Memorial Day and the mission

The following is an e-mail I received from our brother Rick Cox a few days ago that I thought you would enjoy. Rick and Jeremiah Gomez are currently working to establish a church planting movement in Pittsburgh, PA.

In just a few days we'll all be celebrating Memorial Day. For some it has become a time to grill hot dogs and enjoy time with family or friends. Regardless of what we do over the weekend, the thought itself is rather profound. I like the reminder to take a moment to remember. As we have travelled around the the district promoting church planting, I have found the district motto 'They did. We will." has caused many of us to stop and remember. It has been an interesting journey. I have been a part of this district for 15 years, and in all of that time, I didn't realize that the McKeesport church had daughtered the Armbrust church, nor did I realize the Ashland church daughtered the Hyde church. Our latest find came from our visit to the Loganton church. You could tell the church had been well prepared for our visit. They knew why we were visiting and what we were doing. The Q&A time at the end of the service was amazing. One person spoke up and said "when they planted our church they said we need to pray for the meanest guy in the community to get saved. The man that they prayed for was my Grandpa!" A number of his family members are now currently attending the Loganton Church, and they all realize they would not have a church today if somebody hadn't stepped out in faith and said we will!

It is good to remember, but the district motto isn't built on memories alone. It doesn't just say they did! It also says we will. It requires action. Our missions experience taught us that when we stepped out in faith to go, we did not do it alone. Today, nearly 2/3 of our district churches have stepped up to the plate and said if you go, we will go with you. Your prayers, your provision, and your participation are enabling us to be here in Pittsburgh, and we want to say thank you!

Just remember...for a church to have a future, her dreams must be bigger than her memories! We could paraphrase Jesus' comment by stating 'a church cannot live on memories alone!' We've got to have action.

Pray for us as we build The Bridge in Pittsburgh East!

Rick, Eunice, & Trevor

The Missional Church

Here's a great video that reinforces our need to "go" in order to fulfill the Great Commission in the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Update from "The Well"

Launch team(Innovators) is currently meeting in Philipsburg at the coffee house once a week. One week we had 4 people from the community join us. We have asked one lady if she would consider being part of the Innovators.

Loss Support Group continues to meet at the coffee shop every Tuesday evening. The lady that is unchurched continues to come and has invited a friend to come too. We have had a few new people join us.

Doug and I are having fun coaching the 6-8 year old soccer team. We have been able to connect with many of the parents and people on the board of the soccer association. Relationships continue to be built.

We have been actively pursuing a rental facility for our launch. We continue to pray. We have not found any thing as of this writing.

Innovators have the opportunity to help with a 5k and 10k race at Black Moshannon State Park Memorial Day weekend. We will wear our Well t-shirts to the event as we work at the event.

The Well will be hosting a block party at Cold Stream Dam(a well known park in Philipsburg) on June 12th from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

It was a bit disappointing as the Heritage Days committee doesn’t seem to be open to us helping with Heritage Days. This was our big event for July. We have opted to wear our t-shirts and go to Heritage days and just support it that way. We are looking for another effective outreach.

Doug and I have met with 3 of the clergy from Philipsburg. We have been invited to come to the ministerium meeting to “fill” them in on what we are doing. One church just obtained a bulk mailing permit and has started to send out bulk mailings. We met with this pastor to reassure him that we weren’t after his church people.

Contacted Penn State Campus Crusade and Disciple Makers Fellowship to see if they would have any one that may be interested in lending us a hand with music or canvassing.

We have also contacted a few churches to see if anyone would be interested in coming to The Well and helping with children’s ministry once in a while.

One of our launch team members is organizing a “baby” shower at Hyde Wesleyan for our nursery.

Exponential Reflections from Rick & Eunice

We want to thank you, the CMTF, and the DBA for making it possible for Eunice and I to attend the Expo Conference in Orlando. It was a tremendous experience. One that we won't forget for a long time. The conference was such a confirmation for us, It helped strengthen the realization that we are on the right track. During our time of transition from missions back into pastoral ministry here in the US, we continued to pray and ask God to help us find where He was working and then allow us to join Him. The conference itself was such an eye opener. We had no idea that there were so many pastors / church leaders who were so strongly committed to church planting. It was very refreshing and encouraging to see how God is moving on the hearts of so many in the area of church planting. A second point of confirmation was the emphasis that was placed on intentionally developing multi-ethnic ministry. This was not just one ministry track of the conference, but it was the thread that wove in and out through out the entire conference. Another confirmation point was church multiplication: planting a pregnant church plant. In one of Ed Stetzer's seminars, he challenged us to model multiplication in our own lives and ministry. "You can't lead what you do not live." He continued by stating that the training of our first converts will set the stage for the type of church our plant will become. The converts will either become passive followers of Christ, or they will become participants in the sharing of the gospel. One of his statistical finds completely blew me away. "The church plant that doesn't plant within its first three years more than likely won't plant at all."

Again, thank you for making it possible for us to attend Exponential Conference. Our resolve has been strengthened so much. With God's grace and favor, we will do our best to plant a pregnant, multi-ethnic, Wesleyan church.

Building THE BRIDGE in east Pittsburgh,

Rick & Eunice

More Takeaways From Exponential

The following are some of the takeaways Jeremiah Gomez has graciously allowed me to share with you:

Thanks again for the opportunity to go to Exponential last month; there were a number of takeaways on quite a few levels:

The Bridge--Both Rick and I felt that the time at the conference affirmed/confirmed the steps taken thus far: our passion for having a multiethnic makeup which is consistent with the community the church is in; positioning The Bridge right now to daughter (and continue multiplying--Ed Stetzer shared a statistic that a church is most likely to daughter within three years of its launch and outside of the three-year mark, a local church is much more likely to never daughter); our selection of communities in which to live (we met other planters from Pittsburgh who see both Penn Hills and where Sarah & I are living now as prime planting locations); even our model of staffing and budgetary focus. It was an incredibly meaningful, encouraging thing for us to walk away thinking, 'we are on the right page!' Another area we saw strong confirmation in was the drive to make The Bridge and following plant a multiplication center equipping and sending other church planting missionaries.

Personally--I was challenged and engaged, and the Holy Spirit took the opportunity to do some work on my heart. Part of this involved continued healing from past experiences and a fresh-and-new challenge to trust God with everything, including my future in ministry; the challenge for me was to move to a place of greater submission and basically say, "if me doing this thing right now costs me my dreams/whatever future I think I should have, I'm okay with that because I'm following Jesus." I know it sounds cheesy, but it was profoundly meaningful for me. More than this was the confirmation that, at least for now, I am right where I need to be doing precisely what I need to be doing.

Relationally--It was a great thing for Rick, Eunice, Trevor, Stevan, and me to spend so much time together; it really helped fuse The Bridge team. We connected, also, with a couple of church planters from the Pittsburgh region; these, I believe, will prove themselves to be meaningful network connections with the potential for friendships among people who 'get' what we're doing.

Tactically--The very nature of Exponential is that it is not a methods-based conference (I talked with some who were frustrated at this), but a principles-in-action kind of gathering. I appreciated the lack of 'try this program' or 'use this structure' mentality and felt we walked away with tools to help understand and engage our communities so we could develop tailor-made ministries which would have the greatest Kingdom impact. One tool I appreciated and am already trying to employ is a four-stage approach for engaging people who are being stirred by God's Spirit and teaching them to lead others to Christ even as they are being led and allowing the Holy Spirit to drive discipleship and church formation; it's a tool that, once I'm comfortable with it, will multiply well without being 'canned.'

Despite the busyness and sometimes overwhelming nature of the information/tools coming at us, we came home feeling refreshed, energized, and ready push hard into God's design for where we serve. This was an enormously valuable training/learning opportunity and I genuinely believe a worthy investment.