Category Archives: Life

I recently read Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp, where he pulls back the curtain on pastoral ministry. In his book, he confronts the notion that pastors have their lives perfectly put together, never fail, and have different needs from every other Christian. Many books have been written for church planters and for pastors, but few have been so directly applicable to the hearts and lifestyle of pastors.

What Dangerous Calling is to pastors, The Church Planting Wife is to every pastor or church planter’s wife.

It is a breath of fresh air, reviving the soul with truth while sympathizing with the challenges that church planter’s wives face, but rarely feel the freedom to discuss. It is written to the woman who has the difficult task of ministering to the man who ministers to everyone else.

Christine Hoover is married to Kyle Hoover and in 2008 they moved to Charlottesville, Virginia to start a new church to bless the people of Charlottesville and the students at the University of Virginia. Her new book is candid, transparent, and direct in teaching to church planter’s wives about the joys and struggles, trials and triumphs of church planting. It combines storytelling, teaching, and counseling to care for the heart and life of the church planter’s wife.

The book begins with her recounting the difficulties of the first year and how they brought her to question God’s plan as they lost their meeting place one year into their efforts. While every person in ministry I know has come to this crossroads, Christine highlights God’s purposes so well as she unpacks God’s work in her life.

“God allowed the difficulty of church planting to sift me, to bring the issues of my heart to the surface. I realized that if I didn’t address these things, my marriage, my family, and my own heart were in danger. God was refining me, cleaning me out, and teaching me dependence rather than self-reliance. I could continue my attempts at controlling and relying on myself, or I could submit myself in dependence on Him…I chose to trust Him with my heart and let Him do – through church planting – the work He needed to do in me.” The Church Planting Wife, p. 19-20

Christine goes on to expose her heart and the lessons she has learned along the way. From wrestling with the role of the church planter’s wife as she hears God remind her “Follow Me. Serve your family. Love people.” to dealing with the sacrifices every church planter and pastor’s family face along the way.

She takes us along her journey to understand friendships in this new world of church planting, how she has learned to stay encouraged amidst discouragement and criticism, and provides practical wisdom connected with powerful truth to guide wives through their own challenges.

Impactful for Any Believer

I found myself incredibly encouraged and challenged simply by being reminded to be dependent on God, trusting Him, and letting faithfulness be my banner of success. This book is refreshing for any believer, but certainly powerful for every church planter’s wife. I would also recommend it to any pastor and his wife as well. The insights are spot on for what every pastor and his wife that I know have and are facing.

She includes interviews from other church planter’s wives, such as Lauren Chandler, Yvette Mason, Ginger Vassar, and Jennifer Carter. Women, who like her, have learned through joy and challenge the blessings of dependence on God in church planting.

A Book for Every Man’s Wife

As I read this book and heard Christine describe all she has learned while supporting her husband and family in church planting, I couldn’t help but see it as beneficial for every man’s wife. Church leadership and church planting have a unique way of reminding those involved that they are on God’s mission, but the call for every Christian is no different, we just don’t always see ourselves as sent by God to that new job in a new location.

I’ve seen many wives follow their husbands to new cities and new careers face some of the same struggles and challenges, and they would all benefit from Christine’s wisdom as she learned to trust God, support her husband, care for her family, and love her neighbors.

I’ve known the Hoovers for over a decade, they did our premarital counseling, and Kyle officiated my wedding. It is no surprise to me to see their faithfulness to God being used to start a church that loves people and serves their city well. It is also no surprise to see such a fantastic book filled with truth, grace, and wisdom be written and published to bless God’s church.

You can buy it on Amazon here: The Church Planting Wife. You can also read more from Christine Hoover on her blog, gracecoversme.com.

this picture is from NY Mag’s Hurricane Sandy Pictures

Last week I was able to attend the celebration of Hope For New York’s 20^th Anniversary as an organization serving the poor and the marginalized of New York. Hope for New York was started by Redeemer Presbyterian in 1992 at the advice of John Perkins who founded the Christian Community Development Association. They work with 39 (and ever-growing) non-profit affiliates to serve the needs of New York. Our church, Apostles, is one of three partner churches who send volunteers and resources to support Hope For New York.

At the event, their Executive Director, Elise Chong, discussed the recent Hurricane and its aftermath. She described it as many have over the last week as a tale of two cities. Above a certain street there was power and resources along with life as if Sandy didn’t happen. Below this certain street there was no power and a lack of resources.

My family felt this firsthand as we were without power for 5 days. On Halloween, we went to the Upper West Side, had dinner and trick-or-treated in a gracious relative’s building. It was walking around the Upper West Side as it functioned normally in contrast to my neighborhood, which was so amazing. It was a different New York, in my neighborhood every grocery store, shop and restaurant abandoned as daily people made the trek north for food, internet, and to recharge phones and iPads.

At least that was the tale of those able to do so.

During the second part of Elise Chong’s talk she highlighted the fact that the two distinct New York’s during Hurricane Sandy only revealed that there have been and are consistently two distinct New Yorks. There is the New York of people who have the power and resources to take care of themselves without any assistance and there is the New York of the poor and the marginalized where there is no power and very little resources to chart a different path.

In Chelsea, I joined our church community and other churches in serving the Chelsea projects. A mandatory evacuation was ordered for the projects citywide, the government even shut the water and the power off before the storm to get people to abandon their apartment for a shelter to make it easier to care for those in need in our city. Many did not leave their apartment as the last time they did, Hurricane Irene last year, their apartments were vandalized and looted.

This left many, including elderly and disabled, without the ability to get basic needs for many days. These apartment buildings are 20+ stories high, which is a challenge to get down in a dark stairway anyways, let alone for those who struggle to be mobile already.

It was a joy to join other churches to serve, but it reinforced the reality that many in our city live in need every day, on the brink of being unable to meet their basic needs, struggling to make it. The church can do more than relief and it must move from relief to development in the days to come. The church can fill a gap that our society has started to expect from the government, but the government (no matter how local, small, or big) is unable to meet these needs.

The church is a family, adopted by God to exist as children who have all their needs met because they have a Father in heaven who provides all their needs. This enables the church of God to become servants and missionaries to their city, freed from the bonds and concerns of themselves only to care for the concerns of those around us.

This is also about relationships. Initiating and establishing relationships with people to meet more than tangible and physical needs. Every human made in the image of God has emotional, spiritual, and physical side to them, so the government is never able to meet the needs of the people because it typically addresses just one of these components. The church can provide an ongoing family to care for them, provide friendships, and assist them as they seek to meet their physical needs providing for them occasionally.

In the tale of two cities, the church has an amazing opportunity. It has started to realize it and awaken to action. I could not be more encouraged by my church community’s love for God and our city. It gives me great hope for the future of our communities living as the family of God extending the grace of God through Jesus Christ to others in deed to demonstrate the message of the gospel.

Yesterday, I wrote about the typical life cycle of a missional community within an area where there is an existing gospel presence from the church. The typical group goes through stages of formation, fun, messiness, mission, and multiplication, but if the church is called to extend the gospel of Jesus Christ to areas of their city where there isn’t a gospel presence, new missional communities must be started in new areas.

There have been leaders at Apostles Church who have started Community Groups in new areas and we have set up some of them for success, but did not help others well. One of the important things is properly preparing them for the hard work of establishing a new gospel-centered community in an area where there isn’t a lot of support in terms of numbers of people. The process for establishing the community is lengthier and the tasks much different.

I’m thankful to the men and women of our church who have loved their neighborhood so much they would start a community with less support than usual in hopes of seeing a gospel presence there eventually. One example is Joe Khalil on Staten Island, who has not only been faithful in serving our church immensely, but has been faithful in loving his neighborhood. There have been exciting days for Joe and there have been challenging days for him and his Community Group. I am so encouraged by his leadership and his love for his neighborhood.

The Sunday gatherings for Apostles Church serve communities well that have easy access to the gathering, but they are not easy to access from Staten Island. Joe has consistently gone the extra mile to bring people, to consistently reach out to those in the community and he is beginning to see the fruit of his labor and love for Staten Island.

A comfort for Joe and many in our church who start Community Groups in our area is what has happened in Brooklyn. Brooklyn used to have 1 Community that was thriving and 1 that consistently struggled to gather people but has become a thriving collection of 4 Community Groups in need of at least 2 more and even in need of a local worship gathering.

From my perspective, I’ve seen these new communities face the following challenges that others have not faced.

Establishing a Committed Core

While the aim numerically for starting a new Community Group is between 6-10 people, these communities usually start with 2-4 people. If someone can’t make it, it could be a lonely night discussing scripture with just you. Establishing a committed core happens with every community, but establishing in a new area that isn’t familiar with this community approach takes a lot longer. It requires patient and very intentional pursuit from the leader of the Community Group.

The frustrations come when the leader starts to feel that they have made some strides and have some consistent members, only to find it back to the original few a couple of months later. I’ve seen new Community Groups ebb and flow with establishing this committed core for over a year before beginning to see the committed core formed and consistency established.

Part of this is the result of a kind of urban sprawl of Christian community. When a viable, consistent gospel community presence has longevity it begins to grow.

Persevering for the Urban Sprawl of Christian Community

This requires great perseverance. I remember meeting with Community Group leaders from further out in Brooklyn who had experienced growth and decline multiple times and found themselves back to their original leaders after almost 2 years.

Over the course of the next 9 months they grew to the point of being full and exploring multiplication. It was amazing and a lot of it had to do with longevity of gospel-centered presence. They weren’t giving up and desired to see a Community Group in their neighborhood so bad they endured the highs and the lows. This perseverance made them a viable and healthy option for community, proving that you can be connected to our church, live in that neighborhood and still enjoy a thriving gospel-centered community and mission.

While the Sunday gathering can be seen as supplemental to community life, having a local worship gathering can propel gospel-centered communities on mission to their neighborhood.

But where a gathering does not exist, establishing this type of community takes a while and it can be emotionally and spiritually taxing on leaders trying to establish a community from scratch. They need encouragement and need leadership who pursues them and adopts their community as a point of prayer. There will be times when they want to give up and they may need to be reminded of why they started in the beginning.

Establishing longevity cannot be rushed and it communicates a love for the local neighborhood simply through presence. We live in a time where it can be easy to move on to something new, so perseverance in love speaks a great truth found in the gospel of Jesus Christ, as God patiently deals with us.

Faithful to Grow Slowly into the Life Cycle

Eventually these new communities will experience growth and any growth must be celebrated. Small growth is great growth in new and more challenging areas. Slow growth eventually builds on itself over time and through faithfulness by the leaders.

God’s ultimate call for every leader is faithfulness to what He has given them. In these new areas, he has called these leaders to be faithful with the few even as they seek more people. This faithfulness develops them into leaders who celebrate success as gospel and not merely numeric growth. When Community Group leaders are faithful with a few it is evidence that they will eventually be faithful with many, which exactly what Jesus speaks to in His parables.

This slow growth eventually moves them to the life cycle I mentioned yesterday and they begin to face those similar challenges.

The Growth of the Leader

This process of starting something new has the greatest affect on the leaders themselves. It can be hard and have some negative affects, but for those who press into God and fellow leaders in the church community they experience much growth. Persevering through highs and lows develops character, an understanding of scriptural truth and wisdom that cannot be taught in a classroom.

The personal growth I’ve seen in many of these leaders has made them some of our best leaders. For the groups right now that are starting in new areas, I see them facing the challenges mentioned above, but I am also hopeful for the type of people it will make them as they depend on God and ask for Him to grow their Community Group.

The Benefit for the Church

The church benefits greatly when these leaders step out into new territory. They remind us that the gospel of Jesus Christ was meant to go beyond its current boundaries and be extended to everyone. This does not allow us to become complacent and satisfied with our current state, but challenges us to dream of the blessings parts of our city are missing when they lack a gospel-centered, Jesus-like community presence.

These leaders have much to teach us about extending the gospel and continually extending invites to the community.

I was once challenged to start a missional community from scratch at my workplace or in my neighborhood when I lived in Austin. It was one of the most challenging and easily the time where I learned the most. I never saw the missional community grow into the life cycle stage as we moved away from Austin before even forming the community.

The challenge of that experience causes me to greatly value the patience, perseverance, and efforts of these leaders of gospel-centered communities on mission to new areas. I love celebrating with them even the smallest measure of success and encouraging them to push through the challenges and setbacks. The gospel of Jesus Christ is worth it.