

More than 85 percent of our congregation has met Jesus at our church. It’s just so crazy to see what God is doing.

He’s not doing it how I expected at all. Everything I set out to do myself didn’t work. But when we started leaning into what He said, it all came together.

Now that NOLA Church is thriving, what is your vision for the future?

We want to turn this into a Dream Center where we can serve people.

My wife is Hispanic and grew up in Southern California, so she learned a lot about immigration issues. Here, we have a lot of immigrants from Central America, and we would love to help them find jobs, plug them into this life-giving church, and become citizens. We are already serving teens and families connected with our parish, and that’s a big part of our heart.

We want to use our building as a rescue station. In five to 10 years, we’re going to see people become legal, become free of addictions, become free from sex trafficking. We have already rescued four girls trafficked in strip clubs in the French Quarter. We also work globally, and our goal in the next 18 months is to plant a church in Nicaragua and to put a lot of focus on the 10/40 window. Basically, we’re just following God wherever He wants us.

We're not pretty, but we’re all about making a difference.

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A Healthy Heart for Salt Lake City W H E N A F RIE N D J O K I N G LY SUGGESTED HE PLANT A CHURCH IN SALT L AKE C I T Y, U TA H , J A S O N PA R R I S H L AUGHED— HARD. THIRTEEN YE ARS L ATER, HE AND HIS WIFE, ERICA, LAUNCHED THE WELL SLC.

I have LDS [Mormon] family in Salt Lake City said to me, ‘Hey, man, wouldn’t it be hilarious if you planted a church in Utah?’” Jason Parrish recalls. “We laughed, but a proverbial bomb went off inside. That off-handed comment turned into a vision and dream for the next 13 years.”

Jason grew up with his mom in Seattle, visiting his father in Salt Lake City during school holidays and summer breaks. He loved Utah’s skiing, snowboarding, and outdoor activities.

“I always wanted to come back here,” Jason says. “I love this place.”

In fifth grade, he met his future wife. The pair dated off and on through high school, then got serious after Jason went to college in Australia, and finally married on January 1, 2005. In 2006, they moved to Arizona to serve as youth pastors.

Jason’s Utah dream simmered.

“Every year on our anniversary, we download how the previous year went,” Jason explains. “Every year, we would ask ourselves, ‘Is it time yet?’”

At their anniversary dinner in “A BUDDY WHO KNEW

2010, something shifted, but it would be two more years before the dream became reality. In October 2011, the couple and their two young children were on a cruise when Jason caught a virus that attacked his heart. He landed in a hospital in Mexico, not knowing if he would recover. When he did, he contacted trusted pastors Paul and Andi Andrew (Liberty Church, NYC) and asked them how to plant a church.

“They said unequivocally, ‘You need to go with ARC,’” Jason says.

“More than anything else, ARC helped us create a healthy heart. If you have a healthy heart, then the body functions appropriately.”

PL ANTING IN A ‘FOREIGN COUNTRY’

The Parrishes and eight other Phoenix families moved to Salt Lake City in 2012 to launch The Well SLC. “It was very countercultural to plant an evangelical, nondenominational church in this area,” Jason says.

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“[It was] like trying to plant a church in a foreign country with a very established national religion.”

“The lack of education and strong adherence to the LDS Church made it like trying to plant a church in a foreign country with a very established national religion.”

The Well team found a school to rent, hung 20,000 door hangers, and 150 people showed up that first Sunday in February 2013. Over the first year, the numbers dropped to about 60.

“That was a hard, hard moment of saying, ‘Is this going to work?’”

Jason shares. “We resolved to keep working the plan.”

For the next two years, The Well struggled. The school was expensive to rent, so they moved to a warehouse space, which saved money but cost visibility. They grew slowly, to about 150 by mid-2016 Last October, they moved into a former theater space in a strip mall and hosted a trunk-or-treat event that drew 600 people.

A SEASON OF FORWA RD MOV EMEN T

“It started going crazy from there,” Jason says. “Currently, we’re running over 400. It’s a season of exponential growth and forward movement for us.”

He feels the turning point was remaining anchored to the community. “We just kept saying, ‘We’re here, and we’re not going anywhere.’”

At The Well, community is first; belief is second. That draws people who left faith altogether after leaving the LDS Church. The church works to assist women fleeing the polygamous Fundamentalist Church

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of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) culture, and Erica leads a thriving women’s ministry.

“Erica feels a lot of the oppression, the way women are treated as a whole in this state,” Jason says. “It’s important for people to see that she’s not just the pastor’s wife, but also a pastor here.”

THE ONGOING STORYLINE

The Well hopes to start a Dream Center and open a substance abuse recovery center.

“We anchor ourselves on the model that you can belong before you believe,” Jason explains. “A lady who stepped out of the LDS church came to our church for six months, built relationships, and then accepted Jesus into her heart last week.

“That is the storyline for us, to make people feel loved on, in community, to get them into small groups, and to services. Just being around the kindness of God, that’s what draws people.”

Jason has even seen some of his own LDS family members visit The Well.

“My uncle and some of my relatives came to our Christmas Eve service,” Jason says. “I think God is just connecting all the dots. This year is the story, the culmination of everything we’ve been doing. We are launching a second campus in another part of our city. We are going to double-down and plant again. We have a healthy heart, and healthy things grow.”

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Big Hope in Small Town Rural Illinois SE TH AND K ARIS BALTZELL ONCE THOUGHT THEY WOULD DO MINISTRY IN A BIG, “SEXY” PL ACE. INSTEAD, IN 2012 T HE Y L AUNCHED CI T Y HOPE CHURCH IN A SMALL MIDWESTERN CITY WITH SOME GRE AT, BIG PROBL EMS. was born and raised in Centralia, Illinois. Population: 13,000. Like many small-town residents, all he wanted was to get out of the city where 90 percent of school children qualify for free or reduced lunches and drug overdose is the county’s leading cause of death.

“I tried to move away several times,” Seth says. “But I couldn’t stay away. God kept pulling me back.”

Seth and his wife, Karis, met far from Illinois on a mission field in India. When they married, the pierced, tattooed pair knew they didn’t fit the traditional pastor mold. They worked as youth pastors in Texas, then back in Centralia, finally settling as student pastors in Houston, Karis’ hometown. In Houston, their pastor encouraged them to attend the ARC Conference in 2010.

“Basically, our pastor told us we had to go,” Seth says. “We pulled SETH BALTZELL

into Healing Place Church, and I thought, What kind of church is that? Then we went to the first session, and it was like everything we ever dreamed of about church.”

Still, the Baltzells didn’t plan to launch a church.

“We were moving on to bigger and better things,” Seth says. “I watched all these guys going down front, accepting the call to plant churches. I thought they were crazy.”

In 2011, Seth attended the ARC Conference again. Something was stirring.

PIERCED HE ARTS FOR CENTRALIA

“I didn’t even know church planting was a thing,” Seth says. “Through prayer and being exposed to the ARC, I thought, Man, I think this is something God wants us to do.”

He and Karis scouted some “big, sexy places” to plant a church on the East Coast, returning to his hometown of Centralia only for visits.

Each time, the poverty and hopelessness pierced their hearts.

“We would pull in crying and pull out crying,” Seth says. “We just ARCCHURCHES.COM

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knew it was where God wanted us. Our pastor affirmed it.

We left a really great-paying job and our big, new house and moved back into my parents’ basement in Centralia.”

The Baltzells went through ARC training, assembled their launch team, and asked the superintendent if they could use the high school for their new church. He agreed.

The school board said no.

“That was the worst day of church planting for me,” Seth says. “I was making ten dollars an hour working part-time for a friend, my team was only halfway there, and now we had nowhere to meet.”

Then God did some really cool stuff, Seth says.

The next day, he discovered that an old school building was up for auction. With $1,000 in his pocket, he went.

Only one other bidder showed up. Seth bought the school

alliance, and even law enforcement. The church gives the school storage space for home goods, clothing, and furniture for students in need. Every summer, the church hosts a cookout for police officers and local officials.

“I meet frequently with the mayor and city councilmen, and as president of the ministerial alliance I try to help other pastors here. We like to think we have a huge impact.”

FA R MERS A ND ME T H A DDIC T S

The church draws a cross-section of racially and socioeconomically diverse people each Sunday, Seth says.

“We have farmers sitting next to meth addicts sitting next to business owners sitting next to factory workers.”

“We are called to bring the hope of Jesus into a place that’s broken.”

for $7,500, putting 10 percent down. He had enough left to pay the first month’s insurance.

“We were broke, but we had a building,” Seth says.

“From there, we raised the money we had to and ARC matched it. God put it all together.”

In February 2012 at City Hope’s launch, 400 people showed up. Attendance dropped in the months following, then steadily began to grow. Today, the church is 500-strong.

SERVING VIA CRITICAL PARTNERSHIPS

Seh thinks City Hope reaches people because they have a “bit of an edge.”

“Most of the churches in small cities are traditional churches that have been around forever. When I’m on stage with the worship band behind me, I’m the oldest (at 36) and the least-tattooed person up there.

City Hope serves locally by partnering with other organizations, including the local schools, the ministerial

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“Our little county is No. 1 in Illinois for suicides and No. 8 for child abuse and neglect. You could say it’s the most hopeless county in Illinois. We’re called to bring the hope of Jesus into a place that’s broken.”

The church’s 10-year vision is to alleviate more of the brokenness and to plant other churches all over Southern Illinois. They want to have a Dream Center, and Seth would love to have “a national voice” in planting and pastoring churches in small cities across America.

A constant challenge remains the lack of resources.

Even though the church is growing, many congregants are jobless or underemployed.

“We feel like we have one of the greatest churches around, and feel like it’s healthy, but the resources part is still hard because of the poverty rate,” Seth explains. “If we get a couple in the door, and both of them have jobs, they are like the top givers in our church. So resources have been a problem. Then God just provides things like almost-free buildings. We think the best things are ahead.”

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Vision for Los Angeles’ First-Generation Americans ELIAS RECINOS PLANNED TO FOLLOW IN HIS FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS AND SUCCEED HIM IN THE CHURCH HE PLANTED—BUT GOD HAD OTHER PLANS. was the first person in his Guatemalan immigrant family to be born in the United States. Growing up in California, he watched his father, Edwin, minister to other immigrants, eventually launching Iglesia Ciudad en lo Alto (City on a Hill Church) in Santa Clarita, 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

“My parents felt God calling them to plant a church for their people— those who live in what, to them, seems like a foreign country,” Elias says. “I ELIAS RECINOS

grew up in that Spanish-speaking church, but got saved when I was 16.

That’s when I really opened up to Jesus and went pretty radically all-in.”

Elias worked with small groups, served in different capacities, and became youth pastor at City on a Hill when he was 18.

“My father wanted me to succeed him and become the next pastor,” Elias says. “That kind of became my life plan. However, the closer we got, the more I started feeling in my heart, ‘Maybe that’s not God’s will for me.’”

Elias and his father had several conversations about his future at the church.

“My father said to pray for two days, asking the Lord to clearly tell me His will,” Elias recalls. “He said he would do the same. I came back two days later and told him, ‘God gave me a peace that I’m not supposed to be the lead pastor at your church.’ My dad said the same thing.”

It was tough for both men, but the senior Recinos released his son to start his own church in the same city.

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T HE MOS T EFFECTIV E WAY

“My father said, ‘Go plant in your language and with your vision,’” Elias shares. “He also told me to cast my vision within his congregation, and to take with me those who caught the vision. My wife, Melisa, and I took about 30 to 35 adults from his church to plant with us.”

Elias held Vision Sunday 2015 at City on a Hill in September. A team formed and started planning, aiming for a launch date of January 2016.

“We had no idea how to plant a church,” Elias admits. “Right after Vision Sunday, I got a call from Dan Ohlerking [who oversees pastoral engagement for ARC], inviting me to come to an ARC Conference. I didn’t even know Dan. We still haven’t quite figured out how he got my number. In October I went, and my mind was blown away.”

Elias immediately knew they had to push back the Limitless launch date and learn more.

“We started the ARC training, learning as much as we could about how to do this the right way, the most effective way,” Elias says.

He and Melisa completed the training, raised the funds they needed for ARC to match, and through some ARC friends got into the Regal movie theater in the best side of town at the mall. Limitless Church launched September 25, 2016.

More than 300 attended, and 23 people made decisions for Christ that first Sunday.

“The launch was amazing, and week two was still great,” Elias says.

“Then we had a bunch of weird stuff happen. Like there was a marathon where they blocked all the streets on Sunday, and you couldn’t get to the theater. Little by little through Christmas, our numbers dipped.”

PREPARED FOR DECLINE

Elias says ARC had prepared them for the drop, and once 2017 arrived, Limitless really started to grow.

“We pick up momentum every week,” he says. “Every week, people are getting saved. We are getting as

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many as we can right into the growth track, right into small groups.

“I love thinking that Limitless small groups are invading the city right now; that my wife and I may be having dinner, and somebody in the city is being touched by Limitless right then.”

The Limitless dream is to bring more people into relationship with Jesus, plant more campuses in the Santa Clarita area, and to raise up leaders and influencers in their city.

The church is filled with young families, most of whom are first-generation Americans like Elias.

“Santa Clarita is the place you want to come and raise kids when you’re ready to settle down and leave L.A. We want to help these young marriages be there as they build families, to help them be better parents.

We want Limitless to feel like home.”

“I love thinking that Limitless small groups are invading the city right now.”

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when Greg Surratt [now ARC president] and Billy Hornsby envisioned the planting of 2,000 life-giving churches, it was an American dream. Turns out, God had bigger plans. In the past five years, ARC has gone global. Today, ARC church-planting networks exist on every continent except Antarctica.

Greg shares the trajectory: “It was actually gradual at first. We would have pastors globally attend our ARC Conference and ask about being a part. The actual catalyst probably came when Canada wanted to plant an ARC church, and we were forced to engage at a deeper level and see what that would look like. From there, doors opened in Ireland, Asia, Australia, the Netherlands and other places fairly rapidly.”

“We have always focused on planting U.S. churches,” adds Michael Smith, director of ARC Global. “We felt churches giving to world missions was the goal of the local church, not necessarily ARC’s vision.”

However, international planters and pastors found out about ARC and started making their way to ARC conferences and ARC trainings. Michael estimates that 5 percent of the leaders who attend an ARC Conference are international. Almost every one of ARC’s global planters has been to the States for some type of ARC event.

“So out of 4,000 leaders we’ll have 200 or so,” Michael explains.

“They come and see the relational connection that ARC has, and they say, ‘Man, I think we can do this in our nation.’”

Although Canada opened the doors to the first ARC-related churches outside the United States, Michael says it was Ireland that helped propel ARC officially into ARC Global. The ARC team quickly realized they couldn’t SIXTEEN YEARS AGO,

A Life-Giving Church in Every City and Community in the World ARC IS COMING ALONGSIDE PLANTERS FOR GLOBAL AND ETERNAL IMPACT

By Natalie Gillespie

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go to every nation to train church planters in foreign countries. Instead, ARC could support indigenous pastors in different nations as they formed their own ARC-related networks.

“Ireland comes along and says, ‘We feel like we could replicate what you guys do. We’ll plant our own churches if you’ll recognize us and share your name with us,’”

momentum,” Greg explains. “Just as it was in the early years of church planting in America, there’s a lot of underground work before seeds start to sprout and grow fruit.

Overnight successes tend to take a few years.”

Now that a few years have passed since the first ARC Networks got their start, momentum is growing. ARC as an organization, Michael says, focused on building a

“Why not a life-giving church in every community in the world? If God is able to do abundantly more than all we could ask or imagine, why not push the limits of what’s possible?”

Michael remembers. “It was a big stretch for us, but it was what worked best with our organization.”

ARC Ireland required two charters (one for the independent Ireland and one for the Republic of Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom), two bank accounts and a lead team comprised of pastors from both countries.

Today, more than 200 pastors and leaders gather for ARC Ireland’s annual conferences in a country (North and South) where almost 85 percent of the population identifies as Roman Catholic.

Canada quickly followed, forming a planting organization of partner churches that planted its tenth church in March. Today, ARC Global includes Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Brazil, and Asian countries (unnamed due to political sensitivities), with other networks in the works in additional African and Asian countries, as well as Italy.

ARC Global exists to help lead teams of pastors in each nation create their own ARC Network, complete with training, hangouts, matching funds for planters, and conferences. ARC Global Networks are founded on the same principles and employ the ARC training models, tailored to fit the context of their own culture.

“The challenges have been interpreting ARC principles in other cultures and helping global lead teams get

track for international lead teams to help them form, solidify, and build a partner base that can invest in new church plants.

“We would sow into that first church as a gift, but there is a process to get there,” he says. “In other words, we’re looking for leaders to already have a partner base and people giving into a fund in their country. We’ll come alongside that and help them plant their first church.”

Michael never tires of seeing God’s hand move through a leader’s uncertain steps of faith.

“Whether it’s planting churches, growing a family, or building a business, there’s excitement at first when you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s usually followed by a sense of trepidation and becoming overwhelmed when you figure out that what you don’t know might be bigger than what you can do. Usually that’s followed by, ‘Wasn’t that amazing how God showed up!’ That’s pretty much been our story, over and over again at ARC.” For Greg, ARC Global represents an infinite opportunity. “We believe that ARC Global could actually become larger than what we see in America,” he says. “Why not a life-giving church in every community in the world? If God is able to do abundantly more than all we could ask or imagine, why not push the limits of what’s possible?”

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ARC Ireland PAYING IT FORWARD ON THE EMERALD ISLE

Jamie & Ludmila Corcoran of The Lighthouse Church in Navan, Ireland, why ARC is needed in the Emerald Isle, and he’ll tell you straight up, “Ninety percent of the people in my land are going to hell, and I’ve got a problem with that. The gates of hell are having a great time here.”

Although more than 80 percent of Ireland’s population professes to be Roman Catholic, Jamie says people are steeped in tradition, not a personal relationship with Christ. He aims to change that with Lighthouse Church and other life-giving churches about to be planted by the new ARC Global Network in the spiritually and politically troubled nation.

“I became lead pastor of a very small church nine years ago, and for the first several years just tried to maintain what I knew,” Jamie says. “It ASK PASTOR JAMIE CORCORAN

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“Ninety percent of the people in my land are going to hell, and I’ve got a problem with that.”

didn’t grow, so I became very dissatisfied. I wanted to see lives changed. I wanted to make a difference.”

Jamie went searching for answers, and at a conference in Belfast he met Pastor Sebastiaan van Wessem, lead pastor of Thousand Hills International Church of the Netherlands.

“He said to me, ‘Have you heard of this thing called the ARC?’ and all I could think of was Noah’s ark.”

Jamie flew to the United States to attend an ARC Conference, applied ARC principles to “replant” Lighthouse Church, and saw the congregation grow from 80 in 2012 to more than 400 today.

“We changed the ethos, the philosophy, from being a church that just existed for Christians to becoming a church that helped non-Christians find Christ,” Jamie explains.

He also helped form the ARC Global Network in Ireland, which launched in October 2013. The first ARC Ireland church is scheduled to launch this September in Dublin.

Having witnessed ongoing conflict and unrest between the North and the South, Jamie says it’s a whole new experience to work on an executive team from all over Ireland.

“The ARC guys are generous, and it truly is life-giving,” he says.

“That cuts against the grain of Irish culture. We’re usually sarcastic and not the most confident people.

“We have such a heritage of Roman Catholicism.

Planting evangelical churches is like a minnow or a goldfish swimming up the Mississippi River.”

Because the average church size in Ireland is about 25 people, sustaining a full-time pastor is a

challenge. ARC’s model of providing training and matching finances to those ready to plant, then having each plant pay it forward to future churches, could change the church landscape nationwide.

“That’s part of the genius of ARC,” Jamie says. “Resources are very scarce here, financially and human. In the U.S., a church of 50 can support a full-time pastor. Here, it takes about 200.”

Despite the struggles, Jamie is excited to see what’s next for ARC Ireland and the nation he loves.

“I’m here, I’m alive, I’m still fighting, sometimes on my knees,” he says. “We’ve had 133 commitments to Christ since September. For us, that's like full-on revival.”

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ARC Australia LEAVING ETERNAL FOOTPRINTS ON THE LAND DOWN UNDER

Joel & Ellen Cave lead pastor of Glow Church in Gold Coast, Australia— the first ARC church in the Land Down Under—says that a “God encounter” upended his life from young adult and worship pastor to church planter.

A native Australian, Joel grew up in Petersham Assembly of God church in Sydney, where he spent 27 years involved in worship as a teenager and then as an adult. Joel met his wife Ellen at Petersham, and together they led the young adults ministry until 2007—when they felt called to move 526 miles south to the Gold Coast and plant a church.

“A literal God encounter one night while getting off a plane left me with no choice but to be obedient to God,” Joel says. “Anything else would have been disobedience; it was that strong. I knew He had spoken so JOEL CAVE,

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“Our vision is to raise up leaders, so they start churches in multiple cities around Australia and the world.”

clearly, and the first question I had was, ‘How do you start a church?’”

The couple received the spiritual blessing from their pastor to relocate and began trying to figure out who was planting churches well. Joel’s research led him to ARC. After a few conversations and introductions, it was clear that ARC offered the right relationships and systems to pursue the vision God had shown him, he says, adding that the relationships he has cultivated in ARC have been “so incredible” in every step of the planting process, both in launching and post-planting.

“God always uses relationships to grow your future,” Joel says.

Glow Church opened its doors to 350 people in April 2013 and to date has grown to more than 2,000.

Joel has now helped start the ARC Australia Network to plant other

churches, with the first plant scheduled for later this year when a second Glow Church campus opens in Sydney.

“At the end of the first year, we had 600 people calling Glow home,” Joel says. “We have seen more than 1,500 people find Jesus, with many being baptized and going through our Growth Track.”

Thinking about successes and challenges, Joel says he hopes the lessons he’s learning will help other church planters.

“Success? Keeping the balance of a healthy family, marriage, and friendships in the midst of a fast-growing environment,” he explains. “Challenges? Making sure our structures and systems can continue to stay ahead of our growth.

Keeping physically healthy, as well, with a rapidly changing schedule.

If you’re just getting started, don’t neglect this.”

Glow Church takes seriously the ARC model of paying it forward to other new churches.

“We have some exciting church plants happening here, and we’re able to sow resources forward,” Joel says.

“Having the privilege of being the first ARC church in Australia, we also sense a great responsibility in helping others experience the same support and belief.

“Our vision is to raise up leaders, so they start churches in multiple cities around Australia and the world.

We want to help define the future of what Church can look like in an ever-changing world.”

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ARC Canada PL ANTING LIFE-GIVING CHURCHES IN THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

Jonathan & Natasha Lambert Jonathan Lambert and his wife, Natasha, dreamed of starting a church. Not a small group or a Bible study, but a thriving church in Calgary, Alberta.

“We’ve always loved the local church and wanted to create a space that people could trust with their non-Christian friends and family,” Jonathan says. “We had heard about ARC through friends who had been through the planting process, and so we reached out in summer 2012.

Our very first conversation was with Michael Smith, and right from the start we felt the support and encouragement we’d been looking for.”

Jonathan says ARC validated the couple’s dream to plant a church.

Even though ARC Global didn’t exist yet, the Lamberts went through ARC training, built a team and launched Experience Church.

FOR YEARS,

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“We’re training, equipping, and releasing new churches; and there is no better mission investment.”

“They told us it was possible and that they wanted to help,” Jonathan remembers. “We attended churchplanter training, had our assessment, and felt ready and equipped to step into what God had placed on our lives. What we learned in our training process and the relationships we built made the difference for us. In a few short months, we had gone from feeling isolated to having a tribe of people running with us and cheering us on.”

Over the last three years, Jonathan says someone has received Christ every single Sunday at Experience Church.

“When you launch, everything feels like a milestone,” Jonathan says.

“Our first Easter, Christmas, baptisms, and baby dedication were all huge. We hit numeric milestones like crossing the 500-attendance barrier,

then 1,000, then 1,500. Launching our first campus two months ago, hiring our first staff member, then our 10th staff member. I could go on.

It seems like we’re constantly celebrating something new and exciting.”

Jonathan also had a desire to create an ARC Global Network in Canada and helped form the team that has now helped 10 new ARC churches plant in the nation.

“When we launched in 2012, ARC had yet to plant a church outside of the U.S., so there was no funding available,” he says. “Regardless, since day one of our church, we have invested two percent into church planters. We, along with a few others, have officially brought ARC to Canada. We’re training, equipping, and releasing new churches; and there is no better mission investment. Now we’re watching as Canadian churches

are reinvesting financial resources in new churches. It’s amazing.”

Jonathan’s goal is to plant five campuses in Calgary within five years so that there is an Experience Church within 15 minutes of every person in the city.

“We’ve said from the beginning that we’re going to do everything we can so that everyone can come to Jesus,” he explains. “I hope that five years from now, our church is still going all out for the ‘one.’ I can’t wait to see what we look like in 20 years when my kids and their friends are leading the charge and building the Kingdom in our city and beyond.”

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Through the Waves F O R A R C L E A D E R S D I N O A N D D E LY N N RIZZO, CHURCH PL ANTING HAS BEEN A SERIES OF PADDLING, WIPEOUTS, AND BIG WAVE RIDING. NOW IN THEIR SECOND HALF— CELEBR ATING 25 YE ARS TOGE THER IN MINISTRY—THE CO U P L E S TAY S SIDE BY SIDE W I T H PL AN TERS AND THEIR FAMILIES, PREPARING THEM TO IDENTIF Y THE SW ELLS A ND CATCH THEIR OW N DISTINCT WAVE. Interview by Lindy Lowry

what church planting is like, and he’ll tell you it’s a lot like surfing. Sometimes you ride the wave. Sometimes the wave rides you.

This fall marks 25 years since Dino and his wife, DeLynn, paddled offshore to plant Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In October 1992, Dino felt called to start a church. Six weeks later, Healing Place launched. In the first years, the Rizzos fought storms.

They lost their grip on their boards sometimes, but they kept paddling, finally catching the waves God sent until Healing Place grew to nearly 10,000. Along the way, they developed a passion for other church planters, co-founding ARC and helping more than 600 new churches launch in the past 16 years. As Dino says, the Rizzos have "paddled out by ourselves, wiped out, been caught in the middle, been pulled under, and even felt like they were drowning."

Now on the back side of the wave, the couple is ready to take on the role of surf coach, teaching and encouraging prospective planters who are still on the beach, planters who are just paddling out, and the planters who after a bad wipeout are unsure if they’ll ever head back in to what they perceive as dangerous waters.

In this interview spotlighting the couple’s quarter century in ministry, the Rizzos share some of what they’ve learned about staying upright on the board and their best advice for future church planters still on the beach.

ASK ARC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DINO RIZZO

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What was church planting like 25 years ago compared to church planting today?

Dino: Nothing has changed, and everything has changed.

You still have to be called. You have to know that planting is what God has for you to do. It’s the same work ethic.

It’s the same principle of getting out there and reaching people that have either left church or never been to church. At the same time, everything has changed. People are sharing the recipe. They want to help you learn. There are a lot of instructors and teachers now. There are financial resources for planters and all of the different coaching networks. ARC really exists to help somebody launch a church in a resource-rich environment. When we started out, we were what I call, “resource poor.”

DeLynn: We were such babies. I was 23, and Dino was 28. We didn’t really have a format. We had no friends or anyone we knew of that had ever started a church. We just had the context of the church we had been a part of before, just things we had learned from that, things we wanted to do.

The Rizzos first held services in an old, A-frame church building with an “icky mothball smell,” DeLynn remembers, and lived in the small parsonage next door. They brought home $100 a week, and DeLynn worked full time to keep the couple afloat. Dino took odd jobs. Together, the pair determined to keep paddling.

DeLynn: We had a core group of people we were close to, friends that supported us, rallied around us, and would do whatever it took at the church—everything from helping clean it to manning the nursery. I think we learned a lot of things through trial and error.

“We had this Kingdom mentality. We wanted to make a difference in the body of Christ, in the ‘Big C’ church, not just our church.”

– DINO RIZZO

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What were some of the key ingredients to your growth in the beginning? What did you do right?

DeLynn: Right from the beginning, we had a heart to help people. Dino always had a heart for the forgotten, for the poor, for the people nobody else wanted to help. The guys would help people move, or move a widow, or a single mom. I remember when we had this garage sale one day.

We were raising money for a sound system, and we had all this junk everybody had collected. I remember Dino going out there and saying, “Take the price tags off; let’s give it all away.” That started us down the path of generosity and birthed in us a passion for loving people and just giving away resources.

I remember us talking about our identity as a church and just asking, “Who are we?” I was talking to my parents, and my mom said, “Well, everything you’re saying is a healing place for a hurting world.” So, that was how the church got its name. Finding your lane is so important.

Every church planter should discover his or her unique thumbprint, or assignment, for who you are as a church.

Dino: It takes a while for you to get comfortable in your skin, to find your identity.

DeLynn: The sooner you can do that, the better, especially for the wives of planters.

Dino: We didn’t know much. I knew that we were supposed to reach the poor. I had that one idea. And I knew that we were to be generous. I had seen that in Joel Osteen’s dad, John Osteen. I was very impressed with his generosity, and his heart for people.

DeLynn: You’ve got to try things and work really hard.

It doesn’t come easy or overnight. I think a lot of church planters today look at Church of the Highlands, and New Life, and Celebration, and all these amazing churches out there that are so large now, and think, That’s how we should be in a few years. But it just doesn’t happen like that. It takes time.

Dino: So often we’re highlighting the big wave riders.

But like DeLynn says, the big waves don’t happen overnight; they take time. Most of the people we tend to hear from have already paddled through the waves and have broken the harbor. They’re out there in a better place. No surfer wants to get caught on the inside where the waves are crashing, and you inevitably lose your board. That’s what church planting is; it’s on the inside. You start growing, and it goes from there—from 12 to 32, to 72, to 202.

Suddenly, you start riding the waves that God sends you. I love what Rick Warren always says about the fact that you can’t make waves, but you can be prepared to ride them when God sends them.

The other thing that contributed to our growth was the fact that we were student pastors. So at first, we kind of led church like a youth group. We had life-giving

weekends. At the time, we didn’t know they were life-giving services, but looking back, they were exactly that. One thing we had going for us was our experience with student pastoring. When you do youth ministry, you’re forced to be life-giving.

So, even in the beginning, we had life-giving worship services.

Church planting is fraught with tensions, especially in the early days of uncertainty. How did you guys manage to stay together?

DeLynn: For us, one of the No. 1 things we learned was to do ministry together as much as you can.

Doing ministry together helps you stay together. A lot of pastors’ wives who are coming in now will say, “I don’t feel called to be a pastor’s wife.”

I encourage them that while they don’t have to be on stage, or lead worship, they do need to find their niche so they feel a part of the ministry. Getting together as a team where you’re focused on the same goals and dreams for the church unites you. It helps you just stay connected. When I had babies at home and wasn’t able to be as involved, I felt more disconnected from Dino then, because I was just not able to connect at that level very much right then. And there are seasons.

As you grew, you started sowing into other church planters. Sometimes churches that grow encounter a whole new set of challenges. Once you pass that 2,000 mark, other things like ego, buildings, and just sustaining staff and ministries come into play that often get in the way of church planting.

Dino: I saw the growth and provision as, “Wow, we’ve got a bigger church; that means we have more resources to help people.” Church planting has to become a priority across the board in your leadership, in your government, in your values, because you can just suddenly start eating your seed and take on the mentality of, “All this growth is about our church.”

Pretty soon, all of your resources are going into your church under the

Paddling & Planting Side-by-Side Dino Rizzo wants one thing—for planters to have partners who understand exactly what they’re going through. As ARC’s executive director, Dino says the association is working hard to develop tools that will better prepare those who plan to plant.

“We’re working very hard to ensure that we’re going to have the most modern, relevant tools for planting churches in the future— urban churches, diverse churches, across the board.”

Dino says ARC is doing that by identifying pastors who planted in all different contexts—urban, rural, socioeconomically, and ethnically diverse. You name the mix; ARC wants to make a match.

“We are identifying guys who have planted in the last couple years, and we are making sure that their story and the things they’re learning are online, and it’s connected to the guys that are planting now,” Rizzo explains. “So, if there’s a guy that’s planting in an urban setting a year from now, I want to match him and let him be coached by a guy that planted this year in an urban setting.

We’re trying to do a better job and be very intentional in surrounding that planter with a 360-degree view of what they’re going to be coming into.”

Dino says that in addition to web-based stories and support, planters will be matched in the Launch Intensive, attempting to customize the group so that when they attend training, they will be coached by those from the same context and culture as well as trained with those planting in the same context and culture.

“This is what we call ‘in the same food group’ of planting,” Dino says. “So, we can say, ‘Hey, you’re planting in an urban setting. Let us introduce you to a guy who planted in an urban setting.

He planted 30 months ago. He’s been successful.’”

Even after launch training, the seasoned pastor will continue to coach the new planters.

“They’ve now sat at a table with four couples that are in the same context, so, there’s a specialized, specific friendship that has been birthed,” Dino explains. “It’s almost like they’re in this grouping where they can experience life along the same path. The coach is coaching them, but our goal is that they’re self-coaching through the friendship that they started also.”

Dino says planters and spouses are included, so that regional friendships and partnerships can form. He’s excited about ARC’s intentionality because he and his wife, DeLynn, lacked connections when they first planted 25 years ago.

“Never do ministry alone,” Dino counsels. “There’s a danger to that. Also, when you have a good moment, if you’re a lone ranger, you have no one to celebrate the win with—your launch, your first Easter, or when you break 200, 500, 750, etc. We’re going to make sure there’s somebody there to whoop and holler with you and to get fired up about the way you rode that wave.”

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hidden guise of, “We want to reach more people for God.” Church planting becomes a distant goal. You must make a decision early on and intentionally answer the questions: Will church planting be a priority in every aspect of our church, especially our budget? If we say it’s a priority, what changes are we making to be a church that plants and resources churches?

By year eight, Healing Place had more than 2,000 members, and other youth pastors—feeling called to start their own churches—began contacting Dino for help and advice. The Rizzos began helping new planters financially and eventually connected with Billy Hornsby and Greg Surratt, who were in the beginning stages of creating ARC. Dino: Billy and I had breakfast and over biscuits and gravy, he tells me, “I’m talking to Greg Surratt about this; do you want to be a part of it?

Why don’t we come together and create this war chest of resources?

You’re already giving away a bunch of money. Why don’t you just let me facilitate it?”

I knew I wanted to be part of something that came alongside church planters. We didn’t want people to go through what we went through. We all know leaders and churches with abundant resources, yet they don’t have a true Kingdom mindset. They only see things through the lens of the church they’re growing, not the Kingdom. I remember thinking early on that not only did we want to build our church, we wanted to build the Kingdom of God. So, we had this Kingdom mentality. We wanted to make a difference in the body of Christ, in the “Big C” church, not just our own church. I saw this modeled for me by so many ARC leaders, pastors who have the courage and heart to say, “I’m not just going to build my thing; I’m going to build on what other people are doing.” I may never know or

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meet some of these guys, but I know that because someone gave to us, I want to give to others. That’s the way ARC exists.

You’ve been struggling planters, successful large-church pastors, and now you are mentoring and working with many church planters.

What are you enjoying the most?

Dino: For me, one of the most fun and exciting things in the world is every day watching these young couples kind of get their equipment and paddle out into the deep blue, in their communities, their cities, and in their hearts. There’s nothing like planters preparing to ride the waves that God sends them.

What advice would you give pastors as their churches begin to grow and they start to search for or raise up leaders and teams from within?

Dino: In the early days, you’re doing everything. About a year into it, I realized that I needed to raise up some leaders. That’s why we tell ARC planters to slow down, take your time, and really count the cost.

Get your equipment together [before planting] because once you paddle out, you’ve got to be ready. Ain’t no turning back—you can’t go back to the beach. You begin to develop a launch team, spend some time in some preview moments, focus on a lot of sermon prep and then sooner than what you might think, you look around and you’ve got some people who have some gifts for ministry, and they’re willing to volunteer and help.

Early on, I made a decision I would never do anything alone. So, for example, if I was visiting people in the hospital, I took someone with me. If I was going to meet with a community leader, somebody went with me. Whatever, I did I made sure someone was shadowing me, learning. Those moments of apprenticing help you identify people who have a gift and can really help. Suddenly,

you’ve become exponential. It’s Jesus Discipleship 101.

What should planters be looking for in potential leaders who will be part of their dream team?

Dino: We discovered that young people have more time to spend with outreach, worship, and kids. But I’ve also learned they can be a potential liability. I tell planters that you need to make space for the mature— those people who have lived and experienced life—especially on your dream team. The bottom line is that you need to have all of the different tools in the tool chest when you plant your church. You’re going to need the energy of the young, and compassion of college students/young adults, and you’ll need the learned wisdom and insights of married couples and older people. I tell planters you have to think about how to both reach and teach all of the generations.

Now that you’re helping lead ARC, what do you want new planters and young pastors to know about the resources available to them?

Dino: The biggest thing I want planters and young pastors to know is that we’re here to help you! We want to do everything we can to help you cultivate a life-giving church and to get you moving. We want to help you get the best possible equipment—tools, resources, knowledge, a shoulder to cry on—for your launch. We want to help you learn to not panic.

I have church planters calling me all the time, and they’re panicking because something is coming unraveled. That’s when I say, “Hold up, let’s slow down and process this.” Take a moment to realize you’re going to get through this. You’re not alone.

DeLynn: I want them to know ARC’s behind them, supporting them, encouraging them. We’re their biggest cheerleaders!

Launch Essentials to Reach Your City C H RI S H O D G E S D R A W S F R O M H I S E A RLY DAY S O F M I N IS T RY TO G I V E P L A N T ERS INVALUABLE WISDOM AND PRACTICAL C O U N S E L F O R T RU LY K N O W I N G YO U R COMMUNIT Y AND CONTEXT— AND THE STR ATEGY BEHIND YOUR LOCATION AND MARKETING TO BRING THEM TO A LIF E- GIVING CHURCH.

By Chris Hodges

“LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.”

There’s a reason why this familiar phrase has become a standard mantra for any new business wanting to succeed. It carries the same weight for planters.

If you’re planting a new church or coming alongside new planters to resource and encourage them, you understand the difficulty in finding (and keeping) a location for gathering. Identifying and securing a great location is both critical and challenging. Before you go out and rent something, I encourage you to find specific research for your geographic area. ARC also has studies showing how different venues elicit a different type of response.

CHOOSING A VENUE

Schools are an obvious and typically effective location for a new plant. But did you know that there's a marked difference between gathering in a high school and gathering in an elementary school? I have some great friends who started in elementary schools and did a good job, but they’re still wondering what things would have been like if they could have gotten a high school. An elementary school doesn’t usually have a stage or theater area, which means you’ll have to spend more money on production. Even the bathrooms are smaller and will need creative solutions. Movie theaters continue to ARCCHURCHES.COM

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work very well. So do community centers. For obvious reasons and reasons we may not understand, hotels have one of the lowest success rates for church plants.

Whatever location you find, contact at least three other church planters in other cities who use that same type of venue and then ask them for tips to learn how to use it well. If you end up in a movie theater, ARC could easily connect you with planters that are thriving in a movie theater.

Ask how they dealt with children and nursery spaces, how they’ve worked the foyers. Whatever venue you end up with, be an expert at using it.

I’ll tell you straight up that I think portable, not permanent, is the way to go for your first location. You really don’t know how everything’s going to play out so committing a large amount of finances to a lease or a purchase just isn’t wise. Plus, the portability factor gives you many options for growth.

Keep in mind that finding a location is not just, “I found a place.”

Every church leader will tell you it's critical to find the right place to plant.

At ARC, we recommend starting that search as much as a year out from the launch. Whatever you do, don't wait until the last minute.

FI V E L OCAT ION FAC T ORS

When you start your location search, begin with five important criteria: High visibility. Not just visibility with your eyes. Visibility means that the city knows where your location is. The school that we started in was such a popular high school that they called it “the school.” Physically, it wasn’t extremely visible. The school was actually in a neighborhood among some trees. You couldn't see the building, but everyone knew where it was. Of course, being visible is also important. Look for a recognizable location where people know the landmarks and intersections around it.

Accessibility. How easy is it for people to get on and off the property? Some planters look into

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storefront-types of situations, which are wonderful as far as the building goes. But usually the parking is very minimal. That’s another reason why high schools are excellent venues. Most have ample parking. Be careful not to cheat here. Even some of my pastor friends build these phenomenal buildings with no place for people to park. This is a major consideration in your search. And if you’ve already launched and your parking lot is full, it’s time to add another service and make your worship service more accessible.

Size: The size of the room is extremely important. It can be too small or too big. You want to create a critical mass in the room. Size was a real challenge for us. We began in a 1,000-seat auditorium, which I knew was too big for the group of 200 people I expected to attend regularly. My goal was to have 400 at our launch, realizing that we would net about 200 of them. A draw of 400 people is a big launch. But if you put 400 people in a 300-seat auditorium, you have standing room only. You just have to accept that these dynamics are important to people. Anyone who has been in a worship experience knows that a room dynamic can either make or break the experience.

Cost: Again, I encourage you to stray away from a permanent situation. Not only do you have the lease or purchase price to pay, you’ll probably have build-out costs as well. I also encourage you to never let your building overhead exceed more than 35 percent of your budget. If you overcommit in the building area, you'll limit the number of people you could bring on staff and the level of ministry you could pursue. We’re so serious about our ceiling that we wrote it into our church by-laws because we didn't want anyone making building decisions that would eventually snuff out the life of the church. When you set your ceiling, you can just do the math for any potential location: “Does the cost fit into our designated budget?”

For our first location, I actually went to a local high school because someone on our launch team had

“Start with the end in mind: What kind of results do you want? Now back into the kind of marketing plan that you’ll need to get those results.”

recommended it. The principal gave me a flat-out “no.”

The meeting lasted less than five minutes. I did manage to ask him why.

“Honestly, it's just a hassle,” he said. “We don't need the money, and I’d have to staff the building on a Sunday, and I just don't want to do that.”

I walked out to my car praying, Lord, do you have something else for us?

That night, the principal called me at home. His first words were, “God dealt with me.” He went on to tell me that he was new to Birmingham. When he was in Atlanta, he was part of a church plant, and his job on the launch team was to help find the building.

“The first place I went to, they said, ‘yes.’ When I got home today, God really reminded me of that. So I'm just obeying Him, and I want you to come back in tomorrow.

Let’s talk.”

The next day, this principal had a completely different attitude. He was all but prophesying saying, “Now, here's where we can put this, and the children's ministry can be over there, and we can put the nursery over here.” He even brought us to the auditorium and said, “Man, give us six months. We'll have this whole thing full.”

After that, we went to his office to negotiate the cost.

“How does $150 a Sunday sound?”

In my spirit, I knew this was a test. I said, “Well, it sounds like the school’s going to lose money. That's not acceptable.” And he said, “That’s what I was hoping you would say. You’re definitely getting it for that amount.” He actually insisted on it.

While we were in that school, we raised the cost of our own rent five times. We’d come to the school, and say, “Look, we have to pay more. This isn’t fair to you,” and we’d raise the rent. Then we'd come back six months later: “Our church is growing. We need to pay you guys more.” Every month, we left gift cards to local shopping malls or restaurants on teachers’ desks. We gave cash to the janitor the school hired to take care of us.

Here’s why I share this story with you. When you start to budget location costs, think through every cost, not just the monthly rent. Make sure you’re in a position to do a good job there, but at the same time not over-extend yourself.

Potential for growth. Put yourself in a position where that building can help your church grow. Ask yourself and your team, “How many services could we do here, and what's the limitation? What's the maximum use we can get out of this building?” I recommend finding a place where you can have up to three services. Growth potential can also be limited by time. You may go to a location that limits the time you can have it. Considering both location size and time is essential.

Wherever you go, bless those people. Take care of that location. Serve it. Leave it in better condition than it was. I can name cities where church planters have been banned from using the schools because of bad experiences with planters. Make sure that isn’t you.

IF Y OU B UIL D I T, T H E Y MIGH T NO T CO M E

I love the movie Field of Dreams. But as a planter stewarding resources and God’s call, you have to realize that just because you secured a venue and opened your doors doesn’t mean people will find you. You’re still not finished planting. You must be intentional about marketing and let people know you’re here. The reality is that you need to become a marketing expert for your city.

When we began, I talked to people in local advertising agencies and asked them questions about the market: What do people respond to? What’s important to them?

What does and doesn’t work in this culture? Pay someone if you have to. But talk to people who know how to get measureable results—not just feel-good stuff. Too many planters don’t do their homework­to make informed decisions. Instead, they go off their feelings: “I think this would be cool. If we just had a billboard, that would work.” And it might work, but it might not.

Spend some time in your launch year preparing to become an expert at what it takes to pull off marketing and promoting your church to your community. I wish I could tell you, “Do this, and it will work.” But every context is different. What works in one won’t work in another.

However, I can give you some principles to adapt for your specific context.

Determine your target audience. I’m not talking about audience demographics, but rather, the number of people in your target audience. I’ve heard some churches say, “We're going after young people,” or “We’re going after multicultural.” Trust me. You will take whoever shows up.

That’s who you're going after. You want somebody that's got breath in his or her lungs. In fact, be careful about narrowing your target audience. That kind of thinking and marketing excludes others and says, for example, “If you're not a Baby Boomer, you're not welcome in our church.”

Just be a church. If God sends you people, pastor them and introduce them to Jesus.

That said, I do think you should know what you’re angling your marketing toward. For example, the number of people you’re going to try to reach and even the type of person based on his or her religious experience. When I planted Church of the Highlands, I looked for people who had been in church and loved God but didn't necessarily like church. My target audience was people who were looking for a life-giving church experience.

I also had a target number of 400 people. Research indicates that 90 percent of church plants fail because worship attendance dipped below 100 people. There weren't enough people in the church to create critical mass. But churches with regular attendance well above 100 people made it into the 10 percent success bracket. Honestly, I got a little skittish. I knew that if half the people at your launch show up post-launch, you'll need to track 200 people to get 100. So I went into our marketing plan doubling those numbers.

Why is that important? Because most people market and just take the results. Start with the end in ARCCHURCHES.COM

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“I learned from guys who failed as much as I learned from those who had succeeded.” mind: What kind of results do you want? Now back into the kind of marketing plan that you’ll need to get those results.

Create a relevant marketing strategy. Here are a few marketing tools, but again, before you spend money on any of them, investigate what is and isn’t working in your local context.

• Direct mail: In many areas, this marketing tool still works. But as we help planters put together their marketing strategies, we’re learning that direct mail is about the message. Just doing a direct mail campaign doesn’t mean it will work. I’ve had guys tell me, “Direct mail just didn't work for me like it worked for you, Pastor Chris.” So I ask them to send me the piece they sent. Most of the time, the piece isn’t good. An effective direct mail piece has to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” Remember, people don't care about you and your church launch. They care about themselves. That's why a relevant message series is probably one of the best things you can put on your piece— not your picture and a new church announcement. People don’t care about a new church. They care about their marriage, their finances. So offering just a hint of some of those things can produce a direct mail piece that resonates with people.

• Social media: I know one church planter that had almost 700 people at his launch day, and he did nothing but Twitter and Facebook to advertise his church. I very much believe in it. I intentionally put messages on Twitter as a way to get things I want to say out there. I mix the social with

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the strategic. People want to know what you’re doing, so talk about that.

But then leverage that audience to say some important things.

Beware: Social media is a moving target. The rules and algorithms change every day. Search out a college student in your church or community with a passion for social media (believe me, it won’t be hard) and ask him or her to help you develop a social media marketing strategy. Tell him that he can put the experience on his resume and use you as a reference.

I keep young people around me all of the time, and I do what they tell me to do.

• Relational meetings: Another way to advertise is what we simply call relational meetings. Whether it’s with one person or groups of people in information meetings or get-toknow-you meetings, be intentional about creating opportunities to share your dream for your church plant. I know some planters that grew their launch teams using this method.

You need to be able to communicate the vision in an effective way that excites and compels people to want to be involved.

My good friend, Rick Bezet, did most of his launch team building through chocolate chip cookies in his living room. His wife baked a bunch of cookies, and he just made people feel like a million bucks. So when you’re marketing your new church, you want to think about doing not only one-on-one, but also big groups of relational-type meetings.

• Pre-launch events: Pre-launch events and services are huge. We had two pre-launch services. They were

purely practice services to make sure we could actually fire up the sound system without feedback. The first week, we were terrible at everything.

The second week, we were a lot better. Learn from other church planters who do it well. Also learn from those who didn't do it well. I learned from guys who failed as much as I learned from those who had succeeded.

Bottom line, be the expert. Take responsibility for your marketing strategy and be intentional about it.

Maintain a continual presence in your community. We were in our church, not even a month old, when [ARC Executive Director] Dino Rizzo called me. At the time, he was pastoring in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

He called to encourage me: "Chris, what did you do today to let people know you’re here?”

Dino gave me a nugget I've never forgotten. He said, “Every day, you’ve got to figure out ways to let people know you're there.”

He talked to me about community service opportunities and told me to call the religion editor of our newspaper and tell him that anytime he needed a comment from someone, he could contact me. Since then, I’ve gotten many calls from our local religion editor. This kind of publicity lets people know, “Here we are!

Church planting is not an event; it’s a process. I leave you with two questions I hope you’ll carefully think through and ask yourself every day as you prepare to follow God’s call to plant a church: What will I do today to become an expert in my specific context and community?

What will I do today to let people know we’re planting a life-giving church in this community?

CHRIS HODGES is founding and senior pastor of Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama, co-founder of ARC and founder of the coaching network GROW. He speaks at conferences worldwide and is the author of Fresh Air and Four Cups. He and his wife, Tammy, have five children. Connect with him on Twitter.com/Chris_Hodges.

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06 THE NUMBER OF CONTINENTS (ALL E XCEP T ANTARCTICA) IN THE WORL D T H AT H AV E A N A RC CHURCH.

674 NUMBER OF CHURCHES ARC HAS PL ANTED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD SINCE IT S INCEP TION 16 Y E A R S A G O .

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“Why not a life-giving church in every community in the world?

If God is able to do abundantly more than all we could ask or imagine, why not push the limits of what’s possible?”

—G R E G S U R R A T T

“I’m so thankful that I didn’t give up because a few people hurt me. … I’ve learned to grow tough skin and a soft heart.”

“A lot of people attend your church and enjoy it, but they don't care if it grows or not because they're not invested.”

— SHAUN NEPS TAD

“If your vision doesn’t scare you, it may not be big enough… We’ve learned to believe that God is going to do immeasurably more than we can imagine.”

—ZACK HARRIS

— MAT T FRY

“Just like God has tapped on your shoulder to go and plant that church, He has tapped on the shoulders of others in your church to help you build it. They just don’t know it yet.”

“I remember saying early on that not only do we want to build our church, we also want to build the Kingdom of God… we made a conscious decision to be about helping others.”

— DINO RIZZO

— DARIAN R AINS

NUMBER OF YEARS BET WEEN WHEN JASON AND ERICA PARRISH BEGAN DRE AMING ABOUT PL ANTING A CHURCH IN S A LT L A K E CIT Y A ND THE L AUNCH OF THE WELL SLC.

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SUICIDE AND CHILD ABUSE COUNT Y R ANKINGS FOR SMALL TOWN CENTR ALIA, ILLINOIS, WHERE SETH A ND K A RIS BA LTZEL L PL A N T ED CIT Y HOPE CHURCH.

“While every generation brings something unique to the table, God’s heartbeat remains for one church.”

“We have farmers sitting next to meth addicts sitting next to business owners sitting next to factory workers.”

– SE T H BA LTZEL L

—MARLIZE DU PLESSIS

“As much as you can, do ministry together as a team. That was one of the No. 1 things that helped us stay together.”

“Our goal as leaders entrusted with the greatest message on earth is that we would lead with courage and clarity.”

—ED STETZER

— DE LY N N R IZ Z O ARCCHURCHES.COM

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A RCCHURCHES.COM info@arcchurches.com

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Then you’re ready for Momentum.

“At Bayside, the Momentum strategy had a profound impact.

Thousands of people are finding new hope and gaining new traction as they journey toward becoming healthy stewards of God’s blessings and resources.”

— R A N D Y B E Z E T , Lead Pastor, Bayside Community Church

“For Seacoast Church, Momentum provided a practical tool for taking steps to becoming financially free and faithful stewards.

The experience was eye-opening and a major landmark in the story of our church that will impact generations to come.

We loved working with Dave Ramsey and his team!”

— J O S H S U R R A T T , Lead Pastor, Seacoast Church

SPECIAL DEAL

Conference Attendees Discount:

$50 OFF REGISTRATION

Visit StewardshipCentral.org/solutions or call 800.571.0317 and use the promo code MM2017 to get your discount!

To learn more, visit the STEWARDSHIP CENTRAL BOOTH in the ARC LOUNGE.