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Advent Can Be One of the Hardest Seasons for Pastors…

Advent can be a particularly challenging season for church planters and pastors in younger churches.

I remember the first few years of our church plant, Advent was a season of decreased attendance- most of the people in our church were younger and would either travel to be with family over the holidays or head to church with their parents. Advent always left me wondering where everyone had gone.

As we got older, more and more people began to stick around for the Holidays, and even bring family and friends. That was great, but only increased the pressure we felt to make things special.

Let’s just be frank- Advent can be exhausting. In addition to planning extra events like Christmas parties or serving the poor, Advent means being there first and probably leaving last on Christmas Eve or other special Christmas services.

What for most people is a family celebration is for many pastors an exhausting special event- work.

What all this means is that at Advent, we as ministry leaders need to take special care. Here are three things to be mindful of this season.

  1. Remember to make Advent as special for your own family as you are trying to make it for others’- Not to add more pressure at what is already a pressure-filled time, but your family needs you to be mom or dad, not pastor or ministry leader. They understand you have a job that often means working when others are at home, celebrating, but rather than ask them to just accept this, do your best to simply shift those special times to earlier in the day or in some other way acknowledge their sacrifice of time with you by doing something else special for or with them.
  • Take some extra time off- you’ve earned it. The folks that serve you the coffee you get or sell you those last-minute gifts on Christmas Eve probably get time and half for working on holidays. Sadly, this is a convention that has never really made its way into churches! Probably the best we’re going to be able to do is take advantage of the greater flexibility we have with our time. That means taking some “comp” time after Christmas to be with your family. Ministry can wait- show your family they matter by being extra-present after big events like Christmas Eve that pull you away from them.
  • Most importantly- Don’t forget to connect with the Jesus you are trying so hard to point others to. Though it’s cliché to say it- remember the reason for the Advent season. We consistently remind people not to get caught up with the business of the season and then promptly ignore our own warnings. Do whatever you need to do this year to stay focused on your relationship with God, and the worship of Jesus. Don’t let pastoring others and planning church services for them mean that your soul is neglected.

Have a blessed Advent this year that does in your life and heart the same things you hope and pray for others.

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ENG 20: Get to Know Our Presenters- Scot McKnight

At ENG 20 Reflecting the Son, you’ll experience a mixture of traditional plenary sessions and “TED”-type talks, along with workshop options in specific tracks around
theology, discipleship, leadership, and multiplication.   We’re excited that Scot McKnight is joining us as a featured speaker as we seek to recover Church in the image of Christ!

Dr. Scot McKnight is a world-renowned speaker, writer, professor and equipper of the Church. He is a recognized authority on the historical Jesus, early Christianity, and the New Testament. His blog, Jesus Creed, is a leading Christian blog. A sought after speaker, he has been interviewed on several radio and television programs as well as spoken at numerous local churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries in the United States and around the world. Scot McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies.

For more info and registration on the Ecclesia National Gathering 2020, click here!

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Leader’s Profile: Matthew Shedden

Matthew Shedden grew up in the Chicago Suburbs and left at the age of 18 to attend Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO. There he met his wife Kelli, and finished a degree in history before moving to Seattle to attend the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology where he received an MDiv. They then moved to rural Oregon where he worked and learned as an associate pastor for 6 years.

When given the chance to move back to Colorado they jumped at the chance to lead Defiance Church. When he’s not working or reading at the church, you’ll find him on the river fly-fishing or on the slopes skiing and enjoying the wonderful area he, Kelli and their two kids live in.

How would you describe the area your church is in?

Rural (10,000)

How would you describe the journey of pastoring Defiance Church? What have been some of the milestones/different seasons?

Pastoring Defiance Church has been an exciting journey. After starting with 10 people and being given the charge to replant or reenergize the church we’ve tackled a lot of challenges. The congregation has been flexible and generous with new ideas and new life and we pray in continues into the future.

Looking back, what do you know now you wish you had known when you first started at Defiance?

I wish I had know how slow it would be, how small 10,000 people really is, and that the highs don’t last long and the lows should last shorter.

As you think about what you’ve been able to do so far in ministry there what are some things you have done/tried that have worked well?

We’ve worked hard at NOT trying a lot of things. Our goal has been to keep the structure and the work of church simple. I joke that our slogan could be “Church -(or worship) we believe it works. So that’s something that’s worked really well for us.

What hasn’t worked so well? What have you had to rethink/reimagine/rework?

I think many of the missional ideas and strategies haven’t worked well because they came as programs. Now I’m trying to get back the change in disposition to life over a set of programs.

What is one failure you experienced and what did you learn from it?

The biggest error I’ve made is trying to restart our leadership structure without a new structure in place. I’ve learned that as much as I take on the work of the church, I still need others around me.

What is something you’ve been hearing from or learning from God in this last season of leading?

Don’t go alone and take a breath to enjoy the view.

What do you dream/hope/pray Defiance Church looks like in five years?

I’ve long looked at our church as a well instead of a community pool. So instead of being big and wide with plenty going on, we pray and hope to be drawn deeper into the life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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How I Discerned The Call To Plant A New Church

Kevin and Brooke Fontenot were part of our October 2019 Genesis Church Planting Training in McCall, ID. Here is some of their story of being called to plant a church.

I always knew that I would plant a church. It was not a matter of if, it was a matter of when. Every time I thought about it, I figured it would probably be ten years away. All that began to change at the end of 2018.

Earlier in the year, I felt the Lord leading me to finish my bachelor’s degree. I’ll be completely honest, it was not something that I was excited about. I literally waited until the week before Fall 2018 classes began to register. I’ve always loved to learn and am a voracious reader, but have struggled with the constraints of a formal education. Yet, my decision to follow the leading of the Lord has led me down a path that was completely unexpected.

As I began to work through my classes, the Lord began speaking through the course material about church planting. It began to seem like something that was more real and a lot closer than I had ever expected. Instead of thinking about church planting as something that would happen in ten years, I began to consider it happening in the next couple of years based on how the Lord was leading.

Where To Go?

In October/November 2018, my wife Brooke and I decided to buy a house! At the time, we were renting an apartment in Carrollton, Texas where Brooke worked. We got a killer discount and knew that it was only temporary.
We began talking with our real estate agent about where in Denton we wanted to purchase a house and ended up touring three others within the next week. The home we ended up purchasing is in a fast growing area in town that is full of shopping, dining, and entertainment options that have all been added within the last few years.

We closed on our house mid-December and moved in after doing a little painting. That week was when our timeline for church planting really began to change. I began reading two books that struck me deeply The first was Richard Heitzenrater’s excellent book, Wesley and the People Called Methodists, and the second was Francis Chan’s book, Letters to the Church.

I wrote the following after reading through both books:
“Can the church be reformed from within? Our chief end cannot be numbers! We must produce quality disciples who spread the gospel of Jesus, root out sin in their lives, and are fully devoted to God. I feel God calling me to pursue this.”

This struck me so heavily that I took the next day to pray and fast as I sought the Lord for direction as I began to feel the weighty call of planting a church much sooner than expected. I began sketching out a model influenced by both John Wesley’s structure in the early days of methodism as well as a church in Houston called Church Project.

Over the next month, I was struck by what I felt the Lord calling me to do, but was still wrestling with the timing and the place. I knew that the Lord had birthed a vision in me, but I wasn’t exactly sure when and where that would happen.

In January 2019 is when I felt the Lord reveal that the reason we had moved back to Denton and that the reason we had purchased a house where we did was because he was calling us to plant a church in North Denton. So, I did what any faith-filled person would do… I started to do research on all the reasons we shouldn’t plant a church in Denton.

Getting Confirmation

As a data nerd, one of the first things that I did in my research was to find as much data as possible. What I found, was actually pretty shocking to me. The first piece of data that I came across was how much Denton had grown. In less than two decades, the population increased by about 70% from 80,537 in 2000 to over 136,000 in 2017. On average, our city added a net increase of 3,278 people per year in population.

While this was certainly compelling, it wasn’t enough to convince me that the Lord knew more than me. I began trying to uncover data related to the number of churches in town. As someone living in the Bible belt, there are seemingly innumerable churches all around. I was sure that I was going to find data showing that there are already enough churches in Denton.

Yet, what I found was that Denton ranks number 3,042 out of 3,143 counties/parishes in the United States for lowest ratios of churches to people. In other words, about 97% of all counties in the United States had a higher ratio than Denton.

Denton County averages 7 churches per 10,000 people, a statistic it shares with Providence, Rhode Island and Baltimore, Maryland. Interesting to note, Denton County does rank as one of the top 100 counties with most churches, which gives the perception of effectiveness, but is also one of the 50 largest counties by population.

Armed with this data, I recognized that the Lord did indeed know more than I did. By the end of January, I was 100% confident that God was calling us to plant in Denton and a sense that it would be within the next 18 months.

The next month and a half was spent having a lot of conversations with Brooke about what it would look like to church plant and praying through the nuts and bolts. In late February/early March we began to tell others about what the Lord was revealing and were very encouraged by the response. We were dreading a few conversations, but in every conversation we felt affirmed and encouraged in this calling.

On Easter, we publicly announced that we were planting City Church in Denton, Texas in early 2020.

Advice For Others

This is my story of sensing and confirming the Lord’s call to church planting. As I have read countless others stories, I recognize that most are different. You may be sensing the Lord’s calling and approach it completely differently than I did.

My biggest piece of advice is this: take it slow. It can be easy to want to run as fast as possible once you’ve sensed something from the Lord, but there is wisdom in going slowly and ensuring that what you are sensing is indeed from the Lord. God was faithful as we sought him to confirm what we were sensing.

Also, if there’s another piece of advice I could give it’s this: your calling doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s. We’re planting a church in a way that is different than the way most are planted. We’re intentionally continuing to work full-time jobs. We’re not planning on a big initial launch. We’re not raising a huge launch budget. We’re simply following the Lord and allowing him to direct our steps. Consulting outside resources is great and I highly recommend it, but don’t get too caught up in how everyone else is doing something so much that you listen to their advice more than what the Lord is calling YOU to do. Only you can answer the question of, “Am I called to plant a church?”

If you have any questions/comments/prayer requests, feel free to email me at kevin@trainedup.org.

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about our church plant, head over to citychurchdenton.com.

(This article originally appeared at ServeHQ .)

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Leader’s Profile- Gary Alloway

Gary Alloway serves as the Pastor and Director of Mission for Redemption Church in Bristol, PA. Gary is an alumnus of Penn State and Princeton Theological Seminary.  He is passionate about seeing the healing love of Christ spread throughout the world.  He also loves indie rock, startup businesses, community ventures, and his family.


We recently had a chance to ask him a few questions!

How would you describe the area your church is in?

A post-industrial suburban small town.

How would you describe the journey of pastoring Redemption Church? What have been some of the milestones/different seasons?

When we first started, we were young, immature, and ambitious. 3 years in, we re-booted, spending the next 6 years in a house church model, which helped us develop depth, a culture of discipleship, patience, and a willingness to invest in small things, rather than try to conquer the world. House churches forced us to focus on relationships, both inside and outside the church. We re-launched our weekly gathering this past year with a whole network of local relationships to invite in, rather than just a good idea for a new ministry in Bristol.

Looking back, what do you know now you wish you had known when you first started Redemption?

I wish I had known how slow things would go. We planted in a dying post-industrial town and expected to see growth and change right away. If I had had a more realistic expectation for the pace of change, I would not have been as discouraged in the early years and would have spent more time rejoicing over the little victories along the way.

As you think about what you’ve been able to do so far in ministry there what are some things you have done/tried that have worked well?

Community partnerships. As a small church with a small budget, there are limitations on what we can do on our own. However, when we have partnered with both individuals and community organizations, we have been able to accomplish things far beyond our scope. We have helped launch a housing non-profit, a coffee shop, and a community festival. We have worked with local businesses to host Bible studies, storytelling nights, and discussion groups. Our resources and possibilities grow tremendously when we work with others rather than only within ourselves.

What hasn’t worked so well? What have you had to rethink/reimagine/rework?

One mistake was thinking that there would be dozens of people in Bristol who were excited about a new church. In our post-industrial, post-Christendom setting, nobody was excited that we showed up. People were interested in who we were and what kind of neighbors we would be, but not what we were offering on Sundays. It has forced us to think about how we do Monday through Saturday well, not just think about Monday through Saturday as a means to enlarge Sunday.

What is something you’ve been hearing from or learning from God in this last season of leading?

God continues to bring me back to the truth that it is all about discipleship. We can build a big church, but all that really matters to God is whether we are being shaped and formed to be like Christ. This the reason we exist. And if we invest in this, whether the church grows large or dies, we will be successful.

What do you dream/hope/pray Redemption looks like in five years?

I hope and pray that our church community is even more enmeshed in the life of Bristol. That we would be the salt and light not only on our main street, but in every neighborhood, on every street, in our schools, etc. I pray that even if we grow large, we wouldn’t lose sight of the fact that individuals matter to God. That we would love our neighbor, not as a concept, but instead, actually love our particular neighbor.

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ENG 20: Get to Know Our Presenters- Winfield Bevins

At ENG 20 Reflecting the Son, you’ll experience a mixture of traditional plenary sessions and “TED”-type talks, along with workshop options in specific tracks around
theology, discipleship, leadership, and multiplication.   We’re excited that Winfield Bevins is joining us as a featured speaker as we seek to recover Church in the image of Christ!

Winfield Bevins is an author, artist, and speaker whose passion is to help others connect to the roots of the Christian faith for discipleship and mission. He is the Director of Church Planting at Asbury Theological Seminary. He frequently speaks at conferences on a variety of topics and is a regular adjunct professor at several seminaries. Having grown up in a free-church background, Winfield eventually found his spiritual home in the Anglican tradition, but freely draws wisdom from all church traditions. Having authored several books, his writings explore the convergence of liturgy, prayer, and mission. His latest book, Ever Ancient, Ever New, with Zondervan examines young adults who have embraced Christian liturgy and how it has impacted their lives. He and his wife Kay have three beautiful girls Elizabeth, Anna Belle, and Caroline and live in the Bluegrass state of Kentucky.

Find out more about him on his website!

For more info and registration on the Ecclesia National Gathering 2020, click here!

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