Church Planting or Re-planting ...and doing both at the same time...

I listened to a podcast from Driscoll the other day about re-planting. Re-planting is the fancy new word for transitioning a church apparently - who knew? I didn't...but then, there's a lot that I admit to not knowing. It was a pretty good podcast that spoke to the difficulty of trying to steer a church in a new direction without being thrown off the boat - that's my metaphor not theirs. It seemed odd though to be getting transitioning advice from guys who are planters. The advice was good, just strange.

It used to be that you had two categories: One for church planters - guys who left and started a new church - and then a second one for guys who just took a new job at an existing church. Now they are both being viewed as planters of sorts...

I assumed the helm of Crestview Baptist Church in the summer/fall of 2004. The church knew, and I knew, and everyone knew that changes needed to be made for us to stay alive - not even mentioning starting to grow. I was very, very slow to adopt a strategy/vision for the future. I didn't want to give some twelve point plan and then have everyone shout, "We tried that..." The former pastors had in fact done everything I would have done to try to stop a decline. However, the beauty of my situation was that we got to begin at the bottom! At the bottom, any increase looks nice. At the bottom, churches - even old churches - are willing to try new things - and if you love them, you can get away with almost anything! We've pulled off some pretty big transitions at Crestview, and it's been fun and challenging, and fun... We've adopted a missional strategy of trying to establish a community center (with a coffee shop and art gallery) and find new ways to re-connect with our neighbors.

Along the way we also got the crazy dream to start a whole new church. (Some churches can only transition so far after all.) Our new church plant is Phoenix Church of Austin. Phoenix is about doing church for a new generation. It's loud, and messy, and totally new and experimental.

So get this... I am planting a church. I am also re-planting a church. I am trying to do both at the same time :) (that song lyric just popped into my head, "say a little prayer for me")

Comments

[Jonathan Dodson]

look forward to hearing all about it soon!