Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
Church Planting in Post-COVID Times with Eric Creekmore
318: Join Pastor Plek for an in-depth conversation with Eric Creekmore, the executive director of the Association of Hill Country Churches, as he shares his transition from executive pastor to his current role. Discover the intricacies of church planting in Austin, from preparing congregations for new beginnings to recruiting passionate church planters. Eric uncovers the importance of healthy reproduction in church leadership and the unique challenges that come with serving a rapidly growing and evolving city.
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I'm your host, pastor Plek, and joining me in studio none other than Eric Creekmore, who is the executive director of the Association of Hill Country Churches. Really, church planning network, love it, yeah. So, eric, thanks for being on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, good to see you, man, good to be back.
Speaker 1:Yeah On the official Pastor Plek's podcast. Come on, dude. Good to see you, man, good to be back. Yeah, on the official Pastor Plex podcast. Come on dog Pastor Plex podcast after you were on, just took like a New York rise in downloads.
Speaker 2:You might want to, yeah.
Speaker 1:We went from dozens to scores. Lots, yeah, lots, but let's talk church planning and let's talk about what you do specifically in your role and how it shifted from your role as an executive pastor at Hill Country Bible Church, or is it still that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's multifaceted. What exactly is it you do around here? Great question, I wish I knew no. So back in June began the transition from what I was doing at Hill Country, austin, to take over leadership for our association, our network of churches in greater Austin. That is still arm and arm, trying to multiply churches to reduce lostness, saturate the city of the gospel. Back at Hill Country I'm technically the church planting director, so obviously we were laughing about Venn diagrams earlier in our conversation, our pre-recording conversation, and so obviously overlap there. But instead of working on helping to see one local church have that be just a regular part of their ministry, raising up, launching church planters is like okay, how do I help all the churches across our network to be effective in that regard? Like that's, at the end of the day, that's what my role is supposed to do right, healthy reproduction.
Speaker 2:So make sure that our churches, lead pastors, elder boards, are healthy, because we don't want to reproduce unhealth, obviously, but they're healthy, but reproducing Right, right. And so yeah, on the HCBC side, you know, stay on the preaching team and continue to do that, and then, more and more of this next year, transition fully into the association role.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk through really what the association is all about, because I know that at least people at Wells Branch Community Church and beyond know that we're a part of an association. But what exactly does that association do? It helps catalyze church planning, obviously, but how do we do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, several things. One is, when you think about the process of planting a church, there's getting your church ready to plant, everything from elder board alignment, staff alignment, church vision casting to the basics, nuts and bolts of resourcing. Like man, if we're going to plant a church, we're going to have to give some budget to that. We're going to have to give some staff time. The lead pastor is going to have to give time to that. I'm going to have to give some staff time, the lead pastor is going to have to give time to it.
Speaker 2:And just figuring out those nuts and bolts and then helping to recruit church planters, whether it is an internal development process like you got a great young guy that you've developed and discipled through the years, you've seen him grow and cast vision for that man could you be a church planter and seeing that individual eventually plant or on the external side, and that's where there's a good blend between the member church, like a Wells branch, and the network, because it's easier for the network to be that front door and to be out, like stirring up conversations at conferences or in different places where you might find plans for seminaries, bible colleges, that sort of thing, to cast that vision, to say hey, god is bringing a lot of people to Austin to include Elon Musk, joe Rogan and obviously we've had McConaughey here for years. Donahue, you're here for years, but a whole mess of people like this isn't Detroit or a San Francisco when people are like leaving. Yeah, the population is genuinely decreasing significantly year over year. It's not here.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so having a heart for and what we believe is God's heart, right, when you read the book of Acts, you see that the church multiplied as it began to spread from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria and beyond. And the way it's interesting, the way Luke writes it. He writes it just matter of fact, right, the church was growing, it was strong and it multiplied, right. And he plants these little kind of markers along the way in the narrative and it's like just normal. Yeah, like, oh, yeah, yeah, what'd you do this? Yeah, we plant another church. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we multiplied disciples over here and started church, had to appoint elders. Yeah, like, okay, and forever.
Speaker 2:Then wouldn't it not make sense that he is still building his church in similar ways, right and principle-wise, as a multiplicative engine, and then just to continue, like, okay, the association then helps with. Every October we run a planning conference bring guys in um from all over the city to stir up not only those guys who may be called but also those churches. Be like man, how do we get in the game? Yeah, right, we've stalled out. Man, we've gotten in the in the tyranny of the urgent that every elder board lead pastor staff fights against. This thing popped up this week, this thing popped up the following week, and being able to wrestle your time and energy and leadership bandwidth away from those kinds of things into like, okay, we still have to be making disciples, sharing the gospel and multiplying churches.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk about, I think, the the necessary ingredient.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I would say 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago we were crushing it.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh On church planning. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And there were church. Planners were everywhere. Like everywhere you look, there's a church planner. I remember being in Austin at the time, every person I met was like I just want to plant churches in Austin, right, and it was like weird.
Speaker 2:And I was like okay, and I was like I guess it fits for the city and you know and I was like I remember I met with, you know, lazarus Brewing Company. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I met with that guy back in like 2012, 2013. Right, and this guy goes yeah, I'm going to plant a church, but the way I'm going to do it, I'm going to start a brewery. And Holland, and I met with him on the east side, we're just like whatever. Okay, that's one way, buckaroo, and he did it, he did it. Now I don't know if he's got a couple of house churches that meet like on Kind of use the space or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of use the space.
Speaker 1:But it was like everything was imaginable, everything was happening, but that was at the tail end of it, right, of that period of time, right, but it feels like the church planter vineyard is in a dry season. Yep, and you were remarking, like at the Houston Church Planting Network, they said something, so tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So our brothers over in Houston, chad Clarkson, bruce Wesley and the HCPN guys they had their August kick back off right Meeting, gathering everyone in the city to get back after church planting after the summer, as we're, all you know, getting into that back in the ministry season mode, and I was watching the recording of the meeting because we love those guys, learn from those guys. And Bruce Wesley, he made a comment that I just like yeah, that's exactly what we're seeing here in Austin and what you just articulated he made. The comment is like the church planter pipeline is like the Ezekiel Valley of dry bones and what was, to your point, call it from 2000 to 2012, just to put some years to it.
Speaker 2:You're right, it was the thing to do, it was sexy. It was the heyday of Driscoll X-29, matt Chandler Everybody functional was planting churches. 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:And I think we saw towards the end of the teens that church planting kind of fell out of vogue. And then 2020 slammed it shut yeah, agreed, and church plants are closing left and right because our culture had to shift, and this is my. I would love to hear your observation, just because I'm going to give you mine. So pre-COVID we were as a church and I don't think I realized how spread across the political spectrum we were.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, but in 2020, we were just as red as we were blue. I think 2020 happens. Our church decides. I guess we took a crazy conservative right-wing stance in that we went with we're going to meet and masks are optional so when we said we're meeting and masks are optional, everybody on the blue side of the aisle they were gone.
Speaker 1:And so then, all of a sudden, our church had to restart with about you know, there were some that were just you know, they just weren't around. But we went from an average of adults of 330 to, you know, we started again back in person. We had like 65. Yeah, and then slowly over time, and now we're about 250, 260 adults not and I'm not including kids back then, when we're 330 plus kids.
Speaker 1:So whatever, that was right, but 250 adults now plus children, it it was um kind of wild to see we had to grow from a almost half of the I don't know what the right word for that.
Speaker 1:It's as if, because we made the choice of we are non-mask or mask optional, right we're meeting in person it cut off a whole segment of the population without and they didn't come back. And I don't know if they're going anywhere, but they definitely didn't come back to our church, right, and I think because we are maybe a little bit more on the conservative side in the sense that we are complementarian and we're unashamed about that, we have male elders and male pastors or whatever, right that became a in the DEI world of all, that we're pretty diverse as a congregation, but in that sense a lot of people checked out, so I thought that was kind of wild. I just want to see what was at Hill Country.
Speaker 2:If you guys experienced something similar, yeah so the dynamics were exactly the same, depending on what your political leanings were. Either they aligned with the decisions the church was making and you were like, great, my church is doing what I think they should be doing, or they did not align Notice, not scripturally, politically and because of the political difference. To your point. The same thing happened at Hill Country, to a larger degree, where they chose differently. Now the question is why? Yeah, and I'm not smart enough to think through these categories. So I'm basically going to quote things I've heard Ed Stetzer say, because he's like the master researcher and all that in evangelicalism, researcher and all that in evangelicalism and what he has written on, and so if you Google Ed Stetzer and some of these terms that I'll use here in a second, you'll find his articles.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I'm just leveraging his work, so that's my footnote. What he said is you can break American Christianity and really American people into four groups, right, the first group is convictional Christians, and those are people who love Jesus, read the Bible. They are not just giving lip service to their faith, but they are convinced of who Jesus is, what it means for their life, and about 25% of the country, give or take, is convictionally Christian. The next 25% is congregational Christians. These are the folks who, hey, they come on Christmas, they come on Easter. If you were to go to their house right now, knock on their door, be like, hey, do you guys go to church? Yeah, what church you go to? Oh, I go to Wells Branch. When was the last time you've been there? And they're like, uh, right, and they would struggle to tell you outside of, oh, we're there last Easter or whatever. They are in the congregation at some level, but is Jesus really Lord of their life? Right, yeah, probably not, probably, not, probably, not Right.
Speaker 2:And then there's another group, another 25%, that is culturally Christian. And this is really the Achilles heel of the Bible Belt in Texas, which is largely this idea that, hey, I'm American, I'm not a Muslim, atheist, buddhist, so I guess I'm Christian, right. And again you'd ask that group of people Muslim, atheist, buddhist so I guess I'm Christian, right, right. And again you'd ask that group of people like, okay, so tell me how that works out in your life. Well, I try to be nice to people, right? And you would be hard pressed to find any scriptural, biblical foundation for a genuine faith. Right, right, and that's 75%, right, so what's the other 25%?
Speaker 2:And this is the growing population. This is the um, the rise of the nuns. This is people who and this is what I think has happened culturally and what happened in particular in 2020 is it no longer served you to be one of those first three groups? The convictional Christians stayed there, yeah, nothing changed. But those middle two groups didn't slide into the convictional, they slid down into the nuns. They're like, it doesn't really help you. You know what I don't believe in? That? Yeah, right, and now it's just more acceptable to be like. No, I don't believe that, and not only that, it's even turning a little more militant in that, and that's wrong, right, if you believe those archaic like oh, there's two genders and all the hot button issues, right, right to life, all those things, right to life, all those things.
Speaker 2:And so what has happened is the growth has come from those folks just naming what has already been happening. And that's like, yeah, I don't believe it and so I will, instead of like play this game where it's like, yeah, I'll say I'm Christian, but you're really not and you don't really know that, so you take them at their word. But then, if you look underneath, it's like they're not, like they were always there, right, they're just sorting themselves out, and this is why Steser calls it the great sort. What happened in those churches is those people who were nominally Christian just gave it up. They weren't actually with you, they weren't actually following Jesus, but, for whatever reason, it's what their parents did. It's like, hey, I got this Sunday routine and that's no longer the case, and so they're gone, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that's challenging because I think for a lot of churches the people that you were trying to reach were in your own church. That's right and, to be fair, our elders and I just kind of randomly went and did a count of all the people we knew that don't know Jesus at our church and about 10% of our Sunday population is not saved Right Any given Sunday. We know who they are Right, they know who they are, which I really appreciate, and they're coming and they keep coming and I get to preach the gospel to that 10% every single week and I make sure to kind of have a. Hey. Here's an opportunity for you to respond. Text Jesus to the number on the screen kind of thing.
Speaker 1:And that's been a real blessing. And continually, I think, the ministry year 22, 23,. We saw 40 people get baptized at our church. 23, 24, we saw 20. This year we're starting off with a little bit more oomph. We've had seven so far and August was our beginning of the year.
Speaker 1:So since August, 1, seven, and I think we'll have like another five in the queue. So what that means is that we're still having people come to Christ, which is great. In fact, one of our biggest stats was, I think we had 25 new members, or 30 new members of the year, and six of those were baptized at our church, and that's a huge, huge, like. Usually, what was it? 10% is what you're sort of going for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, conversion rate yeah.
Speaker 1:So like you're supposed to get three usually, and so we kind of double that, which is amazing, right, but we're still at. What I'm seeing here overall is we're still trying to recover. Whatever it was we lost people wise.
Speaker 1:The convicted christians are doubling down, I think because the culture is so anti right christian, yeah, biblical values and so they are like this is my life digging in, which it's been really cool to see a lot of our church people that were maybe in the past a little bit less vocal about their faith are now digging in. So I think to your point the convicted Christians are like hardcore, and I think the cultural Christians has fallen off and they don't care.
Speaker 2:No, they don't. They're just really naming what was true already, right, and it just became more clear through COVID and again them feeling freer to be like yeah, so I am and I'm out, so one of the things I've noticed over the past post-COVID is and this is sort of what I've sort of seen is that smaller churches that got hit have died.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just know two churches in round rock is actually like three or four, yeah, three or four, so like three or four, and just around just round rock in the past month and a half.
Speaker 1:Yeah, past month and a half, three or four churches gone, like I like the exchange church which was just up the road here, great church, more of a charismatic stream, but great, and they were about 250, 300 before COVID, wow, and then COVID smashed them and again I don't know all the details of it, sure, but they folded and they sent all their people to Shoreline, and Shoreline, you know, they love Jesus and that's their stream, and so that fit, and I was sitting there going like like there was enough people there to kind of continue to do a church, but you know what? There wasn't a leader, right, and I think that's what we're to the point of the church planting pipeline. There is a vacuum of leaders, even coming out of seminary. I think you and I mentioned this like several years ago.
Speaker 1:I think Aubrey Malfers at DT, at Dallas Seminary, had a whole like slew of people in the 2000s into the teens, and now that's sort of dried up and I think the entrepreneurial Christians that are maybe wanting to go be a pastor or call it a pastor, they're not. I think they're thinking twice about church planning, without a doubt. Hey, let's go to an established place that can pay my salary, because I've seen the battlefield and the church planter the carnage of church planters everywhere their families are destroyed.
Speaker 1:The carnage of church planters everywhere their families are destroyed. The church has died and that can't be what God has for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why would I sign up for that? Why would I?
Speaker 1:sign up for that Right. And I think, you know, in the association I think we've been hit like everybody else but God, and this is the part where, like God likes us more. I just know, you know, it's like you only know what you know because that's your sphere of influence. But, like through covid, you know, midtown church, uh, led by jake box, downtown, by the campus, got a building that they're no longer in a school. They have a permanent facility there at uh 45th and Red River.
Speaker 2:Red River.
Speaker 1:And that's huge. Yeah, I think Huddo got land and a million dollars to build a building and they're almost done with their building. Northway built their building. Redemption City got land. I think Crossroads is almost there.
Speaker 1:But, we're moving like a lot of. I saw a lot of movement within our association of God, moving the gospel forward in spite of whatever you want to call the COVID lack, right, what would you say that's? I don't know if we can put a, I don't know, a reason on it, but just if you've noticed that and then have you seen that Maybe you have eyes that are beyond the horizon of just the association. So you're with Houston or whatever. Have you seen anything similar to that anywhere else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, obviously, the asteroid strike that was COVID and obliterating churches is a real thing. And even to what you were saying, the four churches that we know of in our neck of the woods that are closing or have closed recently, the reverberations are still happening. So we in the association have not seen that. And the question, okay, well, what's different and what I keep running into is relationships, right, right, so Jesus sent them out two by two, right? When every pastor of any church nowadays stands up every fall and we launch our small groups, what the pastor will say in some regard is hey, everyone in my church, just so you know this whole Christian thing. You can't do it on your own. Your faith is personal to you. You have to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but your faith is never private. You actually can't grow fully in Jesus by yourself. You need your brothers and sisters. We have been put into a family. We are one in the spirit, right? The dividing wall has been taken down, ephesians, and we're now one. We're made one in Jesus.
Speaker 2:So again, we would say like, you have to be in a small group. Okay, totally believe that. So wouldn't it make sense that that applies to the pastor too? Right. And so what we have seen and this is absolutely God's grace, that because through COVID, we, by the Spirit's leading, doubled down on the relational side that the pastors in our network truly growing together as a group of guys, a group of brothers, who are fighting the fight in our little pockets around the city, but gathering monthly, getting away in a retreat once a year, grabbing our wives and having us as couples together.
Speaker 2:It is the bulwark against the pressure that guys feel when the enemy comes at them and all the different things to where and we do not cast one stone at any brother who is like man. I got to take a break and step away, praise God for you and the time that you gave to it, and God's not done with you, right? However, our hope is the health of that individual, their family, their marriage and the church for a long, long time, and so then, what it comes back down to is okay, who do you have pastor in your life that really knows? So, like when you and I grab lunch before we record this man, we're talking about stuff in ways that we can't talk about in a lot of different, right, because we know yeah, we know what it's like when we get that email, when we're trying to preach hard stuff and you know, some people like yeah and most people are like what?
Speaker 2:yeah and everything in between, and so having a network of brothers that you are legitimately relationally connected with, like your friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this is important because I think a lot of pastors feel like the maybe, when you go down that dark path of isolation as a pastor, it's like you're having issues at your church and you think I'm the only one that's having issues at my church. So, and you pastored for seven years. You planted a church, pastored for seven years. You planted a church pastor for seven years and then you took a sabbatical and then you ended up at Hill Country Bible Church as an executive pastor. Talk to me about that transition and just the some of the beatings you took as a lead pastor. That man I don't know if it would have made a difference, or you know God's calling all that, but what.
Speaker 1:what difference would have made if you had a church playing network like this? All that, but what?
Speaker 2:difference would have made if you had a church playing network like this, oh my gosh. Well, we were at the point where it's like man, we're at 150 people, we're looking to buy land, it's about to take that next step in the growth curve, or whatever. People getting baptized, right. A lot of good stuff, and then the enemy sowed seeds of discord.
Speaker 1:Talk to me. What were the seeds of discord? Because I think I've experienced that. So how does the enemy? Obviously our battle isn't against flesh and blood, right, it's against the spiritual forces of darkness. But what kind? I don't need to go into details, but what was the situation like when enemies started sowing seeds of discord?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so as you grow, one of the things you have to do is reimagine and shift people's roles and responsibilities right. So the way you do say men's ministry or women's ministry when you're a church of 70 is different than how you lead that ministry when you're 150. Exactly so you have a leader and this is what happened with me who was leading one of those ministries, and we were having conversations about how that leader needed to change, because the ministry grew from what it used to be and you can't do the same thing. What got you here won't get you there 100%. Well, what happened and this is what the enemy sewed in is that person interpreted what I was doing as getting rid of them versus what I was trying to do, which is like no, let's grow into here's the new job description, right, and here's how you need to grow into this, and we're going to work together. And they didn't believe that.
Speaker 1:And this is where people go. Like you clearly have a power agenda and you're from the military and so, of course, you've got all these issues that you probably are meeting out and your control issues, and I think that's where people go, because you can probably look at people's. They were not parented well or it could be just Satan's ability to get in between you and another brother in Christ, which is why reconciliation of relationships becomes pivotal, right and man. That's so hard because I think I've experienced that and people all over the place experience it. All of a sudden, the person that you're trying to love on and support is one that feels like you're against them. You're like what?
Speaker 2:What? No, that's not happening.
Speaker 1:I didn't sign up to be in control of small groups or men's ministry. I signed up to be kind of part of it Anyway.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So speak to the pastor church or potential church planner or someone's been burned. You know whether it was their own self-inflicted wound or they truly got just crushed. Why be a part of an association?
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone will experience what Jesus experienced in this regard, right? So you remember the passage where Jesus, as he was often doing, delivering hard truth and at one point I can't remember where it is exactly Matthew Luke. A whole bunch of people are like that's it, we're out. Yeah, john 6, you know like, do you want to leave too? And Jesus turns to the disciples and says do you want to leave too? And Jesus turns to the disciples and says do you want to leave too? And then Peter, who we all love, every pastor is going to hug Peter for a long time and say I'm just like you, thank you for being honest. He's like where else are we going to go?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right in our humanity. If we're that pastor and we're left with 12 after we had grown it to, who knows how many people were there? Let's call it 200. Right, right. In addition, jesus will preach to thousands and he knows they're here for the food and to get a miracle Right.
Speaker 2:They don't want to change, they're getting their felt needs met 100% and to your question absent another group of guys who are like oh yeah, me too. What you will think is and what the enemy will whisper in your ear is it's because you're not a good pastor, it's because you stink, it's because God is not with you, that's why you're having these challenges. But you need a bunch of other brothers to hear your story and go oh no, brother, me too. That's exactly what I deal with. And then you can all go huh and literally, like we do like, laugh about it and then carry on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I think what you would say now, at least I would say this is that you know I didn't quit a whole bunch of times.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's it. How are you still in ministry? I didn't quit, that's it, because I didn't quit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you get to that place sometimes as a pastor where you're just like the beatings will continue until morale improves and it's just hard to press forward when everybody wants to critique. And how does God lead you? And whatever, and you're like I wasn't thinking about whatever that thing was.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about this other thing that God's leading me to and now I'm distracted from the thing that the Lord's calling me to, because I'm dealing with this thing. It's hard and I think what's encouraging for me and I think this is why pastors need pastors is the Apostle Paul was not immune to this. No, like he's got you know, and Demas, who was in love with the world, left us. And you're like, oh man, like for Paul to write that in a letter that must have been a heart-wrenching, gut-spilling. Like you're just in this for you, paul, you just want to control us all.
Speaker 1:And you're like, I mean, if the guy who wrote half of the New Testament struggled with people rejecting him and the guy is getting martyred for his faith and he still has people not happy with him. What that means, pastor, is that pretty much if the guys in the Bible didn't have people that were happy with him? What that means, pastor? Is that pretty much if the guys in the Bible didn't have people that were happy with him? If Jesus, who was the ultimate perfect shepherd?
Speaker 1:still had people that wanted to crucify him, then of course you're going to have to deal with that, and so I think that's the part of just standing firm in the calling that God has for you, and so I think that's also why it's so important to have a network of pastors, as you said, as well as your elder board. But that becomes we're in our association, where we believe in a plurality of elders, which is really helpful, but still there's still a lot of weight that a lead pastor carries.
Speaker 2:You need both and you need buddies that you're arm and arm with in your local church, that are your fellow elders, but you also need a group of guys who are other lead pastors in other places, who you can fully vent and not check what you're saying, but just vomit what you need to vomit.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, so let's talk through where the association is going forward. I think we had. We're planting an actual charter service. That's happening this Sunday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, launch Sunday Launch Sunday, September 15th For Valle community church, east side of the city, manor-ish yeah.
Speaker 1:Manor ISD at least right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is it technically Austin?
Speaker 2:Yeah, technically Austin, I think it's as east in.
Speaker 1:Austin, as Wells Branch is north in Austin Right.
Speaker 2:And still be in the city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so their school is Manor, our school is Round Rock, right, that kind of thing. Okay, that's cool and Travis DeLuna is the lead pastor there being planted out of the Well Community Church, correct In East Austin, so that's super exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the 42nd church that God, in his grace has seen fit to allow us to partner together to plan.
Speaker 1:Like that's exciting. I think again. I think when the years where we had like five or six churches going out the door, different than the years where it's like one every other year or so, and so we need to really celebrate this when we sent Taylor Bible Taylor Bible Church, you know, was being pastored by James Foster, who we sent after being 10 years here and he came and preached for us not too long ago. I invited him to come this Sunday because it's our 15th birthday.
Speaker 2:Pretty excited about that and we're going to be talking about all the things.
Speaker 1:But anyway it's so important, I think, to celebrate victories and see the gospel still continue to go forward, that the gospel should still continue to go forward, because I think sometimes you can get caught up in the frustration of things not going well because we've planted 42. There are what? 30?
Speaker 2:Left. I mean that's why it's hard right, Right yeah, we planted 42 over the past call it 30 years and of those 42, eight have closed or merged with other network churches. Six of them are still in existence, doing great work.
Speaker 1:Outside the association.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but not arm in arm as a part of the network anymore, and 26 churches are still Way to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think that's something that's really exciting and wild to sort of wrap your head around it's like this it's not like you come to, but 26,. Let's just call it 26 out of 42, but then really 32 out of 42. So we're at like a 75% success rate, and I think this is a stat. I'd love to see if you know this is like put Eric on the spot. But what is the failure rate of church plants?
Speaker 2:Historically it's been around 60 to 70%.
Speaker 1:So when our success rate is really 60 to 70%, it's the complete opposite.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's statistically an anomaly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that's amazing. It is God's grace it's not like we planted churches 20 years ago and we haven't planted since. It's like we have a church going out this Sunday. Last year in October James Foster went out. The door.
Speaker 2:We planted three in the past two years, with another one in the hopper, hopefully in January. So by God's grace, we're still getting it. We're still getting it done.
Speaker 1:Because, mason, when did he plant Gerald? Easter, easter, so yeah, so I think that's so Gerald. Community Church VIA. Is it Community Church Yep, via Community Church, taylor Bible Church. It's exciting to see all these pastors and churches go out the door living the calling, even when we are in a season of. It's been a struggle, it's not going to be easier. So like when we were looking for a student pastor and this was just not like church planner and not like you know church planners are superheroes, but they sort of are.
Speaker 1:They've got to have an entrepreneurial event. They have to kind of be a little bit in real estate, a little bit in uh marketing, a little bit in, yeah, leadership and administration, all the things everything, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:But we were looking for a student pastor, somebody that could work with kids, and it took us a year, yeah, to find our guy. And and that to me was wild, yeah, that there wasn't a like an. When I asked dallas seminary for resumes, I got zero. I had to call right dallas seminary and said, like I've got I mean, we're in austin, seriously, you're a whole seminary.
Speaker 2:Why don't you send me a couple?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, and they're like oh, we didn't. And I'm like, and then they sent me like three that were like at the bottom, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Know, I guess they went around saying yeah, there's a lot of resumes around here and I was sitting there going like, oh man, and God bless them, I'm sure they're going to do great ministry, but they never had a quiet time, they had not shared the gospel. I was like these people I don't know if would be members at my church, let alone a pastor at my church, and I was like I thought that was sort of wild. And so the fact that even we're still raising up leaders, we're still calling people to go, and so there's a real need. And so what that means is, if you're out there listening to this and you've got some competence and capacity and character, it might be time for you to hear God's calling to come plant a church with us.
Speaker 2:Right, it might be time for you to hear God's calling to come plant a church with us. Well, what I think is super encouraging is in 1 Timothy 3, in that section that's going to talk about the biblical qualifications for an elder, and then it moves into deacon. Paul starts that section saying he who desires to be an overseer, it's a noble work. Yeah, they desire a noble work.
Speaker 2:And so for those guys that are out there that are right now wrestling with could I, should I, could God be calling me to that man, if you desire to do a noble work, if you desire to lay your life down for the gospel, right which is, oh, by the way, the call of a disciple right To count the cost and carry your cross, If that's you even an inkling of that, even if right now, as we're talking, that that is sparking a little something like you feel, like I don't know if it's me, I don't know if it's the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:We want to have a conversation because we have, like we said, 26 churches that are right now looking for church planting residents to come in, learn culture and DNA, some ministry skills, to help fill out what may not already be built and then to see them developed into church planters. Right, the historical reality for the past 2000 years have been making disciples, who make disciples, and out of that harvest you see elders and missionaries and deacons and church planters, and deacons and church planters. And so for those who are right now wondering, like could that be me man?
Speaker 2:assume the answer is yes until you get evidence to the contrary, Because we are looking for men who have the call but also enough spiritual courage to say, maybe me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do think that there is the spiritual courage especially post-COVID has been lacking.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And of course Understandably.
Speaker 1:It was a beating and maybe you were on staff somewhere, or maybe you were a part of a church somewhere and you just saw the licking that the pastor took, or you were the that took a licking and you're like I'm out, I get it, uh, and I think we all needed each other during that time to kind of just go. I can't believe the amount of angst I've gotten over the decision for us to not wear masks. Wear masks, have an event, not have an event right when everything you did was highly criticized.
Speaker 1:It just crushed the soul.
Speaker 2:It did.
Speaker 1:And so that's why I think, one of the things long-suffering if that's in your spiritual gift, you know long-suffering then you might be called to be a church planter. So, yeah, any other thoughts on church planting as a whole?
Speaker 2:The big thing right now is continuing to be about it, right. The natural pull within the local church is not to multiply, it's to make sure that that local church is running well, humming the kids ministry, student ministry, the Sunday by Sunday-ness of things is going well, right. Is there anything wrong with that? No, right. The problem is it's inadequate. Because you can have the best local church, but if you are not multiplying, something's missing. If the natural state of the believer is to be a multiplying entity, right. If you abide in me, you will bear much, much fruit.
Speaker 2:Why Verse eight of John 15, to the glory of the Father, right? So if that's true of the individual believer and you have a church full of those people, it makes sense. Now, coming full circle, what we read in the book of Acts and the church multiplied. And the church multiplied, right. But that's not the natural state. The natural state is just to run the church, ministry by ministry, week by week, year by year, and not multiply, right? So you need to have whether it is like for us, our network, our association of guys, where we're hey, we're going to talk about it, we're going to talk about multiplication, we're going to talk about what you need to plant a church, get a resident, all those things, because someone has to keep it in front of us, otherwise the drift, no one drifts into church planting, just like no one drifts into holiness.
Speaker 1:right, it is an intentional, proactive, get after it type of reality and I think there you know one of the things that we talked about many, many moons ago and I don't know if the conversation really between you and me, but like over and over, like the standard for when a church becomes a sister church and we got away from this, but it was like 200 people and I am more convinced than ever that that is essential. Yeah, like. So I do think there is a place where getting your church to a functional place before so that when covet hits right, you can withstand it Agreed, before you start planting, otherwise you're just the amount of weight that you're carrying or if somebody dies or there's some sort of scandal or whatever, to kind of take that hit as a sub-200 church. I think those sub-200 churches really struggled to recover after COVID. Yeah, without a doubt, Because, shoot, to recover after COVID. Yeah, without a doubt, because, shoot, we struggled after COVID and, like I said, we were at 330 on a Sunday average, right, it was just like another Sunday, and now for us 250 is a good Sunday of adults and I think that's kind of a wild thought to kind of think the pre-COVID, post-covid for the churches of our size.
Speaker 1:I do think that the mega churches saw as churches collapsed, the smaller churches like I am. So done with small church, I'm going to go find the biggest church I can, because this place is not going anywhere and this was so hard, and so I think you're going to, you see, the mid-sized churches that really are going to have to kind of just keep grinding for that season to get over that hump where you're at a place of stability, not worrying about, like year to year, are we going to make it? I think that's where a lot of churches that are sub 100 people it's like am I going to make it? And to get church planning in your head, when you might need to be thinking about just basic, don't think about developing church planters, think about developing elders. But really the development of elders is the same thing you do for the development of church planters. It is the seedbed, and so I think that's the problem is for smaller churches. If you don't have a elder development process, then church planting will never be a part of your system.
Speaker 2:It'll seem too far.
Speaker 1:And because you'll have to get church planners from outside your church. And if you're not developing the engine of creating more elders, then what happens? When you send out a bunch of people, you're going to be left with not a lot of leaders and you have to start over. And so that's the part of really just understanding the reality of church planning and how hard it is if you're going to be involved in that. But, honestly, it's what you need to be doing as a pastor to develop elders, amen. Yeah, I don't know. I think the elder development piece is something that just as personally, I think, man, that we need to kind of think through. Think through that, because me, as a pastor, I'm like I just want to reach more people for Jesus, which is great. That's addition. Developing elders, that's the multiplication, multiplication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is every like if I can sit down with every pastor and I said this at our last meeting and just to say it with this eye to eye with every pastor as a brother, lovingly is two Timothy two. Two applies to every one of us. Right, take what I've given you and train faithful men who can train others. Also If, if you're listening to this and you're already a pastor, you're already in local church, just just pray God. Who are the guys in my church right now that I can begin to meet with once a week for an hour and start to pour my life into Just one hour in your schedule? Right, and begin, on the basis of 2 Timothy 2.2, to multiply yourself into the guys that God has already put you there with an eye toward and it's embedded, embedded in the verse that they would then, absent you be able to train others. That becomes the seedbed.
Speaker 2:Yes, for so many it's like man, I can't plant. That is so far away. We're 125, we're 150. Right, but do what you can do now to set the DNA and the trajectory that one day but even if you never planted- you still win, you still win and even if you never planted, you're still developing elders, like God called you to do 100%.
Speaker 1:And I think that's. I feel like the thing missing from the vocabulary of pastors right now is they see church planting like nah too hard, yeah. But when you dial it back of like can I develop elders, you're never going to say that's too hard, you're saying that's essential. And so I think we need to go like the same thing that makes an elder, because remember when they went and appointed elders in different towns, they appointed church planners right Like.
Speaker 1:Titus did with Crete, and so you had to develop elders who had character, who had the ability to teach, who had basic doctrinal skills. And so I think that's the part where I think, in all the things that pastors do, you know, a leader only does what only a leader can do. And so in those moments you go, what can I do? I think, raise up the next batch of elders, that's right. And then, after you've raised up enough elders, you're like, oh hey, I could form an elder team to go and plant another church. That's right, and I think that might be the again. What size whatever? I think that's the Holy Spirit discerned.
Speaker 1:But I think that's the part where I feel like guys that look at this obstacle of church planting that's so far out need to start with, what does God call me to do within my church context right now that ultimately one day might turn into that, and just have an eye for that as I'm developing elders. Yep, totally agree, all right. Well, hey, thanks so much for watching. If you have any questions about church planting, you'd love to get with us. We will bring Eric back because he knows things about church planting and he would love to help you. In fact, we got two things coming up in October.
Speaker 2:Right, we have the Association Hill Country Church. Is it really the Plant in Austin Conference? Plant in Austin Conference? Where, at One Day Conference, parkway Bible Church, october 17th, 8.30 to 3 pm we have a track for churches that are interested in or kicking the tires on. Could we be a church planting church? Another track for planters whether you're again kicking the tires on that call or, like you know, jesus is calling you to that, or you're brand new to planting, we'll be able to resource you with kind of best practices and what you can think about and do to win where you're at right now.
Speaker 1:In either case, so let's talk about that. I think if you are a person who's thinking about planting Now in either case, so let's talk about that. I think if you are a person who's thinking about planting, you really need to kind of get your heart set on that. Be there. But then, beyond that, we're having a yearly assessment around the April timeframe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this coming year it'll be the first week of May.
Speaker 1:Okay, first week of May In May of 2025, we're going to have an assessment. Let's say if someone's like they're listening in I don't know Maine or Boston or California or whatever? How do they get a hold of you to get involved in church planting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you go to our post on churchstaffingcom, just type in church planter, church planting, resident, our post will come up and then you can contact us through there.
Speaker 1:Or plantaustincom.
Speaker 2:Or plantaustincom is the other place where there's a contact form and we'll reach out. Start the conversation. Yeah, that'd be great, Yep.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks for watching. We talk faith, culture, everything in between. If you want to get involved in church planting, let us know. You can text us at 737-231-0605. This at 737-231-0605. I'll personally make sure that Eric comes back and brings more of that church planning wisdom to us here on Pastor Plex Podcast. So, from our house to yours, have an awesome week.