Understanding How We Are Called To Start New Churches

So, you've decided to follow Jesus. You're spending time with him, spending time with other believers, serving his body and giving generously. That's great. But following Jesus, isn't just about growing as his disciple, it's also about going out to the world he loves. Following Jesus means becoming a missionary, where you live, work and play. Being a disciple means becoming a disciple maker. Join us as we discover some of the important ways followers of Jesus are called to go wherever he leads us.

Well, good morning, everyone. And I hope you have survived this Thanksgiving holiday. You had chance to be with your family and you didn't overeat too much. But if you're like me, there's more of me to be he seen today than there was the last time you saw me.

I'm also glad that you got to meet Ines and Bobby. A week ago, this past Friday, I got to meet them in person out in Pasadena. My middle son, Tyler, and my daughter-in-law live in West Hollywood. And we had a wonderful lunch. And they are even more winsome, brilliant, engaging, devoted to this calling in person than they are even on screen. And I'm so excited about our partnership with them. Although, I do struggle a little bit.

Some of you may struggle with the fact that we're supporting a church that has a female lead co-pastor. And I can understand that, but that's not my struggle. I'm struggling a bit that she went to TCU and she does that little froggy thing. But I think they're going to be okay. I have a great hope for them and for their church, The Church We Hope For.

Now, today, I'm excited because we're finishing up this series, Go Helping Make Disciples of Jesus. And we've identified six commitments or activities that you and I can be involved in that will help us make disciples.

We began a series by talking about just the calling to make a friend, to be open to new relationships, whether it's where we live, work or play. And hopefully, at one point in our relationship with them, that we can invite them to our home or into our life in some way, eventually, perhaps, even to Preston Trail.

And then we spoke about the need to meet other needs that people have in the name of Jesus. In fact, that's the way Jesus carried out his ministry. He started by meeting people's felt needs first, because he knew that when he did that, he would have their attention. And also when their most basic needs are met, they're open now and they're able to really process the deeper things in life.

And then we talked about writing wrong. That is in the spirit of Jesus, when we see injustice around us, that we are to work to overcome it.

Last week, Paul spoke about the way that we are called to share our own story, to share the good news of Jesus Christ and how it relates to each one of us. And now today, we're going to finish up by talking about helping start new churches. So, you might be asking, "Well, why is that in there? That seems a little bit different. Why is that the last thing we're talking about?"
Well, today I want to take a few moments and give you the case for that, because I do believe that helping start new churches is really the culmination of everything that we've been talking about in growing and in going.

So, why start new churches? Here's the first reason. The birth of the church, capital C, that is all the believers who are alive at any one time around the world, make the capital C, Church and then every new local church, lower C. That's like our church, Preston Trail's expression of the body of Christ, where we live here in North Texas. Those two churches are the organic result of making disciples.

Now, remember the word church is based on the Greek word ecclesia, which means a gathering of people, a group of people who are united by a common identity and a common purpose. Our common identity is in Christ that we recognize that he gave his life for us, that he has forgiven us of all of our sin. He calls us now to live in union with him as friend and as one who follows his ways. And then our purpose is, is to grow in him and to join him in his redeeming work in the world. And whenever and wherever believers gather together to do that, they become the church. And it is simply the natural culmination of people becoming a disciple of Jesus.

Here's the second reason. The church is Jesus chosen instrument to share the good news with the world. There's a wonderful passage in scripture in Matthew chapter 16. It recounts Jesus taking the disciples on a weekend getaway. They go to Caesarea, Philippi. It was kind of a resort area at that particular time. And like a lot of us, those disciples needed some debrief time.
And one evening, while they're sitting around, Jesus asked them a really important question, "Hey, who do you think people think I am?" And they start giving him some answers that would not be surprising, "Oh, well, some people think that you are a prophet. Others think that you are John the Baptist come back alive."

And then Peter raises his hand, probably even blurts out a little bit, "I know who you are though. You are the Messiah, the son of God." And Jesus sits back, quite certain with a little bit of satisfaction that his disciple is getting this. And he says, "Peter, you didn't come to that just by your own, but the Father also revealed that to you. But here's what I want you to know that confession that I am the Messiah is the rock upon which I'm going to found my church." That is the confession that Jesus is Lord in allowing that confession to shape one's life, that becomes the identifying center of a follower of Jesus. And now, others are going to be gathering around that identity to join me in this purpose of helping other people find me and follow me, and experience the abundant life that I have for them."

And so, from the very beginning, it was the church, a group of people, different groups of people in different times and settings, and ages that God chose as his primary instrument to get the news out about his goodness and love for people, his desire to be in relation with them, and to give them the life that they've always been seeking to have. So, the church has always been the chosen instrument of God to use, to get the word of Christ out.

And here's a third reason. Starting new churches is the single most effective outreach strategy. Now, we don't often stop and think about this, but you and I know the story of Jesus today, the Gospel, because a man by the name of Paul felt called to be a missionary to the Gentiles. And he started traveling all around the Mediterranean, Northern Crescent there, planting in churches in as many major cities as he could. And it was by the planting of these churches that the message of Jesus spread. Now, his writings to those churches form most of our New Testament. And it was the starting of a new church that made all the difference. They became hubs of the gospel, where more and more people heard the message of Jesus and responded to it. And they were reconciled to God. Their lives were restored in many ways, and now they lived this new life in him. Now, that was then, this is now, and it really hasn't changed.

Tim Keller has a one of full quote about starting new churches. Tim Keller was the pastor for 20 plus years at Redeemer Church in downtown New York City. His church has planted over 400 churches across the nation, around the world. So, he knows what he is talking about when it comes to church planning. And this is what he says, "The vigorous continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for one, the numerical growth of the body of Christ in a city, and two, the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else, not crusades or outreach programs, or parachurch ministries, growing megachurches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes will have the consistent impact of dynamic extensive church planting."

And you know what? Even today, sociologists tell us that whenever a new church is planted, on average, 42% of the people who will become a part of that church are coming out of a non-church, non-faith background. So, it indeed, even today is still the place where more people are finding a new life in Christ. And it is in new churches that we discover that we can reach new residents, new generations, and new people groups.

Now, why is it? Why is it these new churches can reach people that existing churches couldn't? Well, there's a very good reason, because you see, new churches have to be indigenous, which then becomes the catalyst for creativity.

Now, how many of y'all use the words indigenous in your vocabulary this week? Anybody? Unless you went to a nursery to buy some plants, you probably didn't. The word indigenous means native to the soil, right? This is, this shrub is indigenous to North Texas, right? And so, whenever you plant a church, the way that church operates, the language that it uses, the needs that it feels like it needs to meet, have to be native to the soil that that church is being play in.

When Paul and I came here 20 years ago, we had done some research about this new North Texas growth area called Frisco. But it wasn't until we got here that we learned a very important fact. In 2002, when we got here, there were more children birth through four years of age than in all the children grades K through 12 in the Frisco Independent School District. Think about that. Ding, ding, ding, we're going, okay. That tells us something here. If we're going to be an effective church that reaches a lot of people, we have to reach a lot of young families and also their children with them. And that's why when we planted the church, we launched it with a children's theatrical presentation called Dude Ranch, where we taught biblical values through drama and video. And Paul and I were relegated to ministers of announcements. Okay, that's what we did. But we reached many new people and a new generation, and new people groups, because we were indigenous and it forced us to be creative. Now, that's why it's important to start new churches.

But here's another thing that's really becoming more prevalent in my thinking and the thinking of a lot of folks. And here it is, the church in the US is facing the greatest crisis/opportunity in its history. Now, I put crisis/opportunity here, because I know that some of you are glass, half empty people and others of you are glass, half full people. Okay? So, with what I'm going to share with you now is, if you're a glass half empty people, it's a real crisis. For those of you who are glass half full, what you you're going to see is, is that we have an opportunity as never before.

So, what is it that I'm speaking about? Well, there are three realities that are becoming increasingly clear to Christian leaders in our nation. Here's the first one. The number of nones and dones is growing rapid. That is in general demographic censuses that are taken, more and more people when it comes to religious affiliation are checking none. They have no religious affiliation. And dones are people who perhaps were in church, been in church, but now they are done with church.

Here is a graph of the demographics of people shifting faith. Now, these blue lines, this is evangelical churches. These are Catholic churches. These are main light churches and other faiths. And they're all going down. And this is the trend and the projection from now until 2050. All right? The only one that's going up significantly are the nones and the dones. And what that translates into in terms of number, this is almost a double in percentage from 17% to over 30%. That means between now and 2050, listen, 35 million young adults, young students, and early adults are going to unaffiliate with Christianity and the church. That's losing over a million people a year, between now and 2050.

Now, what's going on here? Well, underneath this graph, there's a reality. There's a lot of switching religious affiliation going on. And the biggest window is between the ages of 25 and 35. That's when a lot of people decide what their faith is going to be. And by the age of 35, that's when most people's religious thinking is fairly hardened.

And so, what's taking place is in this window between the ages of 25 to 35, and even earlier, people are deconstructing their faith and they are unaffiliated with Christianity. Now, a lot of these people right here are in the millennial generation, people born from 1980 to 1996, and yet most of them are already through this 25 to 35 year old window.

Gen Zs were born in 1997 through 2015. And that will make them next year between the ages of seven and 25. And that's when they begin this window of switching. Now, here's the thing, we have to realize that gen Z is not your mother or your grandfather's generation. Gen Zs are the most diverse generation in the history of the United States. 47% of gen Z are non-white. The average gen Z spends nine hour hours a day on their device. 96% of them have a smartphone. And the primary driving cultural value for 73% of gen Zs is equality, that everyone should be able to marry whoever they want regardless of their sexual orientation. That is the generation, and that's what's happening is that people are leaving. They are saying to us, "It's simply not worth having a relationship with Jesus anymore. It's increasingly irrelevant to my life." And so, that is the situation that we are facing in our culture today.

We'll add to that. The church has lost a vision for starting new churches. If indeed starting new churches is the way we reach more people, we should be starting new churches. But if you look over the last several decades, you'll see that the number of churches are being started is declining significantly. These are churches started per one million residents, and now we're down about only a hundred churches per one million residents in the United States.

Here's World War II. After World War II came, we started new churches. People settled down, but then it started dropping again.
So, if we're going to change the trajectory, if we're going to move the needle, then we have to be willing to adopt a God's size challenge and to begin starting new churches. As a matter of fact, if we simply wanted to hold onto the generations that are already in church, growing up in church, we would need to start 215,000 new churches between now and 2050. That means essentially more than doubling how many churches we're starting now. Right now, we're starting about 4,000 new churches a year in the United States. But also, do you know that 3,700 churches a year are closing in the United States? So, there's only about a 300 net gain of churches a year with all of our population growth.

Now, James Stockdale was a POW in the Hanoi Hilton. And you can read a little bit of his story in Jim Collins book, Good to Great, where he develops what's called the Stockdale Principle. And the Stockdale Principle says this, those guys who survived and survived well had to adopt this mindset. They had to be willing to confront the brutal facts that they may not get out for a long time, but yet not to lose faith that one day, they will. And when you look at this data and where we are right now, we cannot pretend it doesn't exist or live in denial. We have to be willing to confront it, and yet believe that God is calling us, that God wants us, his people, those of us who are part of Preston Trail to be a part of the solution and to help start new churches. And that's what we want to talk about today. And I hope that you'll listen along with me as I share more with you.

I want to put it in terms of vision. Our grow and go vision is this. We envision Preston Trail becoming a reproducing church, where disciples make disciples who start new churches that start new churches. We have our mission. Our mission is to help people find and follow Jesus. And as people then are on that way, we want to help people grow as followers of Jesus, so that now they can go wherever he leads us. That's our strategy. We've been talking about that the last 12 weeks, but now here is the vision. Here is our preferred future. Here's where we would like to see things go and develop, that now we become this increasingly reproducing church, that we're a church that makes more and more disciples, who go out and start new churches that start new churches.

And here's the thing. You may be thinking, "That is the furthest thing for my mind. I can't imagine how I could be involved in that or how I could find easy place of significance in that." But I want us talk with you about that because I believe there are some ways that you can. But before I get there, I want to just talk about these four opportunities that we have in this coming year.

Today, you met Ines and Bobby, The Church We Hope for in Pasadena. They have a great future. She originated, her family is from Nicaragua. And Bobby is from Arkansas. Those are two disparate groups. So, they're going to be able to meet the diverse city needs in Pasadena, right? Color, ethnic background, all those kinds of things. And they're going to do an incredible job.
And then Morgan Burns and John Gordon in Wichita, a black man and a white man coming together in a city that is still struggling to find some kind of racial reconciliation. And they want to make disciples in the midst of that. Those are two that you've heard about, but I want to talk to you about two more churches that we're going to be planting, but I'm also excited about.

In this partnership that we have with Stadia, and you met Jim Candy, a couple weeks ago. We're also going to be partnering with Compassion International. And here's what we're going to be doing. We've identified Nicaragua as the country that we want to invest in. And Stadia will be working with people on the ground in Nicaragua, finding gifted, committed pastors.

And a part of our GoFund resources this year, $87,000 will build a building for this new church to be planted in. And we want to do two of those. And so, we'll help build this new church in a community in Nicaragua. But here's the really cool thing,
Compassion is going to come in behind us and they're going to build a children's center right there by the church. On a daily basis, that'll be 200 plus children coming in to be equipped and trained, and cared for, and loved. And so now, there will be children and families coming to this church that we help plant. It gets better.

Then I believe it's going to be in April or May that we're going to give everyone a Preston Trail an opportunity to sponsor a child who lives in the community in which we're building and shaping this church, so we can have the opportunity as a church family to literally transform an entire community. I'm really excited about that.

And so, our goal over this next year is to help plant these four churches. All right. So, that's what we have in mind for these.
Now, going on beyond that, how can you participate? Well, the first way you can do that is simply by praying. Prayer is the spiritual lifeline of a new church start. Now, a lifeline is the means through which life-giving resources are given. Think about an umbilical cord. A child is not able to exist in utero, apart from receiving nutrients, life-giving nutrients from mom through that umbilical cord.

Well, in the earliest stages, churches also need the lifeline of prayer. And when you go back and you read the letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches that he helped plant, in every one of those letters, he begins with either a short and sometimes a long prayer for them. And he tells them how much he prays for them.

Here's an example in Ephesians chapter one, "For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and your love for all of God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father may give you spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." And that's the kind of prayer that every church planter needs. They need to know that people are praying for them, that they'll have the wisdom and the knowledge that will lead them to make great decisions. They need to be prayed for that when the going really gets tough, that they will have the energy and the hope they need to continue on. They need to know indeed that the power of God is there for them.

When Paul and I planted Preston Trail, our primary prayer request was simply this, is that, "God, would you give us your favor? Would you give us your favor?"

And so, I want to encourage you. I don't have like a prayer card to give you today, or a reminder to put up on your window, or your mirror where you shave in the morning, guys. But here's the thing, you can write down the names of these two churches, Redeemer Church and The Church We Hope For. And you can just make them a regular object of your prayer on a regular basis. Pray for them. You all, we all can do that.

Now, secondly, here is the second way you can participate. You can give. Generosity is the operational lifeline of a new church start. It's really interesting how important it is for churches to be resourced. And I believe Paul is hinting at that in Ephesians 1:18. Let me read it again. He says, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know," now, here it is, "The riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people." What is he saying here? He's saying that when you and I are adopted into the family of God, we become brothers and sisters with Jesus. We are now heirs of God. That is everything that God has will one day be ours. And Paul is saying, is that all the riches that God has are in his glory, are in his holy people. So, what he's saying is there are a lot of people who follow God, who have resources to share, to make the church work.

Do you know that in a traditionally planted church today that the startup costs are between $300,000 and $500,000? That's a lot of money. Actually, I think it is more than that. And half of all the new churches that are planted, actually don't make it beyond years, three, four and five. And that's why it's so important for the people who recognize that they have all of the inheritance of God with them, that they have resources that they can give to churches that are being planted.

This week, I was thinking back of all the people who really made it possible for us to plant Preston Trail, and how in those early days, money coming in the mailbox was our lifeline. In that first year of our existence from January 2002, all the way to the end of 2002, $480,000 essentially came through the mail. We had two large gifts, one from Andy Stanley's church in Atlanta, Georgia, North Point, and one from an open handed denomination here. And those two gifts were $110,000. But that means that $370,000 came from individuals who knew us, believed us, loved us, believed in the mission of this church. You won't ever perhaps get to meet some of them, but I thought you might like to know who they are. Bill Marjorie, Sally, Jim and Sandra, Richard and Gail, Tim and Julia, Chris and Sandy, Chris and Carrie, John and Lisa, Deanna Betty, Gary and Sherry, Joe and Kelly, Kevin, Jeff, Fred and Christine, Greg and Deborah, Debbie and Leslie.

Debbie Shade gave the very first gift to Preston Trail. It was at Christmas. I'd already resigned my church. She was my wife's best friend. She brought us some envelope for Christmas. On Christmas morning, we opened her envelope. It was a check for $25,000. That paid for the basins and the Johnson's movie expenses and our first month salary. That was it. We'll never know Debbie. Jim Bennell, Ben and Beth Ann, Barry and Dina, Blake and Jennifer are just some of the people.

Here's the thing, if you love Preston Trail, if Preston Trail has been used by God to reconcile you to himself, to grow you up, and it's really made a huge difference in your life, these are the people that you can thank, because they are the ones who are willing to be that financial lifeline for us. And they live by this old adage, blessed is he who plants trees under who shade he will never sit. Most of them have never been there, will never ever be able to come here, but because they are willing to give, like you can give to the GoFund to help us plant these churches, they made a huge difference.

Here's the way the breakdown of our offering is going to go this year. You can see that we have local partners, but the national and global resource buckets are going to be primarily for planting these new churches. And if you go to prestontrail.org/give, this is what you'll see. And you'll see there two options, you can give to our ministry fund. It's our ongoing ministry fund that allows us to carry out our ministry here on a week by week basis. And then here's our annual go fund. You can click on that. And that's how you can give.

Now, there's one last way you can participate. And it is by going. That is going, is the sweat equity. It is the human physical lifeline of a new church start.

One of the most remarkable chapters in all the New Testament is Roman 16. Now, there's nothing remarkable about it theologically, it's all practical. It's in this chapter that the Apostle Paul gives a shout out to 35 individuals, not to mention their households or their churches they're associated with, but he gives a shout out to them for all of the hard work they're doing, the way that they are being good deacons and apostles, the way that they're working alongside of him. And he highlights all these people who are giving the sweat equity to launch these churches. It's exactly what it's required for us.

We launched physically September the 8th, 2002, and Paul and I spent the first eight months of our time here trying to put together this particular launch team. And this morning it dawned on me that there's a synchronicity in today. It was 20 years ago today that Rob and I left Atlanta, that early Sunday morning after Thanksgiving, drove to Birmingham and worshiped at Brookwood Baptist Church, where Paul delivered his message. And I don't recall ever hearing him preach before that time. I think I might have heard him in Preaching Lab. And I'd already decided, I'm way down the road on this deal with him. We're going to go plant a church together. I hadn't heard how well he could speak. So, when it was over, I was greatly relieved. And I told him, I said, "I can't think of another person, I'd rather plant a church with than you."

Than Paul and Denise got in our car. And we drove the rest of the day to Frisco, Texas, spent night, woke up and spent all day, Monday and Tuesday, visiting with people, getting our bearings of the land around here. And on the way home, we stopped in Pearl, Mississippi, and we said, "This is it. We are in."

And we moved here in May, in January and February of 2002. And for the next six, seven months, we tried to get anybody we could to join us in this vision. We prayed that God would send us 40 people to be in our launch team. And at the end of the time, after our third vision night, we had exactly 40 people. And that's who we launched the church with. And here's the thing, all 40 of those people signed up for 12 weeks of sweat equity. They put up this barn, or actually this one of three barns every day. Look at those wonderful lousy khaki pants, I'm wearing there, 20 years ago. Here are just some of the things that we had to push into place every day. It's the next picture, all this stuff. All these people, set up team, tech team, dude ranch, game team, donut team, the favorite team of all. I mean, it was all there and we did it every week. It was a sweat equity.

Now, here's the thing. You won't always see an opportunity to go plant a church, come along, but I have a feeling there will be another church plant here in the North Texas area sometimes soon. I think the seed has already been planted for that, another multi-site perhaps. But if you ever have that kind of opportunity, I want to encourage you to really pray about it. Let that seed grow in you, because God might be calling you to do that as well.

But here's something you might not be aware of. I'll let you in our little truth. Praying and giving and going, giving sweat equity is what keeps existing churches going also. We are only as effective as your prayer for us. And your serving and going the way that you're carrying out the mission and vision, and your generosity make all of these things happen.

So, there you have it. We believe it's incredibly important that we help start many new churches.

So, I want to just take a second now. I'm just going to wrap up this series, this Grow and Go series. And we, for the past 12 weeks, we've been talking about what it means to grow as a follower of Jesus and to go. And in order for us to do that more effectively, we really need a baseline of where we are. And that's why we have created that assessment. But if you would take that assessment, we're not going to give you like a score or an animal deal. Like you can be the beaver, or the duck, none of that kind of stuff. It's simply for us, so we can see where we are.

And if you would take that assessment for every one of you who do that, we're going to donate $25 to Compassion International. That's a wonderful gift, up to $25,000, if a thousand of us do that. But that assessment will help us understand where we are.
Now, one of the things I hope you get at all this is there is an anemic view of the Christian faith that focuses primarily on the fact that knowing Jesus is all about what happens to you after you die. But what we've been trying to help you understand is that there is a way of living in faith, that there is a way of knowing God, that gives you a meaningful and satisfying life now, even before you die. And that when you live that, when we live it together, when indeed as a church, we love one another, care for another, meet one another's needs, we become a shining light to our community and people begin to see the God who is truly there. The reputation of God goes up in the world around us. And then when you and I are scattered into the world into where we live, work and play, we live these lives that are winsome and inviting, and people want to know what are we smoking? What is it with these people? It's because they live with, walk with, serve, follow Jesus, the son of God. And that's our calling.

And that's why the last night before he died, Jesus was with his disciples, and he said to them, after everything was becoming clear to them, "Peace be to you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And that is the essential call of every one of us who claimed that Jesus is our Lord, that we will be open, eager to be sent into the world, wherever he leads us. That's my hope and prayer for each one of us.

And the band is going to come out now and they're going to sing a song that sometimes hearing someone else sing words helps us articulate the thoughts of our hearts better. In fact, that's the way I do my quiet time, most days, I listen to music and I let the music and the lyrics frame my prayer to God. And this is a beautiful song about being sent. And I hope and pray that as you listen, prayerfully, that you will hear the spirit speaking to you.

(Singing)

Father, that is our prayer. You have so deeply loved us. And may our love in return for you be so tangible, that we have open hearts, open hands, willing to do whatever and go wherever you lead us. Father, send us where you will. And may we have the courage to go, in Jesus' name. Amen.



Recorded in Frisco, Texas.