By Rolando Castro, BCM/D Missionary for Church Planting/Evangelism/Language Churches

Henry Blackaby suggests joining God right where He is at work in the world. I prefer to use the word “culture” instead of world, just to avoid confusion with those who feel the word “world” is in fact an evil one.

Rolando Castro and his wife, Zulma

If we believe God is at work, even before we show up, then we should accept what He is doing in using a wide variety of ways in a wide variety of scenarios to bring about His purpose.

God’s heart is always passionate about those outside of a relationship with Him. He cries and seeks for each living person on our planet, no matter if this person is worshiping other gods or claiming to be an atheist. This is also the “church planting” heart.

Now, the way we think He is seeking to build this relationship is crucial in our understanding of our role in God’s plan. Usually we think God is “calling” people to leave their natural environment (whatever it is), and join a safe “Christian” one. By believing this, we accept that our call is to “invite” people to church, where the worship leader and the pastor will give them an invitation to offer a prayer and become Christians. From that point on, our role changes and soon we are the people in charge of leading these new believers in a lifestyle marked by the total abandonment of their former environment.

On the other hand, if we think God is not “calling” people to leave their natural environments, but “working to change” those environments, then our role should be different, too. Instead of trying to bring people to our church services and make them “one of us,” we’ll be “going” and joining their very environments with a missional or missionary mindset.

By holding this position, the goal in planting new churches is not for the new believers to leave their natural environments, where all their relatives, friends and colleagues are, but rather to embrace them with a transformed and transformative heart. Then, with the Holy Spirit’s help, they are able to impact the culture around them.

The story of God’s intervention in human history, as it’s revealed in the Bible, is always in the context of culture: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in their relationship with their neighbors in Canaan; Joseph in Egypt; Daniel in Babylon; Nehemiah in Persia; Paul in the Greek cities of the first century, and, of course, Jesus in His own cultural setting in the Roman province of Galilee.  Today God is doing the same in our cities and communities around the world. Church planting is the best way to partner with and join God in His purpose.

We are called to be yeast, salt and light. These elements are only helpful if they are used on raw, unsalted and dark environments, where these environments are present in the culture.

Thus, we must ask ourselves: How is God at work in the culture within our communities today, and how we are attempting to join Him? Let’s try Church planting.

Rolando Castro is the BCM/D missionary for Hispanic church planting, evangelism and language churches. He can be reached at   rcastro@bcmd.org or at
(443) 285-2012.

By Donnie Reynolds, Church Planter/Pastor of Centerpoint Church, Annapolis, Md.

Jenny and I lived in Virginia, an hour and a half away from Annapolis, Md. The only thing keeping us from living out the dream God had given us for Centerpoint Church was a little thing called Washington, D.C. (and the Beltway that we had to go around to get to our “dream”). We hadn’t sold our house; we had only half the financial support we needed and we had a new three-month old baby. Okay, maybe there were two or three other obstacles, too.

I didn’t really believe the rules and limitations of starting a new church “from scratch” applied to us. I thought those rules were for “less fantastic Christians/pastors/planters.” With a wife only half-doubting my plans and vision, and with a few distant supporters too ignorant to be able to help, we decided to do a preview service on Sept. 30, 2007, just 19 days after I had officially resigned from my previous church. I hand-delivered 5,000 door hangers and placed 20 road signs inviting random people to join us in our new dream. The result? Not one person showed up. Ignoring the experts and the in-laws, I decided to hold another preview service the following month, but the result was the same: nobody showed up. After a third failed attempt (after all, even Naaman had to dip in the Jordan River seven times, right?), I decided to listen to the outside voices and wait until God’s timing was more evident.

Still rushed to get God moving on my future church, I decided to host another preview service Jan. 13, 2008, at the Sheraton Hotel in Annapolis. I advertised “relevant teaching” (it wasn’t), “great band” (it ended up being no band), “quality childcare” (it was decent) and prayed like crazy. I was not even sure why we thought things would be different this time, but I had a weird feeling that it would be. When the day came, 39 people from Annapolis showed up and “the baby” (our church plant) was conceived.

I’ve thought a lot over the last 20 months about all the work, planning, money and emotions that have gone into getting this new community where it is today. Honestly, I’ve never once considered quitting and I try not to be critical about those who do, but there have been many times I’ve said to myself, “Ah, so this is why we (church planters) quit.”

Here are my thoughts on the top six, “Ah, this is why we quit” reasons:

1) We forget our calling or we aren’t convinced of it from the beginning. This is what I argued with God about in the early months more than anything. I’m convinced He wanted me here at this time in my life. I believe, too, that He is in control of the circumstances and resources with which I’m dealing; so why haven’t things gone the way I thought they would? While I’ve asked the question, I’ve never considered quitting because I’m certain this is what God wanted. My pastor in college used to say, “Don’t doubt in the darkness what God revealed to you in the light.”

2) We compare our stories with others. Another planter I know started a church about 25 minutes north of me with a full team of helpers (he got from another church), full financial support (that he didn’t have to raise), full equipment (that he didn’t have to buy), and with established relationships and reputation (that he already had). When he launched with 180 at his first worship service and I had only 79 at mine, I felt like a loser. Why? I took my eyes off God and compared myself to others. Instead, I have to remind myself constantly that this is God’s story and God’s church. If I don’t end up being the next Billy Graham, it is quite okay with God.

3) We ignore our problems instead of working through them. Every church at every age and every stage has problems. The grass isn’t greener on the other side. My problem isn’t that I want to quit, my problem is that I want to ignore our problems. I love what Cal Ripken Sr. said to Junior, his son, when he was going through a batting slump during his rookie year. “Slumps don’t get worked out by taking a day off and sitting out a game, slumps get worked out by swinging through them.” I’m not talking about wearing ourselves out, but we all should realize that we need to work through the problems, not ignore them.

4) We forget to say, “I’m not here for you.” A friend of mine told me those were the most important words he had to say when he started a new church. God didn’t take us to these cities and towns to round up discontented Christians; he called us to these places in order to reach lost people. So why do we get upset when Christians don’t “like” our churches? If I got disheartened by every Christian that came to our church and criticized us for not being like the big churches in Annapolis, I would quit. That is like comparing a 20-month old infant to a ten-year old child (in most cases). The 10-year old should be able to offer more to the community, but we can’t afford to do the same (in more ways than one). We need to act our age and stage, not like the biggest church in town.

5) We don’t know the “stage” of our church. Let’s face it; quitting is really an issue of the heart. I make bad decisions for the church when I start thinking about the age of the church, not the stage. We have to make decisions based on our numeric attendance, not our numeric existence. There are churches that are 50-years old that are the same size as mine, and they should be doing some of the same things I’m doing to break their growth barriers (which I now believe are real). Instead, they are holding 50th anniversaries and dreaming about the past, but not planning for the future. When I start making decisions based on how long I’ve been doing this rather than what a church my size should do to grow, I usually make the wrong decision.

6) We get tired… enough said. Find a way to take a vacation and get some rest. Even Jesus was wise enough to do this (and His ministry was exceedingly more important and pressing than yours or mine).

So quit offering excuses, but don’t quit the calling God’s has given you to do! Remember, He is faithful and continues to work on each of us, too, even as He builds the church through you. Don’t look back, either; rather, hold on tight to the hand of God as He leads you into the future. You’ll be glad you did.

Donnie Reynolds is the church planter/pastor of Centerpoint Church, Annapolis, Md. He can be reached by email at dreynolds@yourcenterpoint.org or by phone at (443) 510-3868.

By Dan Hyun, The Village Church, Baltimore

Dan Hyun

I recently sat in a local neighborhood café having lunch with “Jim” and he described his history of being raised in a mainline Christian denomination where he experienced some religion, but didn’t hear much about Jesus. As a result, he had quickly grown disinterested in Christianity at a young age. This led him on a path of discovery, following Buddhism and other forms of spirituality, which all left him unfulfilled. When he heard about our new church, “The Village,” Jim was curious and came out to a worship gathering to hear about Jesus.

So in the middle of this lunch, I’m sharing that though we are condemned by our sin, God desires to save us through the work of Jesus on the cross and that he can repent of his sin and trust Jesus for salvation. In the back of my mind, I’m already planning a follow up meeting with him when to my surprise he asks me if we can pray right then and there! And that’s how in the middle of a crowded, hipster cafe, Jim was seen discovering his salvation in Christ.

It would be disingenuous to convey that experiences like this happen every day, but it is an example of why we started The Village Church as a core team of 11 commissioned by Grace Life Church in Baltimore. Our core team began meeting in January 2008 and after months of prayer, planning and outreach, we launched publicly this past September. We continue to be humbled by the many new faces God brings our way. Though we are obviously open to anyone connecting to The Village, we have specifically been focused on leading our generation into a thriving relationship with Jesus.

When we speak of our generation, we’re addressing more of a mindset than age, though age may realistically have much to do with it.  The mindset is one described in books like unChristian by Kinnaman & Lyons with words such as “eclectic, anti-establishment, skeptical, diverse, relational and creative.” What burdened us was that many of these characteristics described those we knew who would be classified as “unchurched” and who often harbored negative views of the church. In their hearts, they sense that they would not fit in with the churches they know or knew when they were younger.

With this knowledge, we started The Village with a very clear purpose: not to be another cool alternative for Christians already looking for a church, but rather a countercultural movement of the ancient message of Jesus, drawing a lost and hungry generation to Him. And so far, we’ve been blessed to experience a majority of people who have connected with The Village either as seekers or folks who are “de-churched” – they may have grown up in the church but have not been connected to Christ or a community for different reasons. It’s been a thrilling journey, seeing this community come together and humbling to witness God move in our midst.

That’s not to suggest the work is easy. The combined forces of being a city church with all the unique challenges it brings, in a neighborhood with a reputation of heavy spiritual darkness, add complexity to our efforts to focus on a generation of people for whom “commitment” is not always the strongest value. These are additionally compounded by the normal difficulties of a new church and continually challenge us at our deepest core. We have been engaging in an intense spiritual fistfight with the end of each day signaling the bell has rung and the next round is coming upon us all too quickly. Even as many have joined our community, we have also experienced a few who have fallen away in the battle. Yet, in the midst of the often-challenging journey, there have been some practical lessons to take to heart:

1) Present the Gospel
There is an admitted temptation for me to research and implement the latest and most innovative methods to reach people and I agree that these need to be utilized as a successful missional leader. But as we engage with more of our unchurched generation, we are witnessing a deep hunger for truth and not merely a “glitzed-up” program or entertaining presentation that can be easy derided as phony. One of our convictions is to be clear in presenting the whole Gospel of the Kingdom, especially from the pulpit as we seek to teach Scripture without pulling any punches. We have found that folks are actually curious about the Bible and are often waiting for someone to explain it to them in a clear, intellectually responsible and relevant way. We make sure that every sermon or Bible study is centered on Jesus and state clearly that He is why we do what we do. In the end, if we truly believe God is the One who saves, we want to trust in the proper communication of His Word and the saving, transformative power of the Gospel of Jesus rather than our methods. The question I ask myself at the end of every sermon is this: “Did folks learn more about me and how great our church is, or are they did they leave declaring how great our God is?”

2) Be Honest
After some of the discussions or sermons at The Village, we often hear, “Are we allowed to talk about that here?” We try to keep it unflinchingly authentic and raw in our community. Sometimes this may be understood from the outside as a church trying to be intentionally cool and relevant. The truth is, it’s not a matter of trying to appear cool – it’s survival. The people we are ministering to are coming from all different walks of life; but regardless of socioeconomics, education, ethnicity, age, etc., one commonality seems to be that our people have some real, deep brokenness in their lives, ranging from deep addictions to histories of abuse to destructive relationships. And if we’re not being fully honest with the messiness of life and how Christ speaks into that, people will not experience a Gospel that relates to them.
I’m also finding that starts with me. I fight a constant inner battle, desiring to be that respectable leader in whom others see such admirable qualities that they can’t help but want to follow. But in being true to myself and the identity I have in Christ, I need to put out there who I am in all my own messiness (with certain obvious discretion). It’s humbling to see that people are not looking to follow perfect people, but those who seem to have found a hope they’re lacking.

3) Be Missional
Many church leaders I know are sick of this word, since “missional” for some has become the latest lingo for “evangelism.” For The Village though, missional is more than a program; it’s a shift of perspective on why God has saved us and given us these lives to be lived for His glory. I continually stress to our people that I am not just their pastor called to take care of them. Rather, I view my role as equipping them to be missionaries to our city and world in their various spheres of influence.

Part of the challenge is to keep from creating awkward, unnatural programs so we can say we’re being missional. Instead, we’ve been challenged to figure out how we can have a missional focus within the natural rhythms of life. One example comes from our Christmas party last winter, where rather than create an event that we could tag as our own, we intentionally planned to combine our efforts with an annual party one of our newer people hosts every year. It turned out to be a great success, with her house filled with people not only from The Village, but also many of her friends and co-workers, most of who do not belong to a church. Times like this are great teaching points for our folks to learn that “missional” is not a program but just living life with purpose.

Dan Hyun is the church planter and founding pastor of The Village Church in Baltimore, Maryland. He can be reached at dan@villagechurchbaltimore.com or by phone at (443) 534-4593.