Equipper Blog
Leader Profile: Chris Breslin
Oak Church, Durham NC
Chris Breslin serves as the pastor at Oak Church in Durham, NC. In the summer of 2014, the Gathering Church sent Chris and Rachel Breslin along with a core team to plant a church in the Lakewood neighborhood of Durham. Oak Church launched on October 26, 2014 after a huge neighborhood block party and pig pickin’. The church gets its name from Isaiah 61: “Oaks of Righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His Splendor,” and strives to be a community of “hope, healing, and hospitality in and through Christ.”
Chris is the proud husband to Rachel, dad and jungle gym to Noa June (2011), Titus Eliot (2013), Emett Ruth (2015), and Simeon Holmes (2017). He enjoys reading and learning about intersections between theology and the arts, tending a small flock of laying hens named after pop divas, adding to his vinyl music collection, following FSU football, Bulls baseball, and Duke hoops.
How would you describe the area your church is in?
Urban/University Neighborhood
How would you describe the journey of pastoring Oak Church? What have been some of the milestones/different seasons?
Our journey has been a patient journey of learning how to be good neighbors. We had a place before we had a church, and a block party before we had a worship gathering. For that party, about 300 neighbors/strangers showed up. The next morning, 2 new people came for worship. This disabused us of the notion of “if you build it they will come” or that being neighbors and building relationships of trust and care would be quick and easy.
Looking back, what do you know now you wish you had known when you first started Oak Church?
To some extent, I’m glad that our knowledge and understanding of this place has been gradual and ongoing. It’s forced us to pay more attention. I probably would have prayed for and invested more in an older contingency for our initial core. Relying on tested wisdom and stability.
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?
1) Experiencing liturgy/church year as hospitality- this framework has connected us to Church beyond ourselves, oriented us to a steady backbeat bigger than our emotions or timeframes, and created space for folks at every stage of their journey of faith in Christ. 2) Partnering with other institutions in the neighborhood and experiencing others not as rivals, but as neighbors, people of peace, and potential collaborators for the good of our neighbors.
What hasn’t worked so well? What have you had to rethink/reimagine/rework?
I think we drastically underestimated our ability to develop stable leadership in such a highly transient area. We invest and equip quite a bit, but often don’t get to experience the fruit of this work. I would have imagined much more stability and continuity in our leadership. This has caused us (in an ongoing way) to reconsider how we structure and what we expect.
What is one failure you experienced and what did you learn from it?
To a large extent, these past (almost) five years, have been haunted by a sort of “Spiritual FOMO.” I fight the feeling that I’m/we’re missing out on something the Spirit is doing or someone the Spirit is giving us as a gift. That I don’t have eyes or an imagination for receiving, developing, and deploying these gifts. There have been many failures which validate this fear. Folks who’ve showed up on our doorstep in need who I’ve simply not had an adequate imagination for what the Spirit wanted for them and for us. Folks who’ve showed up on Sundays looking for an invitation either socially or vocationally, and my timidity (mostly shrouded as “humility”) has prevented me from calling them into something deeper. Or relational limits, which have caused us to miss out on digging into deeper healing and participation in God’s renewing work. These failures, also help me to want more and be more open in the future. They’re constant “teaching moments” to be more and more open and attentive and grateful and skilled at receiving.
What is something you’ve been hearing from or learning from God in this last season of leading?
Continue to make space and hold tension. Perhaps there’s even a tension in those two things. Making space requires so much patience and courage. Holding tension similarly asks for endurance and imagination. In this time of dissonance & fragmentation, we’re tempted to rush and resolve. But instead we’d be wise to trust that the Jesus holds all things together (Col 1:17) and that there is more than enough.
What do you dream/hope/pray Oak Church looks like in five years?
I pray that our churches continue to know and love not just their neighbors (in some hypothetical sense) know and love their neighborhoods- the real, complicated people and places with conflicting motivations, but common hopes and desires. That this work would plunge us headlong into trusting in God and into the patient work of seeing and receiving gifts from the Lord who provides.
Planter Profile: Robert Frazier, Boise ID
Raised in Boise, Idaho, Robert is an avid Boise State and Boston sports fan, he loves film, design, coffee and home-brewing and is currently looking for opportunities to play old-man soccer. He runs a creative consulting firm called solidcreative.media.
In August of 2016, the Fraziers moved back to Boise to plant a church- Redemption Boise.
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So your church is in Boise, Idaho. Tell us a little about Boise!
Boise is a unique city for many reasons. It’s growing like crazy, it’s beautiful and so close to great outdoor recreation, and it’s one of the least religious cities in the country. It’s also where I grew up. When we sensed God calling us to plant, we were open to anywhere but excited to invest our lives in a city that we love so much.
Talk to us about when you starting feeling the pull towards church planting, and the process/discussions that followed.
I was being recruited by a large church to be there executive pastor. It wasn’t a good fit with my giftings and passions, but at the end of a long phone call the senior pastor told me that I was built like a church planter and if I wanted to do that he would support us. He didn’t end up supporting our church plant, but he did call out this apostolic gifting in me that I didn’t see. We started to process with the church we were leading in, and they reluctantly agreed that God was calling us to plant, over the course of about a year of discernment. We moved to Boise and a year later with a great launch team we started Redemption Hill.
What are the distinctives you are hoping to embed in the DNA of this new church?
My ministry from the beginning was shaped by the missional conversations of the early aughts. I spent 10 years as a missionary to teenagers, so outreach was the driving force behind the church plant. We wanted to be hyper-local, missional, evangelistic, built to make apprentices of Jesus and multiply disciple-making communities. Some of that is happening, other parts are still aspirational.
As you think about what you’ve been able to do so far in getting this church plant off the ground, what are some things you have done/tried that have worked well?
We’ve had some early success connecting with families in our community through movie nights, a sports and arts camp and a Christmas indoor fair. Our community groups and discipleship classes have been vital parts of building the community…and we instituted a short coffee break before the sermon that has really been a surprisingly great part of our community life.
What hasn’t worked so well? What have you had to rethink/reimagine/rework?
We have a million little kids, so anything with just adults, classes, formation, missional communities has been difficult to move quickly. In our community group we have 15 kids and like 17 adults. And almost all of the kids are under 8. We haven’t solved that Rubik’s cube, but we are starting to lean into the rhythms of parenting rather than fighting against them.
What is one failure you experienced and what did you learn from it?
The first year we were awful at new people integrating with the community. We had a bunch of people checking out the church and almost none of them stayed. Some simple processes and culture shifts around hospitality have been a huge part of turning that around.
What is something you’ve been hearing from or learning from God in this last season of planting?
My job is to equip the saints, not do the work for them. I’ve been trying to set aside more time for developing people rather than doing “ministry.”
What do you dream/hope/pray this new church looks like in five years?
That we have planted 2 churches and are regularly developing great leaders to send as missionaries into their neighborhoods. I hope 100 people can say: my life was transformed by good news I heard and experienced at Redemption Hill.
The Church Planter’s (or everyone’s) Secret Weapon
I was sitting on the floor in my office, looking at my ceiling trying to figure out what was going on. Everything felt numb. I had no energy, no passion, no excitement, no desire. All I wanted was to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling.
Although as a pastor, I have helped many people through their journeys with depression and anxiety, I am not prone to bouts of melancholy, and yet here I was staring at my ceiling, wondering what went wrong.
I peeled myself off the floor and like I have done many times, I wrote down what was going on in my life. The responsibilities, vital relationships, the stressors, the roles. During seminary I had been taught well through a discipleship process to take stock of my life and build a rule of life that would keep me on the tracks.
As I started to pour out my list, it kept going and going. It would not be good for you or for me to list everything on that list. I am a high energy leader and entrepreneur so I end up with a lot of things on my plate. A lot of people who are important to me, and a lot of work that I expect myself to do week in and week out.
But there was one culprit in my life that had left me laying on that floor. 8 months prior in a fit of idiocy I decided to put an addition on our house, by myself. The plan was to take time off of my work, say no to some contracts and lean in to get this remodel/addition done in 12 weeks. I had a plan, a schedule and a lot of help…not to mention a ton of pride.
I worked like a maniac. 12-14 hour days, so long that when I held tools I could not feel my fingers. And when there were delays around the drywall guys and the schedule got extended, I made a really stupid decision, I added back in all of my day-to-day responsibilities as a business owner and a church planter alongside trying to finish my house. Pretty soon 6 days stretched into 7 long days of long hours and physical and mental demands that wiped me out. After 5 months of hustling every day, in every area and feeling like a complete failure, I was laying exhausted on the floor wondering how I would recover from this exhaustion that felt like a weight on my back. My daughter had come to me that morning and asked: “When will you be done with the house? I miss you Daddy.” That was the straw that broke this camel’s back.
I don’t listen to a lot of other Pastor’s sermons. I find too much comparison in my heart when I do, but when I walk or run I listen to John Mark Comer at Bridgetown in Portland. My wife does too. She sent me a link and said “Listen to this, we need to talk”. Comer had been working through a sermon series on spiritual practices and there was a long series on Sabbath that transformed my life.
We all know about Sabbath. The 4th commandment, a rule and a gift from God, built into the fabric of creation. We need to take one out of every 7 days to rest, in obedience and as an act of faith. You have probably all preached on Sabbath at some point, maybe when you were preparing your congregation to go on your first sabbatical. My wife and I have tried to have a day of rest at times throughout our 15 years of marriage. Between her work as a nurse with hospital schedules and my work in ministry as a missionary and pastor, we have had a hard time building a consistent time of rest. But this winter, we looked at our lives and said…we can’t keep going at this pace, we need rhythm to our weeks that include regular rest. So that is what we did.
We committed to doing nothing from dinner Friday to dinner Saturday. It works for us because of her work schedule. We don’t answer emails. We don’t answer work texts. We only schedule things that bring joy, we follow the Marie Kondo method of Sabbath. We don’t work on our house, and my wife doesn’t even clean up our house during sabbath. We watch very little media, we don’t stress about our schedule, we say no to parties and things that are busy and are not restful. We say no to activities that are on Saturdays for us or our kids. We try not to shop or eat out.
It is the best decision we have ever made. Something has happened along the way. I haven’t gotten rid of anything from my life. It is still hectic and crazy. I probably need to say no to some things that come along, but at this point I can handle the crazy pace because I know that Friday night is coming. I know that rest will refresh me. I know that for one full day I can trust that God will provide without my striving, without my work. And by Saturday evening, instead of feeling restless and annoyed with how little I have gotten done, I am ready to hit another week of work with joy.
I had believed for most of my life that if I make good decisions and work really hard I can make anything happen on my own. And God let me get to that ultimate spot of surrender where I literally couldn’t work anymore. I couldn’t keep going. I didn’t have any drive to push through and finish one more project, and as I reached my natural limit, I found God waiting for me saying: “Here is the rest I set aside for you. To sustain you. It is a gift for you.”
It sounds crazy and it sounds hard. You may be thinking: “you don’t know how busy I am, how much I have to do, there is no way I can take a day off each week.”
First, I am a bi-vocational church planter less than 2 years after launch. I have 3 small businesses I run and a wife that works 30hr/wk and 3 kids under 5 years old. If I can take a full day off and still thrive in my work, you can too.
Second, God gave you the sabbath as a gift. 15% of your week is meant for no work. Then he gave us a command because we are idiots and don’t receive gifts well. But if you don’t receive the gift, or obey the command, God gives you an ultimatum: Rest or Die. Burnout, exhaustion, depression, suicide, stress, heart disease, obesity….you will literally kill yourself in a half dozen different ways without Sabbath.
So today is the day. I promise you, if you honor God by receiving the gift of the Sabbath, if you trust him enough to cease your work and rest in the joy of His grace, you will experience joy in the journey of church planting that you can’t get anywhere else. For a couple primers on Sabbath take a look at “The Rest of God” By Mark Buchanan and “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard Foster.
I truly believe and feel in my heart that I can stay long term in the race of ministry if I keep receiving this gift of sabbath. For the first time ever I feel like this rhythm is a sustainable pace for me and for our family. Have you ever committed to regular rest? What has it meant for your family?
Postscript:
For some of you reading this article, it might be too late. You may be fighting depression and anxiety, exhaustion, burnout or even suicidal ideation. For you, a day off is a good start but it won’t be enough to restore your soul. There are two other parts to sabbath that get over-looked by many people but are a part of the rhythm God made for us as humans.
- The Jews set aside 7 long holidays throughout the year as extra days of rest and celebration. This is a part of God’s plan that we have ignored as westerners for far too long. Two weeks vacation is not enough, especially if you use it as a trip to visit family. Pastors are the worst at this. We feel guilty about taking time off so we don’t. We kill ourselves around the holidays and never take time off to recover. When it comes to church planting, the only reasons the plant fails is that the Pastor runs out of calling/energy or both. The moral failures are almost always related to burnout. Find ways to build into your schedule weeks of rest and restoration. At Redemption Hill I have built into our culture 4 weeks of time off from preaching in July. It gives me the time and space to restore my soul and read and listen without preparing for the next Sunday. Have some hard conversations with your Elders about creating space for rest, for you and for them.
- Every 7 years God told the Jews to leave their fields and not work them. This is great agricultural guidance for restoring nutrients to the soil, but it is also good advice for our souls. We need enough margin in our work and our ministry to take extended periods without work every 7 years. These are called Sabbaticals and are meant to help us make it long term in ministry. How long have you been in ministry? Have you done the discipline of taking a Sabbath to restore your soul? It will be good for you, great for your family and really good for your congregation, because you will be healthy and energized with vision and passion for the next 7 years of ministry.
Raised in Boise, Idaho, Robert is an avid Boise State and Boston sports fan, he loves film, design, coffee and home-brewing and is currently looking for opportunities to play old-man soccer. He runs a creative consulting firm called solidcreative.media.
In August of 2016, the Frazier’s moved back to Boise to plant a church- Redemption Boise.
What Do You REALLY Want?
An interesting thing happened to me on the way to church planting: I got offered a 70k a year job out of the blue.
In 2003, before we felt drawn (or pushed… pushed probably fits better!) to plant a new community in Portland, OR. I had been sending out a lot of resumes. I knew it was time to get out of the media job I had been doing at a large church and back into pastoral ministry, and to that end I was putting out the feelers far and wide. But… I kept being number 2. It came down time and again to me and someone else, and yet in the end- always someone else.
At about that time, God really grabbed my attention. I was told my media job would be ending, and I’d have 3 months to figure out what came next. We had just bought a house, gotten pregnant… mild panic began to set in.
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