.GreensboroPart1.

Guest Blogger: Andrew

The other day I had a man tell me that church planters were all either crazy or stupid! Needless to say it was very encouraging. I think his point was simple; church planting is a difficult task and therefore it is a difficult decision to make as a family. Every family that has taken such a task probably has a story of how they came to the decision. Anna and I want y’all to know ours...

Moving to seminary for us was an easy decision. I felt called to ministry for a long time and Anna had the very same heart. What wasn’t easy was finding a church to plug into when were first arrived in Wake Forest, NC. Many times people can’t find churches because they feel there isn’t a good one...we were the opposite. After visiting a few in a row we realized that we could plug, do ministry, and be discipled in a number of churches in this area. But after attending the Summit Church in the Summer of 2007, and attending small group, we bought in...and what a blessing it has been.

I start with our story of finding the Summit because that is really where the story of church planting begins for us. I know that in reality God has been preparing our direction for years and years (awesome families, mentors, support, experience, etc)...but at the Summit it started to take shape. Under the discipleship/mentorship/friendship of Pastor JD Greear 2 things have come alive in me over the past 4 years. First I have learned and become passionate about preaching the Gospel for BOTH salvation and sanctification. And second I’ve learned that in this broken and ravaged by sin world...the local church is God’s plan A for redemption. With these two passions ignited in my heart Anna and I began to ask the question of what God would have us do when our time at the Summit was over...

Even asking that question was sobering in that it meant a move from RDU and the Summit. It was hard to think about a time when we would leave the staff and family here. The most formative years for ministry in our lives have been at this church. Our friends are here, our children were born into this family, and we have been treated extremely well! But if our heartbeat is the Glory of God, and He is sending us from the Summit...we concluded that even these good gifts from God were worth laying down. So the conversation continued. The elders of the Summit were clued in to what we were thinking...and a vision was forming.

The Summit Church wants to plant other churches...in fact we have the goal of planting 1000 churches before 2050! Inside that vision is a specific niche to see churches planted in North Carolina. As Anna and I talked about church planting in North Carolina a few things become clear. First, we love the Carolinas both north and south. Second, we feel pretty equipped to do ministry in the traditional south. Third, the exchange of true Gospel for moralism in the south is heart breaking to us. As these truths started to weigh on our hearts planting a church in North Carolina became more and more exciting. For who knows how long our prayer had been that God would weave us into the 1000 church vision in a way that fit...and we felt like planting a church right here was it.

As excited as we were becoming the big question in my mind was, “will THEY follow me?”. The “they” I am referring to really is another entire story in and of itself. Throughout the process I’ve chronicled here is an important piece that God was forming...a team! When things started to become real in our minds I knew that much of it was contingent on whether or not a few families would partner. Being one of the Brier Creek Campus Pastors afforded me the opportunity to work closely with two families for a long time. Both the Herringtons and the Dagers were people that I knew we needed before even Anna and I would solidify our answer to this call. So almost exactly a year ago I started the conversation with these families about what it would look like for us to plant a church in NC...and to my joy it didn’t take long before they were totally on board. While our elders knew that we were in the process of evaluation, it came time last December for me to formally bring them my thoughts. The conversations that followed were the most encouraging of my life. The collective response from these men was, “we see this in you, we believe in you, we are behind you, now go for it!”. With that the decision was made...we were on track to plant a church in North Carolina...

But where?! After an extensive search we came to see Greensboro as the best fit for us and our team. To read more about the “why” go here http://sendrdu.com/greensboro...

God is continuing to write this story and blowing our minds all the time with awesome team members and support from all over. There is so much more to the story being written everyday...but we will save that for other posts. We will keep you updated as to what is happening when. But for everyone who wondered, “how did you come to that decision”...now you know!