Just over two years ago our church sent a core group of people to plant a new church in downtown Royal Oak. I'm proud of the great work The Oaks has done to create a presence for the gospel in one of the most eclectic parts of Metro Detroit.
This coming weekend they'll be serving the community. On Friday night they'll kick off the first annual Royal Oak Family Film Festival. They're showing some great movies and making the tickets available to the community for free.
All of the films will be shown at the Main Art Theater in Royal Oak. This is also the theater where The Oaks gathers to worship on Sundays. It's a great way for church plants that meet in movie theaters to connect with the community!
If you live in the Detroit area, come on out and enjoy the experience. If not, will you pray that this will be a great opportunity to build meaningful relationships with our neighbors?
You can find a full schedule and other detailed information here.
Today our team will be spending about eight hours with a consultant from Portable Church Industries. On October 19 we will be expanding our church's weekend service into the auditorium at Southfield Lathrup High School. Our vision is to amplify our voice in Metro Detroit this fall, and the consultant is going to help us think through some of the details.
We won't be a true portable church since we'll keep our building as a base of operations during the week (offices, small groups, prayer meetings, etc). But we will be portable again for our weekend gathering.
Fortunately we're only about fifteen minutes away from the premier portalbe church outfitter in the country. I'm looking forward to hanging with the consultant to dream and learn. I'll let you know how it goes.
Jeremiah 32 begins with Jeremiah in prison. Zedekiah put him there for prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem. While suffering for his prophesy, God told him that he was going to run into his cousin who was going to ask him to buy a piece of land, and that when he did, he should buy it.
This of course was confusing to Jeremiah. Why invest money into property in a city that's about to be leveled? Yet God told him to buy the land and bury the deed. When Jeremiah asked why, God simply responded, "Fields will be bought in this land again."
Faith is the courage to invest resources into God-ventures that no one else may recognize as fruitful at the time.
My friend Norflette leads a church on the East side of Detroit in a depressed neighborhood. Houses around his church are selling for $500.00. No one is moving into the neighborhood. Yet he and his family are investing their money, their dreams, and their lives into the city. They believe people will buy property there again.
Some church planters decide where to locate by looking for the fastest growing communities. Then there are others who are called by God to move into places that are being abandoned.
They believe, like Jeremiah, that God's promise is more concrete than property values.
Had a great phone conversation this morning with Sebastiaan Van Wessem. Sebastiaan planted a church in 2006 just outside of Amsterdam. He's had tremendous success and has his sights set on expanding into Amsterdam in a few years.
I've been in Amsterdam several times and have a deep burden for that city. It started in 2000 when I was there for Billy Graham's World Evangelism Conference. I stayed in a hotel just a few blocks away from the red light district. I remember walking through those streets in the evenings and praying for God to do something radical. Since then I've had a dream that at some point I could be a part of a partnership to see a church planting movement take hold in Amsterdam.
Yesterday I preached the third message in our What If series. This week's question: What if we turned our city upside down.
We looked at the Acts 19 account of city transformation in Ephesus. Ephesus was the Amsterdam of the Roman Empire. Large, influential, difficult...Yet a core group of 12 planted a church that disrupted sinful systems and indirectly shut down businesses that profited from the occult. It's one of my favorite stories in the Bible, and my dream for Metro Detroit.
It's so encouraging to see God calling young men to give themselves to transforming the great urban centers of our world.
There's a new church plant in Metro Detroit that's creatively engaging our community. They don't have a name for the church yet, and that's basically the point.
They launched a website called namethatchurch.com, where they've invited the community to vote on the name of their church. The website got them a great article in the local news section of the Detroit Free Press. The paper even published a schedule of their preview services and grand opening.
By the way, I love it when new, gospel-centered churches start in our city. It's an answer to prayer. It's foolish to be territorial when you're surrounded by thousands of unchurched people.
Keep em coming!
I met Jonathan Herron almost two years ago. At the time he was just a few months out from launching Catalyst Church in Kent, Ohio. He was also adopting a child at the same time. His "out there on the edge live or die" commitment caught my attention. Since then I've followed the story of his new church and its impact in one of the most unchurched cities in Ohio. And it looks like God has given them some strategic opportunities this Easter.
Be a Catalyst explains some partnership opportunities. I'd encourage you to check it out. Church planting is the extreme sport of ministry and Catalyst is getting it done!
Chris and Nicki Bradshaw are on vacation this weekend. As Chris planned for it earlier this summer he asked me to speak for him today. It was a blast!
The Oaks became our first daughter church in the spring of 2006. It's been great to watch them grow these past sixteen months. Everything was smooth today and I felt so proud of the core group of leaders that Chris and Nicki have developed.
My personal opinion is that church planting is the extreme sport of ministry. So cool to see the ministry volunteers at The Oaks setting up, tearing down, and filling the Main Art Theater with the Presence of Jesus. I'm believing that this fall will be marked by many changed lives in downtown Royal Oak.
Meanwhile, I hear JT did an incredible job filling in for me. I'm so thankful for such a solid team of leaders in our church. Their ministry frees me to use my gifts to bless other churches in our city. I don't miss many Sundays during the course of a year, and when I do I miss our church terribly. I found my mind and prayers trailing back toward COTK several times this morning:)
There's no place like home:)
Had a great time Tuesday and Wednesday in Pittsburgh for Allison Park Church's 3rd annual young pastor's roundtable. I think registration almost doubled this year. I've really developed some great friendships with other church planters as this network of relationships has developed.
I really enjoyed making the trip with about ten leaders from our network. It's not everyday you get to watch Sith's invade Heinz Field from the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh (had to be there).
Nick Poole blogged some great notes from the teaching sessions. Good stuff once again from Jeff Leake, Johannes Amritzer and Ron Johnson. This year was special for me since they even gave me a session of my own. I shared some of the theology that has shaped our vision for leading transformation in Metro Detroit. You can read Nick's notes from the sessions here.
Jeff also shared our developing vision for creating a relational network of multi-church movements. A multi-church movement is a network of churches that are planting churches. Our dream is to create a multi-church movement in Metro Detroit. I've been privileged the past twelve months to dream with Jeff about the potential of linking with other multi-church movements around the country. It was great this week to go public with a sketch of the dream.
I just finished an interview with Steve Pike for his church multiplication podcast. He's got a good collection of conversations with church planters of various shapes and sizes. I think our conversation will be posted in a few weeks. You can check out the podcast here.
No matter how many times I tell our story I'm always amazed at God's goodness to us. The good that has happened through Church of the King traces back to Him. I know that sounds cliche but it really is true. If you're getting ready to start a church, be careful not to take yourself too seriously. Jesus isn't depending on your great mind and charming personality:)
We worked hard during the summer of 2001 to prepare for the September launch of our church. We networked. We canvassed. We prayed. We shared the vision over and over and over. But the large majority of people who attended our launch service did not come from all of our efforts. They came because of something totally out of my control.
We launched on September 16, 2001. The Post Office delivered most of our 25,000 invitations to the community on September 11, the day America was attacked. Most of the unchurched people who attended our launch didn't come because of our amazing outreach and marketing strategies. They came because they were trying to make sense of 9.11 and our church "just so happened" to be opening on the right weekend.
A well-meaning church planter who heard our story once asked me if I planned it:) Nope. Can't take credit for that one.
I can't take credit for much really, other than stepping out with simple faith that God could do something bigger than me.
Having a great time this week in sunny St. Petersburg, Florida. I'm speaking at a week-long bootcamp for church planters. This is the third year in a row that I've been able to be a part of this event. Love the planters. Love the vision. Love the beach.
The wireless at our hotel is pretty wild. Blog posts and emails tend to end up short and sweet when you're walking around the lobby with laptop in hand trying to keep a signal:)
