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261: Pastors James Foster and Holland Greig are on the podcast with Pastor Plek and Catie today to talk about their personal experiences with planting churches. Holland planted Eastside Community Church about six years ago and James planted Taylor Bible Church this October! Tune in to hear more about the things they did right, what they would improve, and what life and ministry look like when you’re planting a church.
Faith, Culture, and Everything in Between.
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Speaker 1:
And welcome back to pastor flex podcast. I'm so glad all of you are joining us as we're recording live here in Austin, texas, and this is going to be exciting podcast about church planning Super pumped about that. And of course, one of our church plan experts, mrs Katie Sass, is with us.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
She knows a lot about church planning.
Speaker 2:
I went to college for this.
Speaker 1:
She did. She did at the art institute where she had a fashion club, all right, and also joining us with some actual church planners is we have Holland Greg from East side community church what's up everyone. And then also from Taylor Bible church that launched, like about a month and change ago, none other than Pastor James Foster. Welcome, pastor James.
Speaker 3:
Thanks for having me. Oh, my God, how do you do.
Speaker 1:
You know it was a little subdued. We need to have a little more passion out of James. All right, we're going to talk about church planning and I want you to first describe the heart that you have for church planning. We'll start with Holland. Greg, when did you know that you were supposed to plan a church ready to go.
Speaker 4:
Okay, I became Christian in college. So, yeah, y'all know, at the Brazos Fellowship before browser, I didn't know that. Okay, before browse, I wasn't going to church yet, but I was reading the Bible and I had reading the Bible.
Speaker 2:
I mean, how far back do we want to?
Speaker 4:
go. I want to just real quick how I came to faith and then church plan. Okay, well, whatever gets us to church planning, okay, so real quick. Had some people who told me about Jesus got interested in the Bible because those people, my Christian friends, lived lives that I thought were awesome. They were generous, kind, loving people. So I was like man. They always attribute everything good about them to Jesus, so maybe I'll start reading the Bible. Then I started having these really weird dreams, like spiritual attack type dreams or like wake up like sleep, paralysis, demonic felt. You know, even as a non Christian, I was like this is demonic, this is dark, something weird is going on. I would wake up, paralyzed and not be able to move or speak, didn't know if I was awake or asleep, and I just remembered that my Christian friends would say there's power in the name of Jesus. And so I would try, I would say Jesus, and that'd be the only thing that I could say and I would wake up, I would, I could move again. And then, you know, the first time that happened, I had a Christian roommate and I was like hey, tell me everything you know about Jesus, you know. And he, I was like I think I just got attacked by a demon, like will you pray with me? And so, after that happened numerous times, this is my demon attacking you numerous times sleep, paralysis, dreams, you know the whole thing. It would happen over and over again to the point where I was like, okay, I need, so this is a text saying is it text saying so there's a lot of demons there?
Speaker 3:
You know a lot of salvation's there. A lot of salvation's there too. Okay, can back me up.
Speaker 4:
We're. We got two Aggies here. I had. I really believed that I was like man. There's something demonic going on and I want to know about Jesus. So I started reading the New Testament. This is my sophomore year now. I'm reading Matthew, I get to and I'm starting to go hey, I love Jesus. I think like even the first couple chapters of Matthew, I just felt drawn to him. So I get to the Sermon on the Mount. I feel convicted about lust and anger and pride and things that are being called out of the Sermon on the Mount and I remember just weeping because I was like man. I just decided that I want to follow Jesus and there's no way he would accept me. I'm a messed up, I'm a sinner. I always thought I was a good person and now I'm. I read the sermon on the Mount. I'm like I'm not a good person.
Speaker 1:
All right. What's the whole line when you say, because this most people go, Sermon on the Mount is so beautiful, but for you it was like terrifying it was terrifying you just said if you, you know, look lustfully, lustful intent, at another woman, you've committed your guilty of adultery. If you have, you know, anger towards your brother, you're liable to the fires of hell, and so which is what, okay, so I think a lot and this I don't want to get into like political thing, but I think a lot of liberal, progressive people go we just need to do the Sermon on the Mount or live like the Sermon on the Mount, and I think what we're seeing, though, is that Jesus says that's how you're supposed to live, and then you were convicted by that that you couldn't do that. Yeah, exactly, and I think that that's almost biblical. Literacy was a blessing to you, because you didn't just read that it's like ah, that's just, you know, hyperbole. You thought that you kind of received that as like actual standards.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, absolutely Well, and you know, because Jesus took the law to the heart right he said you've heard it said don't commit adultery. And I was like I haven't committed adultery, I'm good, I'm not even married. How could I do that? I'm good, I'm one of the good guys. And then he said but what about your heart? And so that's when I got convicted of my sin. Thankfully, by God's grace, my roommate at the time was a Christian and I told him I was like he walked in. He walked in on me while I was crying, actually, and he was like dude, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1:
Wow, and you're having this like moment with God and this guy like Hello, oh my gosh, what are you doing?
Speaker 4:
Yeah, I mean, I'll never forget sitting at my desk sophomore year Dragon Ball Z poster right here on my wall. You know my. Apple computer, right here with my and my, my little Bible, my little metal Bible that said thirsty on the front that someone gave me in high school and LT Bible and and so, anyway, I remember he came in and I told him man, I just I want to follow Jesus, but I don't think he would accept me. And he was like, man, I got really good news for you Jesus loves sinners. And that's his thing, it's a whole whole deal. He accepts sinners and share the gospel with me. Wow, he was like let's start going to church together. So he was a Christian, but he was not really involved in church at the time. Wow, and so this, my salvation actually kind of brought him back to church as well.
Speaker 1:
Was he just start going to the Brazos?
Speaker 4:
fellowship Yep, and so I got baptized there. Like shortly after started attending, my pastor there baptized me and when did you start doing sound? Almost immediately. I knew a guy there and he started discipling me, and he was serving in the tech booth. So this is all leading the church planting, though.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, I love this.
Speaker 4:
This guy. He was discipling me and he was like hey, I serve in the tech booth, you're going to serve with me and I need your help. So I started serving every week. We were doing three to five services a weekend. The church was growing a lot. It was a little church plant that started exploding in growth and so I would serve Saturday night. I would. I would sleep there on Saturday night, actually in the tech booth, because I knew I couldn't wake up in time to get there Sunday morning at six o'clock when the band started rehearsing for their three to four Sunday services. Yeah, and so I would just sleep there, a little sleeping bag in the tech booth. I didn't tell anybody about that one time they found me, though.
Speaker 1:
And they're like yeah, you can't really do that.
Speaker 4:
But so I was serving a lot and this guy that was discipling me, he, he was encouraging me hey, read the word. He gave me a thumb drive with a bunch of sermons on it and he was like I want you to listen to all these and we're going to talk about them. And I plugged it in my computer while I was visiting Austin actually, my dad lived here at the time, yep, visiting Austin and I plugged it in. I listened to one sermon on that. There was like 50 or 100, like a ton of sermons that he all thought were really good, and the one that I listened to was about church planting. And as I'm listening, I felt like I heard a call from God, clear as day, like I you know, I can cannot describe it any other way other than you know God called me at that moment. This is what I want you to do with your life. I want you to be a church planter and a pastor. Wow, put very specific and like I don't have a whole lot of stories like this. You know, this is like the one time where it's like okay, done, put some very specific things on my heart, with goals and a timeline. I wrote it all down and at that time I didn't even see myself as being a. I thought maybe I could help someone else plant a church, right. And so I called my friend uh, who I knew was a Christian and wanted to be a pastor, and I was like, hey man, what do you think about planting a church together? Cause I just couldn't see yeah, that's never something I had thought about doing before yeah. But, um, that ended up not working out and um, so I was just like, okay, god, I don't know how to move toward this, but God put it on my heart to plant a church, and to plant a church that was passionate about reaching the lost with the gospel. Oh wow, um, a church that was living on mission. And uh, yeah, I had no idea how to go about doing that. I get, I get offered a job after college with I'm second in Dallas, meet, meet you through this and um, start going all around the country with you doing stuff, and, um, you know, you start teaching me how to uh lead and preach and things like that. And then, um, I still felt like the Lord was calling me to Austin, though.
Speaker 1:
The church plant in Austin.
Speaker 4:
Oh wow, I don't know if I ever told you that but then you sent me a text message hey, I'm moving to Austin. Do you want to come Right? And I'm like man, okay. I got my way to Austin, and so I think my response to you is like uh, I'll pack my bags. You know, you teach me how to you know how to pastor and plan a church and one day.
Speaker 1:
So, over over time, we started talking through that your response to it initially was just yes, and I was like huh, that was easy.
Speaker 4:
Um 21 or 20 is a couple of years after I became a Christian. Uh 22, 21, I think, 21.
Speaker 1:
You graduated college early.
Speaker 2:
No you didn't graduate.
Speaker 4:
I did graduate. I left college and then I graduated later. That's right, because that doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:
No, I want to hear that story.
Speaker 4:
I took a club test, uh, to test out of my history credit, right? Uh, my freshman year, and I got a um a 55 on it, which is no, no, no, no, that's good. Okay, I got it. All you need is a 50 to pass. Oh God, I got it, except for at Texas A&M where you need a 60. And I didn't know that they had a different requirement and so the whole time I thought I had. And then, like, so the day, actually the day before my graduation that was going to walk the stage, I get an email from the registrar and they're like hey, just FYI, you, you can't graduate, you haven't taken history. And so, anyway, I was just like they let me walk the stage anyway, and just gave me a paper that said take history. I did that later, like a year later. Actually, I did that because of you. I wasn't even going to finish because I was like I'm already graduated, I already have a job, I'm doing church planting stuff in the future, like that's what. And then I told you that one day and you were like that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life graduate college. You literally told me that at an airport. I'll never forget that, either at an airport on the way to a trip. That was the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You have one more class graduate college so I signed up that night and I graduated college. So thank you, congratulations.
Speaker 1:
College graduate right here. Now on my path toward church planting. Yeah, okay, so then how do so?
Speaker 4:
yeah, so you moved down, and then that's where we established a five year plan, and then we, we knocked it out and the five year, plan that we had talked about was already something got to put on my heart when I first felt, when I listened to that sermon, I wrote all those things down and like actually how things happened, like lined up perfectly with what God had put on my heart that I wrote down, bonkers. Okay.
Speaker 1:
All those years ago.
Speaker 2:
How old were you when you married Jenny?
Speaker 4:
25., 25.
Speaker 2:
Three years later.
Speaker 1:
And then you were 30 when you planted right or no? No, 29?.
Speaker 4:
I'm not going to lie, I'm not. I don't remember all the you planted in January 2017. We moved to.
Speaker 2:
Austin in 2012.
Speaker 4:
You're 29.
Speaker 2:
I just care more about the fun parts.
Speaker 4:
The fun parts. Jenny and I got married in 2012.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 4:
I was 25. She was 21.
Speaker 2:
And then those are the real most.
Speaker 4:
And then we planted five years later, or four and a half years later, so I was 29.
Speaker 1:
All right. So Jenny's roommate in college was Katie Vineyard, who is now Katie Foster, who is James Foster's wife, and back in the day Jenny and Katie will come over to our apartment in Dallas and do like a little Bible study with Adrian. I think, right, yeah, all right, but now let's, let's, let's, let's go shoot over to James with that segue let's talk about your church planning journey all the way to Taylor Bible Church. There you go.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so we man. February 21, 2011,. I was a junior at Texas A&M and I came to faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1:
Was it you were crying in? Your roommate came by and said hey, you need to. James, doesn't cry.
Speaker 3:
If there aren't tears, is it real?
Speaker 1:
It's not real. It ain't real if they don't cry.
Speaker 3:
There was. There were definitely tears, but it was. It was coming to a realization of how simple I was and how much I needed Jesus. And then that weight being removed gave me, gave me life.
Speaker 1:
It's why I think the thing I love about that and and I know not everybody has this story, but it it happens a lot like that a conviction of sin, remorse, like godly sorrow over your sin, and then repentance, regeneration, all that, so I love. I mean, I think mine was the same, Katie's the same, we all kind of have that's powerful. All right, keep going.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely but and it was at Texas A&M At Texas A&M as a junior. So leading up to that started just praying, reading my Bible, asking for God to show me who he is, and he revealed himself in a powerful way, and so about a year after that or for the next year, there was a lot of turmoil about what am I going to do with my life now?
Speaker 1:
This was you, because what were you? Were you pre-med at that time?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I was pre-med at that time, I had just taken my MCAT and I was gearing up everything towards that, that path of practicing medicine, like just thinking, okay, I'll be a Christian doctor, whatever that looks like. But in the process, as I started to serve at a a Friday church for these kids that don't go to church on Sunday, they get bussed in for this Friday church I started to feel this joy and this purpose of like, hey, this is actually fulfilling.
Speaker 1:
Talk to me about the Friday church Like what do you mean?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so it's called Pioneers Friday Church. Phil Kwan, who is a pastor here, also served at that Friday church. Oh wow, a lot of Aggies go and serve there. It's an awesome ministry. What I did there at first as I showed up and I was just helping with a third and fourth grade boys class, just teaching them, just helping the teacher teach them kind of helping them to focus while the teacher taught and whatnot, and then we'd play games with them, we'd feed them dinner, we'd do some Bible lessons. So it was a good comprehensive thing, but it was like as we got to give these kids their first Bibles and we got to see their eyes open to who Jesus is and what he's done for them. There was a great joy there that was lacking from a lot of my pre-med pursuit, where it seemed like the more that I followed Jesus and the more that I got my identity from him, the less I needed to prove myself through achievement elsewhere.
Speaker 1:
Wow, Okay. So then talk to me about coming to Austin. So you graduate, come to Austin. Talk to me about the process.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so in between those two. So February 2011, when I come to faith, and then the next year, starting to feel I also joined these I am second groups where I was helping to be in these discussions and then lead these discussions, started a couple of I am second groups. So that was a similar thing of like making disciples teaching God's word. This is where the joy is, this is where the passion is. Everything in that pre-med realm started to wane or fade a little bit, and so it was like, well, part of this is just maybe a different season. You might just have to push through the difficult and kind of get stuff done.
Speaker 1:
Like hey, school's hard, and maybe it's because it's sometimes like, ah, school's hard. Man, this is fun, I'll do the fun thing, but it transition more.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it was definitely like okay, here's my community of my pre-med society folks that are a little bit more on the cutthroat side. If you miss a class and you say what did we cover, you're not going to get a straight answer for multiple people because they want to pass you up nice to get into medical and whatnot versus a fulfilling, positive, encouraging Christlike community that is going to encourage you and build you up. And so the difference between those communities also created some issues of like what are you going to do? What do you have the endurance to keep at it with this path? Because, ultimately, like I could see myself successful in medicine because I could outwork folks, but I was outworking folks from the wrong source.
Speaker 1:
Right, oh, nice, okay. So then you get saved. The Holy Spirit's working on you. You want to do stuff. You find yourself really drawn to ministry. On a Friday night, instead of going out partying at Northgate, you're going and sharing Jesus with fourth graders. So then, how do you get to Austin?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so about a year after I came to faith in February of 2012, I started asking this question of okay, what am I made for? What am I going to do with my life? I hear about church planning and I'm fascinated.
Speaker 1:
Where'd you hear about church planning from?
Speaker 3:
You know, I think I listened to a lot of Mark Driscoll, a lot of Matt Chandler and they mentioned it a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah back in the day.
Speaker 1:
In fact, I think it was either the villages or Mars Hills web or what's called app just said plant churches or church planning or something like that it was. It was sort of like a thing, so everybody was on board absolutely so those guys.
Speaker 3:
And then Ben Stewart yeah, and Stewart, that those are like the big voices in my head. I was developing in my faith and kind of learning what it meant to follow Jesus, and so, as they had talked about it, church planting became just kind of like an obsession for like a week of just like this is. I'm fixated on it, I don't know why. And then the week after that, it was well, where do I fit in this? What's my role in planting churches? And then the week after that is when I am second, an organization I was part of invited you to come and do on campus, and so we had the conversation. So is. And in that conversation you said, hey, move to Austin, I'll come serve at this church for ten years. I'll train you up and send you out to play in a church.
Speaker 2:
And in my tea isn't that kind of this how it almost exactly yeah you give a little little COVID grace.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, cover grace but basically ten years to From the time I moved down to Austin to help with Wells branch. Wells branch sent me to Hutto to be their church plan.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and then how shortly after, when you move to Austin, did you meet Katie?
Speaker 3:
Oh.
Speaker 1:
Like instantly, probably like the next day.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, katie and I had met before on trips to Austin to To actually visit here and do prisoners here and Jenny came together. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:
Right yeah, when you and Jenny were dating right, so Katie didn't know that you were gonna be here to right, she, she kind of knew, did you guys go to passion together like in? 2012 2012, in a van or something that you were into.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that was she was she wasn't impressed with me, right thought I was just in it for the ladies, which is partial to yeah, but he does have a spiritual gift.
Speaker 1:
Good looks as he's Got some of that stuff out.
Speaker 3:
It's hard. So, as as Katie, katie and I we meet, we've got a little bit of like we're acquaintances. Yeah, we're not strangers, we're acquaintances nice. So, as we were acquaintances, facebook friends, getting to know each other, we started talking, probably the second day I was here and then he was not the biggest fan of that, but no it's because I was taking her best friend away right before a wedding right, can't do that.
Speaker 4:
I don't even remember that I just thought I do we all thought you were cool.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you're very cool. And kiss Katie on the first day you met her, or something like that. Maybe a second day, okay, and that's like when we knew like they're gonna get married. It's over.
Speaker 2:
I just will never forget, when you, holland, had me at, who's apartment was, what was this at?
Speaker 1:
the preserve.
Speaker 2:
James. James Myers apartment. It was actually formerly my apartment, which is really weird apartment where, like you, had this video of like some mission trip you went on. This is before I was a Christian and I was just like the girl that y'all knew that needed Jesus, that like went right clubs.
Speaker 4:
So you were more than you were our friend.
Speaker 1:
You are, yeah, oh, legit. You weren't just a project, you were a person. Well, what is this?
Speaker 2:
video.
Speaker 4:
What are you talking about?
Speaker 2:
It was some trip. You went on and it was like the gospel presentation and I remember I was like halfway paying attention. But then what I knew was that Katie and James were outside the door, like in the apartment, like breezeway breezeway or whatever and I was just like they're too, are like out there probably making out or something, and while, like, holland is trying to lead you to Christ like gospel presentation. But I'm just over here like who's? Somebody's getting spicy the hallway. I don't remember who else was there, but it was like a group of y'all was this on the game night?
Speaker 3:
I have no recollection.
Speaker 2:
It was what's all right, I can't remember, but it was like y'all invited me over and just I was like okay.
Speaker 3:
We'll do go on a mission trip. I love this. I remember that was it like Bolivia maybe.
Speaker 2:
It was like Mexico or something.
Speaker 1:
Yeah oh, maybe it was Mexico, because we went to Mexico, you were like I never you and then whoever who, who was Jordan Vera's really good friend? Cody sparks the time.
Speaker 2:
There's a lot of weird things. No, it was anyways all right, so I want to tell you story good story, bro.
Speaker 1:
All right, so I want to go back to. Let's talk about church planning and like what led up and how. What are the things you had to do to get started? No, you wait me.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, what was the question? I Think talking to James.
Speaker 1:
No, I'm talking to Holland because we got the story like how he got here. Now we're going back to you to tell the story about like what was the prep, like what was your model, all of that um, yeah, okay, we First of all like how we decide we need a place to go oh. I remember this because we were thinking this the church planners graveyard right.
Speaker 4:
Well, I had no idea where, just knew in Austin. And then you know, I was like, well, where, where in Austin? Where do we go? I don't really know a whole lot about Austin and I heard someone mentioned sometime like, oh, just don't go to like this area because it's like the church planners graveyard, and I was like that doesn't sound very awesome. But if that's an area that needs churches, well, let's check it out. You know, maybe, maybe we'll be the ones that make it very naive and maybe arrogant of me of like, oh yeah, let's go to the church planners graveyard, but it was the south Lamar area seven, eight, seven eight seven, four, yeah, oh four, and so we had planned a trip with a couple people that were interested in being on, like you know, being a part of a core team or something you and I would drive down there and just hang out we would. Yeah, we'd go to coffee shops and walk around and just pray and Use bathrooms. Use bathrooms, sure. And so I was like, okay, well, let's plan a little trip with some people. And I reached out to a church there in that area, said that someone had Mentioned, said hey, they might be able to host you guys, right. So they say well doesn't matter, because I'm gonna yeah you know bailing on us so let's not call them out. I'm bailing on us, though. You know. They were like, hey, you can stay here. We planned a trip, and then, like the day before, or they were like, oh yeah, we forgot, we have, like, a women's retreat, you guys can't come here anymore. And so we lost our place, that our home base, and we were like dang, I was really disappointed. Someone on the team, though, was like I know this other place that we might be able to stay, but it's in a different area, and that place was mission possible and the east side, and so we're. I was all bummed out. You know we they let us stay there, but I was like man, it's the wrong area, but the whole week that we are going out and scouting and praying and talking to people trying to look around for places that we can meet as a church, we'd come back to the east side and be like man. I think. I don't think this was an accident. I think this is God's providence. Like we were learning about East Austin, learning about mission possible, the programs they did. Mission possible is a nonprofit, that's done programs.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, talk about what mission possible isn't?
Speaker 4:
yeah, started back in like 87 or so or early 90s is when they purchased the building, I think on the east side, but basically do in ministry to the homeless, to low-income community, to a lot of Kids and families, single-parent households on the east side, marginalized, vulnerable. They did programs, kids camps, pregnancy center, food, fellowship, that kind of thing, and so we're learning about all this while we're staying in their building and going shoot. This is all the stuff that we're passionate about, like we love being able to do this kind of ministry. And so we asked them hey, is there any church meeting in this building? It's an old church building, 100 year old church building, that you know needed some repair needed a lot of repair still does, still does. But yeah, they're like no, no churches are meeting in here right now and I was like well, what would y'all think about a team coming down to plant a church in this building, in Partnership with the ministries that y'all have? And the people that you're serving could not only be recipients of a program but also belong to a community where they could be egg at a fellowship Discipleship hear the word. You know what if we started a church here? And that's when we started conversations with planting east side community church.
Speaker 1:
So on that specific trip. Was Katie a part of that? I don't know. Were you part of that, what?
Speaker 4:
were you come with us on that vision trip.
Speaker 1:
I don't, were you part of that first east side where we slept.
Speaker 4:
It mission possible no.
Speaker 2:
Brooklyn no is it not where we all sat in a big circle? No, yeah, you came in later.
Speaker 4:
You came in later. I don't, I don't even remember. Yeah, I don't remember the timeline of. I don't remember Okay yeah, there's a small handful of we. We slept at the church, you know, and like it rained on us and this old building like rains coming through the ceiling on us and there's like rats and we're like, okay, I think this is where God wants us to plan a guy's calling for our lives.
Speaker 1:
I love that, okay. So you started developing the relationship and was it like instantly, like you're the guy, or was it to take time?
Speaker 4:
Took time mission possible was they had dealt with a lot of people who wanted their space but didn't really care about the community or their heart for the poor.
Speaker 1:
How is that possible that you could? And Take me to the mindset. I'm sure these are great people that want to use the space but didn't have a heart like yours. What was unique about yours, your heart, that they didn't have?
Speaker 4:
talk, talk to me that well you know East Austin's been changing a lot over the past decade and there's gentrification going on and in all these changes you know it's it's very, it's expensive and so Trying to find a place to meet people were very interested in the space. That didn't necessarily care about the low-income community in East Austin Interesting, but we're like this is a building Can we get into the need of building, yeah okay. And maybe there you know their ministry was gonna be at UT or North all, or something like that but they just needed a place to meet and yeah. So I don't know. This is just what I heard from them. I don't know who any of these people are. They just said we've received a lot of requests but nobody that's really had a heart for the poor in East Austin.
Speaker 1:
So talk about the planting part. So, so you, you find a space. Eventually they agree. Then you start developing a core team. What did that look like?
Speaker 4:
It. It looked like me saying hey, we want to plan a church on the east side, here's our heart, who wants to come? And at that time we're doing young adult ministry yeah Wells branch and so the core team was primarily a bunch of young adults and you make people fill out applications.
Speaker 1:
You remember that?
Speaker 4:
yeah, but fill out application. Come to prayer nights, you know, but like a lot of them were still very, very young Believers, new to faith, some of them, you know, not in over their heads, not really knowing what all was involved in a church plan. And neither die I didn't even know with nobody. None of us knew, and so it's looking back on that, did I go about everything the right way? Absolutely not. Did I. Did I do the right steps I needed to take and gathering a core team and preparing for a church plant to minister to low-income families in East Austin?
Speaker 1:
I know I what did you do right? How about that? There's probably things you did wrong, but there's obviously. You're still going, so you did something right. So what was it?
Speaker 2:
Because I, I still feel bad about us backing out. There was a lot of people that said they would come down with us.
Speaker 1:
But I think that's backed out and then yeah, and you can't get your we committed, and then we. Let's talk about that, because I think this is important for church planners.
Speaker 2:
And.
Speaker 4:
I never forget.
Speaker 1:
So we're gonna roll the bus over your cup times? No, but there's, there's a lot of truth to like who you start with Is it who you're gonna necessarily finish with? And so, and we talk about that all the time, like even from charter service to, yeah, where you are now, like, talk about that time of, and there was always pressure, I'm not say from people like Katie, but from people on the core team we need to plant now, plant now. Talk about that pressure like hey, there's a church planner out there, they're one to plant and they've got a timeline, they've got some benchmarks. Yeah, do you hit those benchmarks or do you just kind of get what do you think? I don't know.
Speaker 4:
First of all, let me say I have no Katie. I want you to know I love you guys. There's no like I don't want you to feel any kind of wet it is. I think is actually there were people who pulled out.
Speaker 2:
You know, like, like, y'all that, like because we're, like about to get married, yeah, but we were also talked out of going, like someone from the church talked us out of going, like told us that it wouldn't be. Why is first to go?
Speaker 4:
and so we were like oh, and and you know what, they're probably right. They're probably right. It was probably like, honestly, a lot of people that went it probably shouldn't, like we probably needed a different team like I say that now. That's not to say anything negative about people's intentions about like. I think we all had the intentions like let's go do this. They're excited, right, yeah but they're planning a church is really hard and we're working with a very difficult community where you know we're in a low-income community, that most church plants in Austin right now are not focused on reaching the poor. No, just straight up, that's not. People are planting in areas where there are, you know, new schools being put up and thriving families, suburbants and like churches are needed everywhere. But I think it's important to note that, like planning a church in a low-income community in an urban context like that. That's not really Happening. That's not where most people are focused on planning churches, even though it's very needed, and there was a lot that I didn't know about what it would take to do that.
Speaker 1:
Well, what didn't you?
Speaker 4:
know we. So we and I would say there were some other people who I was like okay, here's what our team is gonna be like and that, just that changed a lot. And some of that I would say, I would say was like my own leadership failures of of not knowing what it would take, and so, like to the question of, hey, we need to go, we want to hit these benchmarks right. Like you're wrestling with these two things one of urgency people need to hear the gospel Right, let's go do this. There's people who are far from God. You know that we need to go. But then there's the other side of wisdom and patience, of like Do we have personally the maturity, the wisdom, the experience, the leadership, all that thing to actually do this well, so that we don't close the doors in two years Because we weren't prepared, like don't, like Jesus's warnings about, like, don't start to build a tower, you know, if you haven't counted the cost, and like I would say we're still going today, by God's grace. Of Not because I did everything right on the front end. I would say there's a lot of things where I didn't count the cost of, yeah, what it would take for us to be a healthy church.
Speaker 1:
Because we talked about like, hey, let's get a core team of I don't know 30 try to get 30.
Speaker 4:
We left with 18 from Wells branch. You always tell everyone that I took like 40 people 70 hundred crippled us 18 from Wells branch. That was our team and within the first year, like you know, four of those were gone by the second year, like half of that team was gone by the third year. Almost everyone was gone right. So and part of that has to do with you know, we three, three years in was COVID right.
Speaker 1:
So that's a whole other from our perspective, though, it was fun. It's fun. It's like a bunch of people Didn't go to your church, but they, they didn't go to any church, which I thought was. I never thought this would happen. They're like I don't know anybody here anymore because all those people left and I'm like but it's not like you guys. Huh, you didn't but that was like there. It was weird. It was like weird, Anyway. I was like, okay, Well, anyway it was. It's a strange thing. Church planning is counting the cost on both ends of it's really and some of that you can't avoid.
Speaker 4:
Like, no matter what, like you're, there's very typical, yeah, the people are gonna be with you for the first year and then be gone after that, and that's like that's not something to be bitter about either. Like you just can't praise God for the service that they Contributed for the first year, right, but for me I I don't think I had a good, I don't think that I had a like robust understanding of really how to develop leaders to plant a a multi ethnic, multi cultural church, and Multicultural meaning not just like ethnicity but socioeconomic status, age. We had an intergenerational church we had. We had mostly young people how do you disciple Older families? Well, who have kids like. So my, the ministry I had at Wells branch was young adult ministry, mostly singles, young married couples. Shifting to the east side was was a lot of Families, a lot of single moms with kids that we were meeting in the community. That's the majority of the low-income community, single parent household, single moms with kids who had all kinds of struggles that I had never dealt with before.
Speaker 1:
Like I was completely Under-equipped and trained and I just had no idea what I was getting so here's what I'm hearing from you, and this might be like oversimplifying it you took a step of faith and God blessed, in spite of all your weaknesses, in spite of all your Ineptitude, that by the sheer grace of God, you exist today. Yes, all right, you know like.
Speaker 4:
I would say like I, so I didn't quit there are many times I wanted to quit, yeah, yeah and just and.
Speaker 1:
You always have job back here.
Speaker 4:
I know and you, you always, you know, you would always tell me there's always a job for you, well branch, which I really appreciate it. But you would also tell me Holland, suck it up. God put this calling on your life. There is always a job for you back here at Wells branch. But don't quit, don't like there's a lot of times where I really felt like quitting and I would call you and you talk me off the ledge.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and so talk about the not quitting. I think that actually is the most important part of church planning.
Speaker 4:
This is the one part that I'm feeling a clear sensing, a clear call from God. Good for me is what I would like. I will never forget the when God put that calling, how he revealed, you know, the east side and the providence of God and that whole process, that being confirmed. Yeah, I think you needed that to remind yourself of that and I would say you, like you know, there were times when I was like, okay, I'm, I don't think I'm the guy to do this. You know, like I don't know how to pastor people through these problems. I don't have, I don't have the experience. Like am I? And God used you? I Told you this like your 10-year anniversary as well. But I want to reinforce it now. God really used your encouragement and exhortation to keep me in it. Like what would use Jenny? Yeah, I would tell Jenny, jenny, let's just quit this whole thing. We're moving out, we're gonna get some land somewhere far away and just be away from ministry. Because it, you know, I feel like I suck at it and it's really hard and Jenny would be like, you know, suck it up.
Speaker 1:
God called us to this. Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 4:
We're not quitting, and then you would say the same thing, and so, like I really needed that, oh, I'm encouraged by that because I think you are, I think your church has become.
Speaker 1:
I mean, you know what we're like. What year is it we're? I guess for eight years in, like it's become a Seven, seven January.
Speaker 4:
January to be a six right now, but is there really?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, 2017, oh, yeah, right, I can't do math, so six and change All right. So here we are, almost seven years in, and I feel like you've become a I don't know like a real pillar in that community with the church. Because of your. You haven't quit, because you've you've continued to do ministry. People have come and gone, but I think there's a reliable sense of that God's working there and you've seen, not just I mean clearly our church sent you and I don't think we sent you much money after that but a lot of churches sent you guys a lot of money to help you in some hard times, like talk about, talk about, like the networking aspect how valuable that was.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. So I mean early on, like a typical church plant, the goal is like okay, you get a little bit of seed money, some support by your sending church, maybe some others, and then you know, by your to your weaned off by year, two or three. But like that, you know, with our church, as we grow, our, our giving doesn't go up right our needs.
Speaker 1:
And why is that? Because we're in a low-income community, like because when you say low-income it's like the projects section 8 housing.
Speaker 4:
Section 8 housing 3,000 families within a one mile radius of our church. They mostly sing single parents who, yeah, our struggling kind of day-to-day to get by and Most of which are not in church at all, some of which have church familiarity Maybe their grandma brought them things like that but for the most part un-churched and un-unserved by other churches Right. There are other churches in the east side, many of closed their doors in the past five years and there there are some solid, faithful, jesus-loving, historic churches on the east side that you know are still doing really great work. We partner with several of those. We love to work together and collaborate but like there's there's a lot of need on the east side in in, you know, the section 8 housing, the government assisted housing, and so when these families come to faith and come to our church, you know it's not, it's not like someone comes to church and it's like, hey, cool, let me start serving and let me start giving and great, our budgets going up because our church is growing. It's like, hey, I'm coming to this church and I need help with this bill and I need help with, you know, this broken relationship and I have this drug addiction and I have it like there's a lot of that kind of stuff that comes to where when one person, when one family, joins our church and I'm not complaining about this, this is why we started the church right but I'm just saying that like it requires a lot of people resources. Resources to care for that person Well, to love them, as well as financial resources of our church is growing, but we don't have any more money, and so, therefore, we need other churches to partner with us so talk about how.
Speaker 1:
How did that come about, like other churches partner with? Because wasn't like I said.
Speaker 4:
We give you some, not even close yeah, during covid we a lot of people left and it went through a really hard time where we, you know, before covid we had grown to about a hundred hundred, to a hundred and twenty.
Speaker 1:
On.
Speaker 4:
Sundays. You know from our small small group that we started with yep. Then covid hit and we lost like all of our college students. Ut and HT closed their campuses. A lot of people moved away. It took different jobs. Some people just decided I just don't, I'm just not gonna go to church anymore because it you know Whether different perspectives on masks or politics and different things and so like. We got whittled down to a very small group and Like we say whittled down like 30, 20, what? 20 of us again.
Speaker 1:
Wow yeah, so you're down to Greek.
Speaker 4:
It's almost like replanting, replanting a church and you know there was more who would watch online and stuff, but in terms of who actually you know was gathering in person and committed to the mission and to the church, it's a very small group and we were just like I think it's over, right, think we're done like I don't you know, and Felt. Those were one of those times where I would, you know, you talked me off the ledge, where we felt like, no, you're not done. I called you to do this. Don't quit when it gets hard, keep going, cast vision, develop leaders. And what happened was through covid. We lost a lot of people, but the people who stayed Were the people who are from the community, right, yeah, who got saved, who became members, who were growing in their faith, and so, as we re-grew, it was a totally different church.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, our church is totally different now than it was before covid as well. I think that's ubiquitous now.
Speaker 4:
So we're a very we're a much different church. When we started the church, we had the intention or aspiration of being a diverse church to reflect and represent the community that we were in. But we just weren't. We, straight up, were not yeah and about now the heart was there and now we're. Yeah, just completely different.
Speaker 1:
God, use, struggle, wilderness, experience to for for you to fulfill the vision you actually had for your church hundred percent. And then God used his family of. I don't know if you want to get you know, give some shots as other churches that really bless you. But like I think, oh man, yeah the well city view dripping springs, I'm uh, huh, huh, oh west north way North Village all these different churches in our association. So, yeah, the associate community. Not that we're gonna give like a shout to the association hill country churches go to plan atxcom, but what I do think it's really powerful that all these I sent out an email. Yeah, send an email.
Speaker 4:
The association saying, hey, I think God's called us to keep doing this. He's working in our church, people are getting saved, people are getting baptized, we're serving the poor, we're making disciples. We just don't have any money and we lost a lot of people. And you know, will you help? And churches stepped up, and so that I mean Huge blessing. Who said, hey, we'll give this much, we want to contribute, and through that like Not only the finances but the encouragement, the prayer, the camaraderie, yeah, yeah, we push forward. And so we've grown back to around now, you know from from that, 20, between 70 and 80 on a weekend now, but it's a totally different 70 and 80 people from the community.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's man. There's so many things I want to just like jump on. Like, if you're a church planner, you're thinking about it. One of the things we were always recruiting to Austin we need more churches here, but that's part of it is you're involved in a association of Hill Country Church is that Not all of them have the people to send, but they do have some of the resources to make sure that happens. So that's really an awesome thing. So, man, thanks for sharing that. James, I want to kind of jump to you real quick. You've just started. You're like are we two months in? Yeah, roughly, roughly. So talk to me about like, let you guys send from us over to Hutto. Talk about core team development. Talk about like because it kind of was a little bit of parachuting in to Hutto, so to speak well, taylor, which is next to Hutto, but you parachute into Taylor and then you start developing people from Hutto. Talk to me about how that all worked.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so Last October Katie and I moved our family to Taylor, Texas. Towards the end of from Flugerville. Yeah, from Flugerville where I'd had a house five minutes from here, yep, so got hired in July. In October is when we finally were able to close both deals and get there. This time in last year we had 11 in a small group that was focused on Taylor and reaching Taylor with the gospel. Talking about that small group, so it was. I didn't lead it, it was a. It was a guy who's gonna be an elder at the church that was gonna lead it and he led it with his wife and it was just people interested in Planting and Taylor maybe, but they were just people that lived they just lived in Taylor Right.
Speaker 1:
Exactly that guy stay with you for the core team or to the plant.
Speaker 3:
He stayed with us until January. Late in January he had to step out. He got a case of Singles shingles that's right and basically it was his body's way of telling him his stress levels were through the roof. He had lost his dad recently. Oh man his mom not too long before that and had just had to relocate houses from the flood from the trees and all that so lots of crazy stuff going on.
Speaker 1:
But as I think the perseverance part of it, that's a part of it, because I think Holland, you could say there's a bunch of people that started with you and then crazy things, what happened their life? They moved to Idaho, they do all sorts of stuff, they kind of whatever and you're like not expecting that and then it's just a part of it. So talk to me about, like, how you persevered in that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely. I think. If, if you think everybody's gonna be just fine and happy and stay with you, you are a little bit naive and that it would be awesome if that was the case, cuz you know you think about like, okay, where's the time investment piece gonna be? And you will end up investing a lot of time in people that won't plant with you. Right, but that's still a win for the kingdom. It's just not a win for your church plant.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's hard. No, well, and stop, don't feel. This is not a judgment, don't cuz. You're with us and I really love you being here, and it like I'm so glad we're at your church so we thought we were yeah anyway, so don't leave.
Speaker 2:
I know, and then we were like shoot, no, I think we're supposed to be here.
Speaker 4:
Yeah which is good.
Speaker 1:
Hey, I need you here.
Speaker 2:
I'm just over here like where do I come in?
Speaker 1:
This is sometimes it's not about you. We're just like encouraging them, so like just chop chime in with some like way to go Jen, you and Ryan are gonna plant a church. Yeah, and a few years very soon.
Speaker 3:
So but okay so talk to me about like you're at this.
Speaker 1:
You're at the church plant. The court team is going what did you do? I know that sounds like a Did you do a discovery Bible study? And what, if you did do discovery Bible study, what is that? What did you do so in your, in your church plant core team, sort of initial thing a year out?
Speaker 3:
What's cool is that in January, around that time as we're starting to bring people together, I'm sure January before October you planted Right, exactly, yeah. so look at my months nine months, ten months before we're getting ready to go, we're getting people from Hutto Bible Church that are interested. They live in Taylor. So everybody who was at Hutto Bible Church, who lived in Taylor, was encouraged to consider if the Lord was leading them to plant in Taylor, nice. And then everyone there were folks from Wells branch that we had relationships that started to kind of Walk out there and join us slowly, yep. And then there were folks from City View Bible Church that had been going to City View, had been faithful there, had been serving there and had had an interest in Taylor because they lived in Taylor or Thrall or Granger, and so those were also key folks of bringing all of these people from different places together. Yeah, informing a community that people would want to be a part of was really the focus of the mission, or how hard was it Bringing people together who didn't really know each other?
Speaker 1:
because when I think of a church plant send-off team, I think of all these been people been together, for in fact a lot of Hill Country churches were. You know, bobby's. It was. Everybody was in Bobby's youth group when you planted Hutto Bible Church, but for you it was a you parachuted in in a sense. You you're gathering all these people. How are you dealing with the personality differences? Because you know with us, like Katie and I have such relationship history like when I offend her She'll call me later, if you know she says something, I'll just say it like we have such history that that we can kind of work through whatever offense that we create. But with with this you're creating a community that you're saying, all right, we're all gonna be friends and love each other without the history there. So how do you do that?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it's. There's not really a good answer. At least I don't have. I don't have. Here's your 10 steps.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I guess, I guess what it would it do. I think a lot of the stuff is like we learn in retrospect. What I probably should have done was and maybe you have some of that- yeah, so what?
Speaker 3:
what our main focus was in our missional core group was training for missional activity. So how do you bless people? How do you?
Speaker 1:
bless us in life. Begin with prayer listen, each serve, share exactly.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, the same stuff you guys just did at focus trying to incorporate that into a missional core of 18 to 26, just getting them together and talking about okay, who are the people that are in your spheres of influence, that you're praying for, that you're Asking God to give you opportunities to just say who are you, where you at spiritually, how can I help you take the next step right where I think we might have taken a misstep was focusing so much on the missional Training and not the community building, which maybe is just an emphasis. Well, let's say that again so we focused a lot on the training right. How do you understand your identity as a witness, your identity as a disciple who makes disciples and then, rather than the, let them be a community together and really know each other, like do you what do you?
Speaker 1:
I mean, I don't know. I'm asking was that the right move or was it? Maybe could you did you over emphasize something or under emphasize anything?
Speaker 3:
I don't know how to do it better, yeah, but I know that we we were focused a lot on the Content and the idea of like. Here's how we need to grow in here. So we need to be formed, and for some people, that's really exciting to get fired up about it, and for other people, they're missing the other aspects of like. Well, but can we just do a small group where we get to talk and share prayer requests for an hour and not make much progress in the training piece? Mm-hmm, and so you're navigating that tension of I'd love to do that too, but we are limited people with limited time, and so how do we do our best to Come together while also staying focused on this mission, because we do feel like the Lord's calling us to plant the church, and the time is now right to start moving.
Speaker 1:
So Holland had a lot of single people in his core team. Mm-hmm, you are. Where's more of your core team? More family, because you're in Taylor, which is a different, obviously different demographic. But was it more family or was there a good amount of singles as well?
Speaker 3:
mostly families, mostly Couples with kids, okay, so talk to me.
Speaker 1:
I think what's important here. I think what would holland maybe correct me for? On Holland, single people have all the time in the world. I mean, they're always, always busy with other leisure activities, but for the most part you could call them to do lots of meetings, is that, would you say? That's true or no sometimes? Yeah, fair enough, that probably back. But, but for you there's a limitation, because there is the family, there's school, there's the kids have soccer or football or whatever. The thing is how, how, what, how did you measure time with how much time you could spend time training and developing?
Speaker 3:
Well, yeah, and not to mention, we had a baby in June had a baby, yeah, and then our baby went to the hospital later in June. Oh, okay, with Minigitis.
Speaker 1:
so that was, that was tough, so walk walk me through that, because I think, with all your limited time resource, mm-hmm, you chose to spend it on the mission aspect with a sense of urgency, because you knew you're gonna be planting in September, october.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely, and and we, we created other opportunities for the social and the connecting, but I would I would reemphasize that a little bit more if we got to do it again.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, so then all right. So when did you, did you ever do you guys have any, you know? Hey, sign on the dotted line that you're in did you have a moment like that.
Speaker 3:
We had a few of those kind of call to the Charter service. Yeah, and so in June no, may, it was, it was in June, which is the same month that we had a baby and everything that we called people to Tell us how much they would give for the next 13 months, and so, basically, as we're developing our budget for the following year, it was in July.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, hold on that, that's a big one. So you so 13. When did you ask for that money Like, hey, you're gonna be?
Speaker 3:
giving this much. We started to have the conversation in June and then in late July is when we made the commitment.
Speaker 1:
We did that August with you. Do you remember when we did that with you Holland? Yeah, Did that work.
Speaker 4:
In what way like?
Speaker 1:
do people actually give what they said they would give, or was there any resentment when we did that?
Speaker 4:
No, I don't. I don't think there is resentment. I think people understand you're starting a new Church, it's gonna take some resources and we got to all be committed to doing that. So I mean, I think that's part of it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's gotta be part of it and Katie, I want you to go back to your Church plan experience with Holland for a second. Was there a point where were you at that meeting when we asked like hey, what are you gonna give? And where you signed up for that point at that part? Or had you already stepped out? I remember there were a lot of meetings there were a lot of meetings Just pretty much took everybody's time and just like hung out. Do you remember what the meetings were about?
Speaker 2:
No.
Speaker 4:
Remember your sermon from Sunday, chris Specter? Remember a meeting from a church fan thing? What, seven years ago? Fair enough, fair enough, okay I, I, but like no, that's good, I would say like I don't remember. Well, so, like you know, katie, you bringing up how you know, feeling like okay I, I wanted to be we wanted to be a part of this. He felt like God wanted us to stay here, like that's a really important thing there. I think there were times that there were people that came with us. Like I said, I didn't really know what I was doing. There were probably some people on the team that I should have said you should stay. I was so. You know, bring them all. Yeah, I just we, we need people about it. We need people and I think you know we didn't have a big, big team 18 but I think maybe even a smaller team of people who who really understood, had a better understanding of here. You know, here's what we're setting out to do over the long haul and I think that was part of my leadership failure, stuff of like. I think I failed to cast vision and set expectations. I thought.
Speaker 1:
Well, to be fair, I thought you were really clear and I went with you. When we developed the application and we developed and you had meetings with People, you said come and die. I mean I remember. Yeah.
Speaker 4:
I did, yeah, we did applications. Come and die, come on down, give it give your life. But. But who can? really for me to be able to actually Effectively, you know, say like here's what this is gonna look like over the next couple years, here's what it's gonna require of us. I didn't even know any of that stuff, I didn't know, you know, like. So, like I have no, you know people that came and came and went, or who said they were gonna come and didn't come. Like, honestly, I'm like there's a lot of times where in the moment it feels maybe really painful, but you look back on it and you go. It was actually God's protection, yeah. God protecting that person from maybe something that they weren't ready for, god protecting our church for maybe you know, like the, the culture, or just God's grace, and saying like, hey, it didn't turn out how you wanted, but like, my grace is with you. So, like I look back on everything over the past few years and I don't have any kind of like Regrets no, I have lots of regrets, but I don't have like bitterness about okay, good, I have a gratitude for God's grace in it all yeah. I have lots of regrets of like man. I wish I would have done this. I am, you know, I can't believe I said this that way or I did this that right but I can still look back and go, man. You know what, though? God was with us the whole time. He knew what he was doing, and so you know, I'm yeah, I'm grateful when I look back.
Speaker 2:
Because there's a lot to say about the people that want to go, yeah, but but don't feel called to go, that that's not where God is leading them in that season of life. But still want to cheer you on yeah because, right now we're so excited, yeah, and like we love y'all so much I mean, jenny was a bridesmaids in my wedding. Yeah, y'all were in our wedding, like we love y'all so much. But like that next year we we felt that it was important that we stay at Wells branch and then that next year we became community group shepherds here and then we became deacons here.
Speaker 3:
And I'm like God.
Speaker 2:
God just had different plans for us, but I think that there are so many people that want to cheer you on yeah cheer on church planners but feel like, oh, maybe the only way I can show my support is by going. Well, maybe that's not where God's calling them. Yeah, and then they end up still going, and then a year later it crashes and burns and they come back.
Speaker 1:
Yep, no, that's for sure. Yeah, and I think so. I think one of if we're gonna do some C's, can I do a bunch of C's calling character, competency, chemistry, and you need to have all four those C's. For a pastor, but I think for a church plant team charter member, you need a calling character not to quit the competency, just to be able to share your faith. And then the chemistry to get along with others, which is kind of where the you know, if I was to sit down, I was like gonna kind of create my here's, my you know, path to church plan. I'd be like first off, is everybody here called to church play? Good, all right, do you have the character to not quit, do you? Okay? Good, let's go over the competencies because what we're gonna be called to do is share the gospel. And then do we have chemistry? Do we love hanging out with one another? Because you can sense when a church wants to hang out together. One of the things that we did as a church after COVID was our theme for the year was glad and generous hearts. We said we are gonna party all year, like we're gonna just kind of be intentional about partying. It's because we need more chemistry, because everybody that was still here was so different than who was here. I think we had a really divided for a long time because of all the polarization of Politics and everything else, and so we really kind of had to focus there. And so, again, I don't want to like that's not the you know, here's the solution. Do chemistry and then you know all that, but I think those four have to be all part of it within your church plant. So, james, so let's just talk about from to launch to now you, you're, you're about, you know, two months in, what are some of the issues that? I think one of the things I noticed is, like man, children's ministry space, you're meeting at a church in the afternoon is four o'clock and you're using their space, they're, they're being generous with you in that way, but like you're, you're running to some space issues right off the bat. Talk to me about some of those.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so challenges in the space that we're in now would be the children's space and the Parking space, especially for a big event like a charter service where you're expecting a lot more traffic Right usually have the servant service is kind of creating a way to potentially have a second service when the need arises talk to me about what servant services. So at three o'clock every week we do an abbreviated service, we do one worship song message that's a little bit shorter. I cut out some of my illustrations. Yeah, I'm sure makes it way easier to listen to it. It's it's less of a, there's less pausing and there's less like let's really settle in here. But we're we're covering the same message, the same idea, so that and those folks that are serving that service about 2025.
Speaker 1:
Okay is that and this is good. So, like, does that feel weird as a pastor to only speak to 25 people?
Speaker 3:
It's harder than speaking to a full room, but it's it's. It's my people, yeah, and it's my people that are serving every week, and so I love to encourage them with God's word good, so that's how I do you do sermon practice? Just curious for whoever wants to listen.
Speaker 4:
No, but you do do it.
Speaker 3:
But I'm working through probably not the whole thing front to back, like we do here, like you do here.
Speaker 1:
OK, so talk to me then about you got the service 25 people. Those 25 people are then committed to serve, which is kind of wild. That's a big number that are serving, for how many come to the second service Most?
Speaker 3:
of them are coming to the second. Most of them are serving during that second service, but it's roughly 20 to 25 there, and then we have 61 unique attenders in the second Nice.
Speaker 1:
So you're looking at like 80, 80, 90 people. Yeah. All right, that's awesome. So talk to me then about how you're getting those people into small groups and how are you multiplying small groups. Are you adding small groups? How are you doing that? Because here's who listening. The person listening is like what do I do once I start, Like what is your week? Look like right now of OK, I've got to get a sermon knocked out for Sunday, but what else do you do right now?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So with the new visitors taking those connect cards, reaching out to them, seeing if they can get together at some point that week, trying to have another touch with them of getting together. How many visitors?
Speaker 1:
are you getting a week right now?
Speaker 3:
This week we had one card, last week we had three, the week before it was maybe four.
Speaker 1:
Good, and do you go have lunch with them? And it's you doing it right.
Speaker 3:
As they're available. I try to get together with them within the next week or two just to spend some time with them.
Speaker 1:
And so, of those 80 people, how many people do you have in small groups, or how many small groups do you have?
Speaker 3:
We have three groups right now. There's a neighborhood group, that's a neighborhood Bible study with a couple of the ladies, there's a men's Bible study and there's a women's Bible study, and so that's it for right now, but in January we're launching a few more traditional community groups.
Speaker 1:
So talk to me about what those groups look like right now.
Speaker 3:
Right now they look like the women are going through Mark. They actually cover like five chapters In a sitting.
Speaker 1:
These are either they're very, very smart or very fast.
Speaker 3:
Yes, or they're going big picture more than zooming in and zooming in on a couple places rather than the whole.
Speaker 2:
Thing.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and so that's got between 10 and 20 ladies that are coming to that. And then the men's study. We're doing the measure of a man, jean Getz, which will be kind of like our leadership development pipeline and our elder pathway as well, to try to discern with folks if they feel called to being an elder and then helping them help us figure out what that timeline might look like so that we can onboard some more elders.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, talk to me about both you guys Pipelines, elder pipelines, which is always one of the like. Actually Holland real quick. How's your elder pipeline doing over there? It's dry. Now let's talk about this, because this is one of the things I think you've had to learn the hard way, or maybe you've learned God's way. It might be best we put that, but sometimes having an empty seat, because we have, in our principles and practice, ability to have seven elders, and right now you have two, including me, including you, and so sometimes it's better to have five empty seats than to have the wrong person in the seat. Talk to me about that and why that's true.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, I mean I just preached this past Sunday. We're going through 1 Timothy right now. 1 Timothy 5, Paul says not to be hasty in the laying on of hands, as he's expressing the seriousness of the office of elder and the importance of elders being godly and if there is sin in an elder's life, how you can honor the office of elder but still hold them accountable. And it's a big deal. It says they need to be held publicly accountable. So like bringing some seriousness to the office of elder. And then he says don't be hasty in laying on of hands, so don't bring people on too quick just to put someone in a position Because you think, man, if we have five elders, we can get a lot more done. That's a lot more people to make disciples and teach and shepherd and be committed to ministry and things like that. But Paul's emphasis there is yeah, don't rush into that, Because for their own protection, for their own spiritual life, their own witness, their own walk with Jesus and for the protection of the flock that's going to be entrusted to their leadership, don't rush into that and put someone unqualified in that position. So that's where we're at now is we have a handful of men Like Nikolai and I, we're trying to make disciples, develop Also our staff members, Trent Ryan, that are invested in making disciples, but it's like we're probably a good three to five years out From another elder, From who we have right now. If somebody moved in, for example, like hey, yeah, there's two ways to get elders Either they come from outside already ready or you raise them up from within. Raising up from within, especially in the community that we're in, where fathers are absent In the home we don't have, you know like we have a lot of women in our church and mothers, and you know who are amazing, who have been amazing members and committed to the church and serving, but, in terms of the men in the community, largely absent or uninterested in spiritual things, and so to develop elders from within the community is a long process. There's some guys, some guys that have come to Jesus, gotten baptized, are serving faithfully in the church. You know who live in the community, living on the East side, love these guys, but yeah, we're years away from them being an elder and so we're not gonna rush that and put someone in his spot.
Speaker 1:
So here's one thing I wanna say about that, because there is a lot of weight on a lead pastor's shoulders and the reason why that we want more elders. I'm not gonna speak for hauling out. You can say this is not but the reason why I want more elders is because it's shared weight of the burden of leadership it's, and so If they're godly qualified Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:
Do you feel like you've ever put someone in a position that they weren't qualified or ready for?
Speaker 1:
Oh, sure, absolutely, but yeah, yeah. But like I feel like what happens is that for me, just on the elder thing, like man, I'm so grateful for the six other elders I have alongside me, because when I have big decisions, it's not like I'm going before the church by myself, everyone looking at me with laser eyes ready to kill me. It's like, oh, all seven of us get all the laser eyes and it's the weights dispersed. And so for you, han, I think there's a real, I think we need to be praying for you. There's a real burden that you're carrying that I think if people are listening to this like, so I want you to hear two things One, it's a burden to be a lead pastor in a church plant, but two, it's a greater burden if the elders that you are asking to lift weight with you actually like just kidding, they can't lift anything, and so I think you're working through that, carrying the weight and adjusting the load, and that's definitely a challenge. So talk to me like you kind of press it. So you're looking at three to five years for an internal elder development pipeline.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, and that's where you know like we've requested support from other churches on the financial side. You know it's like it may be wise for us to request support on the human resource side of hey, send some elders. But the challenge is like if you put someone in a position of leadership who is not modeling what you want people to rise up to, you're hurting the culture you're trying to create. If you want to set a culture where, hey, at this church you know what we say is we worship, we belong, we serve, we make disciples, and you got someone who comes in as an elder and they're not committed to making disciples, then they're setting a precedent for the whole church of we say we want this but you don't actually have to do that, and like that hurts what you're trying to build.
Speaker 1:
Wow, I feel like we need to emphasize that If you bring an elder on board who isn't making disciples, what you're saying is be like this, and that person might be a stagnant person, not growing in their faith, and so you sort of learn, because best lessons in life are caught, not taught. I learned that that's what an elder does is.
Speaker 4:
I don't wanna say nothing, but yeah, you say, hey, here's our culture, here we make disciples at this church, and then you have an elder who doesn't do that and people pick up on that and go no, you don't, and I don't have to, because he's not doing it. And so you allow a culture to creep in the back door that you're not intending to, because you're like well, I need an elder, and maybe this guy's really good at finances, maybe he's really good at administratively, maybe he's really good at this, he's been a Christian a long time but if he's not living out the standards that you wanna set in terms of the culture of your church and your leaders, then you're hurting the culture you're trying to build. So that's where we're at, as we're saying, we'd rather wait and have it be two elders, or one elder until we get to the point where we can confidently say this person is who we want everyone to aspire to be like All right, so that's good.
Speaker 1:
So, james, you're two months in and you have how many elders? Two elders, me and Tim. You and Tim, all right. And so what is your elder pipeline? I guess at this point are you developing that and how are you doing that?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so part of it is looking at the guys that would be ready potentially within the next year, and so we could potentially roll them on in January or we could potentially roll them on by September, but we're partially. So the way we're operating right now is Tim and I are leading the church, but then we're also submitting to the Puddle Bible Church elder board and so if there's ever like a stalemate or something we need to bring to them, then we're gonna have those conversations.
Speaker 1:
Do they give you an elder to your elder meeting or do they do anything like that?
Speaker 3:
Nope nothing like that yet, but meeting with Michael or Bobby regularly to kind of give them updates and chat through stuff that we're wrestling with.
Speaker 1:
That's good.
Speaker 3:
So there's a regular meeting there to kind of keep them updated, but also to get the support I need, and then if there's anything that's like hey, this is actually an elder issue, they'd bring me in to have those conversations there.
Speaker 2:
Okay, who's Tim?
Speaker 3:
Tim Chancellor.
Speaker 1:
He's a police officer with the Round Rock PD and then he's also one of their elders. He came from City View.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So Tim's amazing he's gonna preach for me the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so super grateful for him and excited for him to be a co-labor with us All right so let's talk about you guys have been in the church, you've been planted.
Speaker 1:
Let's talk about planting after you've planted Holland. Do you wanna say anything about that?
Speaker 4:
Yeah, like us planting another church, Sure, Real quick though. On that thing on the elder stuff, I would say like back to you you were asking like what are some of the mistakes I made?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:
I think that's one of the failures I did is I said here's what we expect from everyone but people who weren't living like that. I still said, hey, come on, do it with us. Here's the past. They had the potential and so, like what I always say in like relationship counseling, stuff you know with couples is like Mary-proof, not potential right, oh beautiful. Don't you know? It's like, oh, he's gonna change. I'm sure he'll be like like Mary-proof when you see the change. Same thing with a core team or an elder, whatever. It is like I should have said in some people hey, I know you've got the best intentions to live like this, but you're not doing it. This is not the right time.
Speaker 1:
Man.
Speaker 4:
So that was one of the mistakes.
Speaker 1:
I made. Well, I think that's. I want to Mary-proof, not potential, and have proof of being. That's why the Bible says in first that might sound kind of harsh. Just some people about deacons have them be tested, and I think you can apply that to elders as well. Have them be tested first, and so we've done a much better job. Well, we probably have a long way to go, but we've started instilling more of a testing period before we kind of yeah, yeah, Anyway, okay.
Speaker 4:
So so planting, we helped, we sent some people out to help. So there you know, we talk about this idea and the association of being a second seat, yes, meaning like, hey, we're not the main sending church, but we want to give significant or substantial support to help a church plant. So we did that with refuge, refuge community church. They were planted by the well, so, josh Guerrero, that was in 20, that was in 2012, or it's not 2012, 2020, right before COVID, and so we had sent a team. I think we sent you sent 10 people.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, 10 or 11. Which at the time?
Speaker 4:
was a ton, yeah, I mean, that was like we were at around 100.
Speaker 1:
And so that was about a 10% of our church, 10% yeah.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, so we tithed to a church plant and we sent some money as well, so we sent people and money. Some of those people you know were leaders, and some of them are still there. So, yeah, it was over almost four years ago.
Speaker 1:
What year was it? 19? 2020. So 2020, in the midst of COVID, you sent people.
Speaker 4:
So we were three years old and we sent 10 or 11 people out and we sent some money, and some of those people are still out refuge, and refuge is doing well.
Speaker 1:
So we've never been the main planting church, though, and you know part of that is I love the second seat and that's kind of how we were a second seater for we sent James because we're like capacity wise, especially post COVID capacity wise, budget wise.
Speaker 4:
We didn't have the ability to plant James, but James was able to plant through Huda, yeah, so that may be what we do for a while until we see some more leaders developed and our church grow, but we're definitely we're committed to church planting. We want to raise up church planters and be faithful in that way. It may be planting, you know, smaller churches or being a second seat, or it may be that you know there's some men in our church right now. I'll say that I could see, you know, in a few years three years, five years us sending out and we might not be able to send a big team, but we might request the help of a second seat who can send some.
Speaker 1:
I've heard somewhere that if you don't plant within five years, you never will Like. It's like a weird stat. And so you guys did that. We planted within five years of me being here, just sort of wild, and then we sent two more church planters five years after that. So, james, talk to me about, are you? I mean, is that even on your radar right now?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, we're praying about a couple of areas. There's Granger North of Taylor and then there's Thrall East of Taylor. So right now we're the Eastmost church plant in the association and if we plant further than that would be the next. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:
And so do you. I mean, the only what Danny Bach said is if you don't have church planning on your elder agenda, then it's not gonna be part of your church. And so because elders in general they are thinking about your own church, because you have to, and so the lead pastor, the elder chairman, you usually have to kind of kick that into gear and be like, hey, we've got to remember to plant because that's part of our DNA and that becomes super important.
Speaker 2:
Are you about to wrap it up?
Speaker 1:
I am, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:
Well, I was gonna ask, with church planning, with this it being such a challenge like how do y'all invest in your marriages? All while dealing with the drama. Because, it is drama. It's a bunch of drama starting a church Like how do y'all invest in your marriage, make sure your marriage is healthy, your family is being paid attention to and invested in and pursued while balancing the pastor?
Speaker 1:
So, to be fair, I love this question because when we came down here we interviewed with Hill Country to be church planners, adrien and I, and John Harrington at the time, said you're gonna lose your husband for at least two years and Adrien's like we're not church planning and that was it. That was it. So, yeah, talk to us about like both. I guess I'd love to hear from James, just for everything to get good, because you're right in the thick of it how do you prevent, I guess, katie from losing you to the ministry?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I mean, I think being real in community about how things are going and where you need to step up and grow is important. So just having accountability in that area of like somebody who's gonna ask me regularly how are you loving your wife, how's that going? Is that something you need to improve in? Recently I set a goal to do a devotional with Katie, because we've do separate devotional time and just grabbing an Advent devotional. We were gonna do a marriage devotional and then we tried one day and decided an Advent devotional would be a better idea. So if that gets more buy-in, then we'll go with it.
Speaker 1:
You know what I can totally relate to everything you just said. That's good. There's so much under that statement that I've totally picked up on. All right, go ahead so.
Speaker 3:
Advent devotional way better. Yep, yeah. So we bought a new Advent devotional. We're going through that and that way. That was my goal with my measure of a man book group. So I'm being real about that with our community. Hey, this is an area able to lead your household well that I want to step up in and do even more so, and so that was an area that was my focus and that's my application.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think one of the things that's been beneficial for me over here is Adrienne having open access to elders, and whenever she gets frustrated she tells them, which is good. Sometimes she doesn't want to tell them, they just ask her questions and then she starts breaking down in tears. So that happens on Sundays every now and then. So how?
Speaker 2:
about you? Yeah, Holland, what about you?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, what about you?
Speaker 4:
I was sad that I missed that, but I wanted to pick president, so I love Jenny more than I love ministry.
Speaker 2:
And that's really important.
Speaker 1:
Very important.
Speaker 4:
Like I, genuinely. You know there's time, especially those times, where I was thinking about quitting. Some of it was because of the stress it was putting on our marriage. And I was like I'd rather I'm gonna stay married rather than you know, like I'll quit church planning and like I want to make sure that this isn't hurting, hurting our marriage. And you know that's a weird thing because I definitely felt God called me to it. But, like, what was great about that is Jenny felt called to it as well. And so you know those conversations I would go to the you know extreme feelings of like, okay, I'm ready to be out, and Jenny would talk me off the ledge, bring me back to my senses. You know you would have those conversations with me and this didn't happen a whole lot. But there's a few times where I'm just saying like that her feeling really called to it as well is really helpful. If she didn't feel called to it. It would make those hard times really, really difficult.
Speaker 1:
So your wife doesn't go do applications for you to other churches?
Speaker 4:
No, she doesn't. I have heard of that before, though One of my friends that mentors in the faith.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, jenny and Katie, I can say both feel so called, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:
And you know so, like I love my wife, I love spending time with her, I'll you know, it's not it's not something I have to try to like force, so I'm really I would just say I'm just really thankful for that. But there are times where we, where we get caught up in doing a lot of ministry and haven't been able to spend a lot of quality time together, and I think you, just like you, got to be like it's looked different for us from season to season. So like there's not one simple answer. It's like cause we've gone from having when we first started the church being pregnant with our second baby, to now having four kids and now having kids in school and Jenny being a sub. And we've done homeschooling. We've done like it's looked different, but I think, just like the main thing is saying, like we're not, we've got to care for our marriage and our home first man.
Speaker 1:
I really like what you asked, katie, and I think one of the things for Adrian in the past since COVID she got you know we usually did community groups together and it was great. I tend to attract what's the right word for that People that have a higher need emotionally and require more attention Shepherding attention, Yep, and so, and Adrian was like sort of like I don't say wilting, but she was struggling with not having friends that could pour into her. And so a couple of years ago she just said I'm going to make a community group with my friends because I need help, and she did, and it ended up being a huge blessing for her and what I've learned is that the church does well when my marriage does well, and so what's? I think the strengthening of all of her friends, all the ladies in her group, has been such a blessing for her specifically, and I think I don't know it might be unique to our marriage, but I think that's been a huge win for us of her having I think Katie really picked up on it, Like the actual friend aspect is so important.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, because I mean, like, if you're a pastor's wife, I only know this because Katie and Ginny are- Are really close to you, yeah. And so I mean it's hard for me to not just like say everything that they've ever shared with me along this whole process.
Speaker 1:
Oh, do share.
Speaker 2:
But I mean like it's I know with, because Katie, you know she's just starting this whole process, but with Ginny I remember she struggled with like deep friendships for a long time and we're like Katie and I were here at Wells Branch and she was kind of in this new season of like oh, I'm having to like try to form new friendships along with like supporting my husband while he's, you know, leading this church, and so that's the only reason I ask is because, you know, I think y'all are two men that do everything you can to pour into your marriage and like love your wives. Well, because I mean, when I was single, I looked at the two of y'all for like okay, what does it? Godly has been look like, and so like, yeah, I've just always I guess I'll just encourage y'all but y'all have always been two men that have always been a good example of like how do I love my wife and how do I repent when I've made a mistake, how do I correct to this, how do I grow and how do I pursue my family?
Speaker 4:
well, and so, and like I mean thank you for like you were one of those people that you know. When a lot there's a lot of ministry happening in the church, you know, and like deep friendships are hard to come by because you're pouring yourself out for so many people and there's a lot of transients and things like that. Like yeah, you've been one of those people for Jenny who she's been able to rely on and count on, and like grateful for you and your friendship.
Speaker 1:
That's awesome. I hate to wrap it up here, but we're gonna bring Pastor James and Pastor Holland back next month for another round of Pastor Plex podcast and we'll follow up with them. This is a long episode. This was a long episode, but you know what it was worth it. Hey, listen, make sure you share, like, subscribe. If you have any questions about church playing specifically, don't worry, we'll bring them back in a month, so that the number would be 737-231-0605, or go to pastorplekcom. We'd love to hear from you and if you're interested in church playing, come to Austin, join us and we will get you on the right path. So, from our house to yours, have an awesome week. Pastor Plex Diaz is the Head of church playing.
