B
I hope the title got your attention. Have you ever thought what you would do if you were to plant a church? Considered where you would plant it? Considered what the complete mission would be? Welcome to my world. Unlike you average clergyman, I do not draw my pay from the Church. Never have but will not say never will.
Now usually I work with very small groups. Usually 5-50 people forming a House or Common Area Church. Me and my team seek out communities and people that have, for lack of a better term, given up on the traditional church system. Don't get me wrong, Neither I nor any of my team have anything against corporate churches. They serve a vital role and do fantastic work but let's be honest, only Jesus is "one size fits all".
So, while I do serve the Lord in full time ministry I draw my pay from a good, old fashioned, J.O.B. instead of placing a burden on very small congregations. While it would not be right to mention the name of the company I do work for, not to mention foolish to the extreme, I can share a little seeing as it is relevant.
I work for a major manufacturing concern here in North Carolina. They provide my pay, medical and dental benefits and such. They are also union which posses some issues for a fiscal and social Christian conservative like myself. Right now there are over 2500 souls that work there from 10-12 different communities. At peak just over 3000.
As you can imagine, sin is rampant there from casual blasphemy to violence and drug use and trade. My entire team also works there with me by design. This way we can conduct ministry business during down times as well as having a captive audience to try new ways of teaching and such on.
Recently a few of my team members came to me with an idea. To form a men's ministry in the plant. I thought it was a great idea and had been thinking the same thing myself. Excited, I agreed with them and we began discussing what type of group, focus, where to meet and so on. The usual details. I noticed that as we began planning, though each of us had been praying individually over this venture, we are all slowly losing interest. None of us could figure out why either.
Again we each prayed over it, but all any of us could figure out is that this wasn't what the Lord wanted us to do. So we did the only sensible thing, we gave up. Ok, Just kidding. No, in fact we met after our shift was over in the lobby of the front office and knelt together in prayer as a group. (The management has long sense learned to just leave us alone as we benefit the plant)
At the end of the prayer we got up and began walking to our cars. God had provided an answer once again but none of us were willing to voice it because on the surface it seemed insane not to mention crazy and even a little nuts. No one has ever done what the Lord is leading us to do. When we got to the staging area out front one of my team popped the big question. What did your hear? Guess who spoke first? No it wasn't me. In fact it was none of us or more specifically, all of us. A single word, church.
Church, build a church right in the heart of a plant. Is God nuts? This place isn't even remotely friendly to those of faith. Many times they have sent people home for an unbeliever complaining that people were talking about God at work and He wants us to build a church there.
You want to talk about a "hard target" this is it. None of us on the team have ever even tried to plant a standard church, You know, building, 100-300 people, choir, pastor, youth pastor, secretaries and so on. Our skill set was always small, low cost, organizational, house church planting. Its not easy by any means but after more than a decade, we are good at it. Now we have this. While we still don't have to be concerned about the usual overhead of a building and bills, this is still huge and we all know there will be a heavy price to pay.
Now my friends, some of this is very basic. First we have to decide what kind of church to plant. I don't mean what denomination but what is the ministerial impact going to be. Well we simple recall the conversations we have had with the people that work there. So it will be a Great Commission Church. We have 10-12 communities mixing there. When God blesses us we will immediately be able to have a huge impact outside the plant. Current we are working on the statement of faith and recruiting the needed people to staff a full shift. Just one of four shifts in the plant.
Right now its all very quiet. Not out of fear but out of need to get things rolling before the management step in a try to stop this great work of faith. As we recruit we are training and canvasing for ideas. Learning more and more of the needs. Finding out the ratio of believers to agnostics to atheists and a whole raft load of detail which would bore all of you to tears.
So why am I sharing this with you? What is my motive? Well first I would like to hear what you think. Keep in mind if your not in the US you may be used to operating under laws we don't have or not aware of the laws we do have, so please keep that in mind when you comment. Same goes from those outside North Carolina.
Second, I would love to hear what you would do if you were in my position? What would you be thinking? What areas would you look into, besides the legality? From my perspective there is only one wrong answer to give and that is to quit or give up. Otherwise shoot from the hip or the heart or where ever your most comfortable shooting from.
In Christ,
Bishop SEH
Now usually I work with very small groups. Usually 5-50 people forming a House or Common Area Church. Me and my team seek out communities and people that have, for lack of a better term, given up on the traditional church system. Don't get me wrong, Neither I nor any of my team have anything against corporate churches. They serve a vital role and do fantastic work but let's be honest, only Jesus is "one size fits all".
So, while I do serve the Lord in full time ministry I draw my pay from a good, old fashioned, J.O.B. instead of placing a burden on very small congregations. While it would not be right to mention the name of the company I do work for, not to mention foolish to the extreme, I can share a little seeing as it is relevant.
I work for a major manufacturing concern here in North Carolina. They provide my pay, medical and dental benefits and such. They are also union which posses some issues for a fiscal and social Christian conservative like myself. Right now there are over 2500 souls that work there from 10-12 different communities. At peak just over 3000.
As you can imagine, sin is rampant there from casual blasphemy to violence and drug use and trade. My entire team also works there with me by design. This way we can conduct ministry business during down times as well as having a captive audience to try new ways of teaching and such on.
Recently a few of my team members came to me with an idea. To form a men's ministry in the plant. I thought it was a great idea and had been thinking the same thing myself. Excited, I agreed with them and we began discussing what type of group, focus, where to meet and so on. The usual details. I noticed that as we began planning, though each of us had been praying individually over this venture, we are all slowly losing interest. None of us could figure out why either.
Again we each prayed over it, but all any of us could figure out is that this wasn't what the Lord wanted us to do. So we did the only sensible thing, we gave up. Ok, Just kidding. No, in fact we met after our shift was over in the lobby of the front office and knelt together in prayer as a group. (The management has long sense learned to just leave us alone as we benefit the plant)
At the end of the prayer we got up and began walking to our cars. God had provided an answer once again but none of us were willing to voice it because on the surface it seemed insane not to mention crazy and even a little nuts. No one has ever done what the Lord is leading us to do. When we got to the staging area out front one of my team popped the big question. What did your hear? Guess who spoke first? No it wasn't me. In fact it was none of us or more specifically, all of us. A single word, church.
Church, build a church right in the heart of a plant. Is God nuts? This place isn't even remotely friendly to those of faith. Many times they have sent people home for an unbeliever complaining that people were talking about God at work and He wants us to build a church there.
You want to talk about a "hard target" this is it. None of us on the team have ever even tried to plant a standard church, You know, building, 100-300 people, choir, pastor, youth pastor, secretaries and so on. Our skill set was always small, low cost, organizational, house church planting. Its not easy by any means but after more than a decade, we are good at it. Now we have this. While we still don't have to be concerned about the usual overhead of a building and bills, this is still huge and we all know there will be a heavy price to pay.
Now my friends, some of this is very basic. First we have to decide what kind of church to plant. I don't mean what denomination but what is the ministerial impact going to be. Well we simple recall the conversations we have had with the people that work there. So it will be a Great Commission Church. We have 10-12 communities mixing there. When God blesses us we will immediately be able to have a huge impact outside the plant. Current we are working on the statement of faith and recruiting the needed people to staff a full shift. Just one of four shifts in the plant.
Right now its all very quiet. Not out of fear but out of need to get things rolling before the management step in a try to stop this great work of faith. As we recruit we are training and canvasing for ideas. Learning more and more of the needs. Finding out the ratio of believers to agnostics to atheists and a whole raft load of detail which would bore all of you to tears.
So why am I sharing this with you? What is my motive? Well first I would like to hear what you think. Keep in mind if your not in the US you may be used to operating under laws we don't have or not aware of the laws we do have, so please keep that in mind when you comment. Same goes from those outside North Carolina.
Second, I would love to hear what you would do if you were in my position? What would you be thinking? What areas would you look into, besides the legality? From my perspective there is only one wrong answer to give and that is to quit or give up. Otherwise shoot from the hip or the heart or where ever your most comfortable shooting from.
In Christ,
Bishop SEH