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"My 'a-ha' Moment at Boot Camp"
You know the feeling…you said “yes” to something before you had all of the facts—before you really had any of the facts? Almost a year ago, my wife and I answered God’s call to plant a church in Pittsburgh. We knew we were supposed to go, but overall, we shared the feeling of not knowing how we were supposed to go about reaching the community of Millvale with the gospel.
I remember telling my wife that I never felt more out of control in my life, and that I had no idea how we would actually go about starting a church. In the past, I had always known where to start, and how to do my part as a member of a church staff, but this was different. This time, there was no church system to observe and figure out where we fit. The new challenge was to establish all of that from nothing, but how?
That’s how I felt when my wife and I left for Church Multiplication Network’s Boot Camp last fall. We had so many questions and insecurities about whether we would be able to do it. How do you start a launch team? Where do the people come from? Why would they leave their comfortable, established churches to help us? Who would pay the bills? Where do you even start? I could go on and on. I just remember sitting at Boot Camp and wondering what I was doing there.
As we started through the material, I could see that many of my questions were going to be addressed, and hopefully answered. I also loved the hands-on approach that the instructors used in leading us through the process. The exercises and table discussion not only sparked my creativity, but it really helped us to know that we were not in this alone. It was great to watch other ministry teams developing the model of ministry that God was giving them, as well as seeing ours develop.
I think the big “a-ha!” moment for us occurred during the body map exercise. Prior to going to the camp, we had been doing research and demographic studies of our community. Utilizing that information, we were instructed to trace our body outline on a sheet of paper and divide it into three sections. The head was to represent who the people were that we were called to reach. We brainstormed and wrote in the space every detail we could think of that described them. In the chest area, we listed the potential needs of those people. Finally, we listed how we could possibly meet those needs in the legs of the drawing.
For me, this was where I really connected what we were supposed to do. It was so simple to see it all drawn out like that. God had not called us to establish a church with programs that looked like so many other types of churches that were out there. Instead, we had been called to a people, whereby assessing their needs, we could help to meet their needs, and therefore create a means to share Christ with them.
I’d like to say that I left camp with every question answered and a foolproof plan on how to start a church, but I didn’t. I probably have more questions now than I did then. However, it has been the most incredible journey of my life to be here now, with two preview services complete, and two more to go until our launch. God has brought an incredible team of leaders around us who love serving the people of Millvale. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for Element Church.
Rich Jones is the lead pastor at Element Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
