Equipper Blog

Adam Wood serves as the lead pastor at The Neighborhood Church in Garland, TX. A native to the Dallas area, Adam served as a worship leader and young adult pastor before joining the community that would re-plant as TNC in 2016. Adam loves music, the Dallas Mavericks, nights out with his wife Amy, and dance parties at home with his two red-headed daughters.

How would you describe the area your church is in?

Garland is a large suburb just to the northeast of Dallas and TNC is smack dab in the middle of it. Our area can be described by a lot of “Multi’s” — multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic, and multi-generational. We do most of our community engagement and relationship-building in and around an ecumenical community center situated in the middle of a dozen different low-income apartment complexes.

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

The Neighborhood Church relocated and re-planted with a core team that had a strong sense of who we were called to BE before we ever determined what we were called to DO as God’s people together. That season of discerning our identity — of a “being” that precedes “doing” — almost directly parallels my own journey as a pastor.

Like many church plants, we built TNC with wet cement. Our identity, place, and core convictions are a strong foundation that also gives us just enough flexibility to figure things out as we go. But “going” out into the neighborhood together was a vital shift in our early days. If we were ever going to live up to our name, we had to get out into the neighborhood. The wet cement of how we do what we do has taken different shapes in these 3 years. We’ve hosted block parties, picnics, movie nights, VBS for neighborhood kids at a community center and we’ve made significant partnerships with two of the largest homeless ministries in Dallas. Most significant, however, is our Neighborhood Clothes Closet. By offering free clothes, shoes, and toiletries we’ve been able to pray with and build relationships with over 250 families in our community.

Ultimately, we’re just trying to follow Jesus together for God’s kingdom in our neighborhood. What I’ve discovered is that cultivating a Jesus-centered culture of embrace, transformation, and mission takes time (especially in the land of consumerism and mega churches). We are really good at raising money to support our kingdom partnerships or to start kingdom experiments. Now we’re in a season of learning the slow work of building a kingdom presence and a kingdom community.

Looking back, what do you know now you wish you had known when you first started the Neighborhood Church?

That it is NOT all up to me! The church’s vitality is not solely contingent upon my preaching, my leadership, my guidance, or my amazing ideas. Because our church was moving through significant transitions and toward an eventual re-plant, I believed the lie that it was up to me to fix it, build it, and hold it all together.

Every time I’d sit with Jesus I’d be reminded of my identity as a beloved son of the Father’s… but then I’d stand up, walk away, and try to earn it. God used that time to remind me that 1.) I’m not alone and 2.) He’s always working. It took some time for that to sink in.

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 launched a Neighborhood Clothes Closet that has provided clothes and toiletries to more than 250 families and school uniforms for almost 200 children. Really, though, it’s about the slow work of building relationships, praying with our neighbors, and seeing God’s kingdom come in unexpected ways.

We’ve seen physical and relational healing. We’ve seen lonely neighbors find a friend. We’ve seen new Christians in our church catch a fire for loving their neighbors as themselves despite socioeconomic or ethnic differences. After 2 years, however, we’re still asking the question, “How can we become more effective in helping our neighbors become part of God’s family?”

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

What hasn’t worked well is the move from serving our community to incorporating our community into the life of the church. We thought it was because our neighbors we met at the Clothes Closet or VBS just needed a ride to our worship gathering. What we’ve seen so far is a lot of interest that have translated to only a few visits.

I think Verlon Fosner of the Dinner Church movement is right when he says that our churches have a sociological problem. Are our worship gatherings hospitable to all people and not just young, white, middle class Christians? Is our church building hospitable to seekers? Are our worship gatherings really the best “front door” to our church?

In an effort to re-imagine the expectation that “they” should take a step toward “us” — we’re trying to take a step toward our neighbors by creating space for relationships to grow in our shared space within the neighborhood. This Fall we plan to launch our own expression of a Dinner Church we’re calling The Neighborhood Table. We started with the relationships we’ve already formed through the Clothes Closet and we’re excited to break bread together and see where God takes us.

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

When I became the primary preacher in what would become The Neighborhood Church, I doubled the amount of sermons I had ever preached in only four months’ time. We were in a season of transition and I had placed some unrealistic expectations on myself. I thought I had to preach my way into becoming a vibrant church and pastor. I soon found that I couldn’t sustain my unhealthy rhythm of work and rest, nor could I live up to the emotional, spiritual, and functional qualities I had judged myself on.

All of this led to a panic attack moments before I was going to preach one day. So there I stood on stage in a very awkward and pregnant silence, unable to speak with all the anxieties still swirling in my head. Eventually, I said I’d pray and that we would just sing again. (Of course, that’s the service we had a guest worship leader!) That’s when someone said, “No, we’re going to pray for you.” Our community surrounded me and as they laid hands on me, the idol of self-reliance began to crumble.

I’m still learning to create space for healthy disengagement. I’m still learning to follow Jesus’ rhythm of work and rest. I’m still learning to let go of the unrealistic expectations I put on myself and others.

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

The phrase “Give me an undivided heart to revere your name” from Psalm 86.11 has been echoing in the back of my head for the better part of a year. God is continually inviting me to stillness, rest, and contemplation to allow him to put the disparate pieces of my life into something that is both holistic and wholly his.

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

My hope is that we would become a life-giving church in the neighborhood that would one day reflect the neighborhood in all its diversity as we follow Jesus together. Basically, we want to live up to our name as we invite all people into life with Jesus in the kingdom of God.

I was in a Red Robin restaurant awhile back with my family.

It was dinner-time, the place was packed, and as we were standing around waiting for a table, I noticed another family doing the same. Mom, Dad, two teenaged kids. They were all standing facing each other, all looking down at their phones, none of them saying a word to each other. Later, after we had eaten, I got up to use the restroom and noticed the same family at their table, eating, still all with phones in hand, not saying a word to one another. I heard that ample of divorce cases has been filed by people as there is lack of love and affection between spouses because of mobile addiction.You can also get divorce lawyer’s help in Fresno when you get pissed off by your spouse and family limitations.

I’m assuming they were Instagraming pictures of their food so everyone would know what a nice meal they having together…

Here’s the thing about technology that we want to consider today as we discuss its uses in mission and the life of the church.

Technology makes it so that we can do so much, that we often are unable to do what we should do.

My general experience with trying to get work done these days is that I have 15 browser tabs open at any one time. I’m simultaneously trying to catch up on the news, respond to email as it comes in, catch up on the shows I missed last night AND get some work done. And I can do so much through technology that I often fail to do what I should.

Right now the Church is in the midst of some massive sea-changes in regards to the use of technology. It’s opened up new possibilities: I can be a pastor in Seattle, WA, or Atlanta, GA or Grapevine, TX and speak weekly, be the teaching pastor for groups of people in Albuquerque NM, or Colorado Springs, CO or Miami FL. I can now holographically project myself onto a stage in a church a thousand miles away from where I am, and only the most perceptive in the crowd will notice it’s not really me. I can extend my congregation through the magic of the series of tubes known as the internet to people sitting on their couches, in their pajamas, singing along, worshipping as part of an internet “congregation.”

And so we as a church CAN do so much through technology- but is it keeping us from doing what we should? And more to the point- is it forming us, both as individuals and communities, in ways that it shouldn’t?

None of this is new.

In the early 1950s when Robert Schuller and others across the nation combined a growing car culture with “Church,” they believed they were reaching a segment of the population traditional church wouldn’t or couldn’t. “Drive-In Church” allowed parishioners to hear a sermon, sing some songs, even receive communion and give—all without the fuss and muss of face-to-face interaction. Except for a through-the-window handshake from the pastor as they rolled away.

And while they may have been able to point to a number of folks who “attended” who otherwise might not have, the question of what was being formed in these car congregations through limited interaction, a completely passive experience, and a consumer-oriented “Come as you want/Have it your way” message, meant that (thankfully) after a brief period of vogue, “Drive-In Church” has remained a niche curiosity.

The problem with the drive-in church model isn’t that it isn’t church—it’s that it is just “church” enough to be dangerous. What this almost-church does is park people in a cul-de-sac where they have access to the easiest and most instantly satisfying parts of church while exempting them from the harder and more demanding parts of community. And in that, it became a malforming influence on the people involved. Church became consumerized. Something to ingest, critique, consume, but with only the minimum amounts of commitment being asked.

And in my mind, it’s exactly those same malforming influences we need to beware of as we integrate technology in our communities. Whether it’s the simple stuff like putting the words to Scripture on a screen all the way up to starting an internet campus of our church. The question is: How is this forming us for mission or failing to form us for mission?

Here is a maxim of technology that we need always to be mindful of: Technology, when taken to its logical end, reverses on itself.

In his book, Flickering Pixels (which I encourage you to check out!), Shane Hipps makes this point:

“Every medium, when pushed to an extreme, will reverse on itself, revealing unintended consequences. For example, the car was invented to increase the speed of our transportation, but having too many cars on the highway at once results in traffic jams or even injury or death.
The internet was designed to make information more easily accessible, thereby reducing ignorance. But too much information or the wrong kind of information reverses into overwhelming the seeker, leading to greater confusion than clarity. It breeds misunderstanding rather than wisdom…
In the same way, surveillance cameras, when there are too many that see too far, reverse into an invasion of privacy.”

In case of accidents you can also find attorneys for personal injury claims or you can also find personal injury leads to claim compensation. In other words, what was originally meant to make us go fast now slows us down, what was meant to make us smart now increases our ignorance (well, never our ignorance… just other peoples’, right?) and what was meant to make us feel safe now makes us feel exposed. With the support and aid from the attorneys for traffic tickets claims in Long Island, the mistakes occurring in road transportation can be brought to the court’s knowledge.

This is the rule: Technology, taken too far, creates the opposite of what it was intended to create. 

Ask yourself- Email was meant to keep you in touch and ease communication, right? But when you are trying to process 100 emails a day, you don’t feel in touch, you feel crushed. You’re not communicating- you are wading through spam, forwards, fyi’s… Your emails get shorter and shorter, more and more terse, and mis-communication happens more often than not. 

Reversal.  

Here’s what was happening in Drive-In Church. More people were being gathered because of the magic of technology- little speaker boxes on their windows allowed them to drive-in, and avoid the hassle of ever having to leave the parking lot. And as much as many of us have had the experience of driving up to church, sitting in our cars and wishing we didn’t actually have to go in, the point is, we actually have to go in. The point of church is not hearing a sermon. It’s hearing it together. It’s not singing a worship song, it’s worshipping together. It’s not being changed by the Word of God, it’s being changed by it together. And that particular use of technology, as innovative and creative as it was, actually produced the opposite of what it was intended to create. Whatever it made, it didn’t make church.

In Part Two, we’ll talk specifically about how technology mis-shapes the church, and what we can do about it.

John is the Pastor of Love Carrick. He and his wife Charity together lead a house church that meets at the Concordia House. John graduated from Trinity Bible College with a BA in Intercultural Studies and Biblical Studies and went on to get a MA in Intercultural Studies from Asia Pacific Theological Seminary. He is currently working on his doctorate in Intercultural Studies/Missiology at Fuller Theological Seminary. John has over 17 years of ministry experience, serving in the N. Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Nepal, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Pittsburgh. In 2015, the Trotters moved to the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Carrick with their 3 year old son Amos.

So your church is in Pittsburg, PA. Tell us a little about it!

We are in the Carrick neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Carrick is an urban neighborhood within the city limits and is home to about 10,000 people. We are a low-income, blue-collar community with one of the most diverse schools in the metro. We are home to 1500 Bhutenese-Nepali refugees who have moved to the area in the last decade. There is a lot of civic pride here, a good bus line, and is the destination for a lot of people to get back on their feet again. Though violence, heroin use, and poverty are realities no one can deny, there is a lot of collaboration and resilience among the residents.

Talk to us about when you starting feeling the pull towards church planting, and the process/discussions that followed.

I have been involved in church planting internationally and domestically for a number of years now. I assisted in a church plant in the Philippines, did work among unreached people groups in Nepal, planted an AG international church in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and my family of course launched Love Carrick a little over a year ago. The call to plant Love Carrick was birthed out of a desire to see our community come together through neighborhood focused initiatives revolving around the discipleship process. After living in the community for 3 years we realized that there simply was no church presence that reflected the make up of our community and culture. The story is long but little by little God began to birth the dream of Love Carrick in our hearts.

What are the distinctives you are hoping to embed in the DNA of this new church?

We would like to be neighborhood focused and Gospel centric at the same time. The confusion and cross over between neighborhood org and local church is truly a distinctive we are after. Being hospitable and gathering in homes is somewhat of a distinctive as well; this sets the tone saying to each other and our community that we will know and care for each other deeply. Extravagant prayer is a distinctive that we seek as well. Ensuring that women in leadership is at the top of our list of distinctives is important as well. Community dinners, neighborhood involvement, extravagant prayer, and our Bhutanese-Nepali focus are distinct points for us.

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?

Being involved in the neighborhood and partnering well with secular and religious organizations has gone exceptionally well. Being visible and building relationships with neighbors and serving in practical ways seems to be working and bridge building is happening in people’s attitudes towards the church.

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

The balance between gathering and scattering has been a real challenge. In the first several months we were great at scattering but had not developed a great way to gather. Also it is tough in an inner-city neighborhood because you are dealing with a lot of people in dire need where their lives feel like they are falling apart on a frequent basis. I feel like we could improve on seeing some more stable folks from outside of the neighborhood commit to Love Carrick and help balance things out a bit. So there is definite room for growth in that area.What is one failure you experienced and what did you learn from it?By far the biggest challenge this last year has been some inter-personal challenges amongst our leadership. We are still doing all we can to communicate and understand each other well and it has been difficult. What we have learned is that we must own our own sin and shortcomings, apologize well, forgive well, and assume the best in each other.

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

I am learning that a healthy team equals a healthy church. If we can each individually stay healthy, and even better if we as a team stay healthy, the church and community grows and blossoms. Easier said than done.

What do you dream/hope/pray this new church looks like in five years?

I hate this kind of question. I don’t know that I care a great deal what it looks like in 5 years. If we can just keep doing what we have done over the last year – know our neighbors, be involved in the community, multiply house churches, meet people at the point of their need, address our dysfunction appropriately, I will be satisfied in five years. For the sake of the question though, this probably looks like multiple house churches, larger community events, more attendance at community meals, a multiplication of more leaders and hopefully a community that is not so racially divided.

There’s one thing that’s vital for every church community- but in particular, for communities that see themselves as “missional.”- It’s a non-negotiable for those that want to move beyond being a “congregation”- literally just a gathering or grouping of like-minded people, to being something more radical- a community which follows the Spirit of God out into to the world so that they might cooperate with what He’s doing.

But it’s not something we talk or think about very often.

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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.