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.

Exponential Conference Takeaways

Here are a few thoughts from Karen Rhone about her experience at the Exponential Conference:

I don't know where to begin. There was so much information to process. It was good. Chris Hodges shared about 5 kings that you face when you plant -demonic, rejection, loneliness, temptation and discouragement. He talked about ways to combat these. It was good to hear his genuine, open story of the struggles that he had encountered while planting. Francis Chan's ending speech also stuck out. It was a reminder to not be so concerned about building a church but in ministering and loving the community. My pre-conference had a lot of good content from how to say "no" to people that want to start all kinds of programs - stick to the vision - be "mean" about the vision. We took lots of notes! Thank you again for sending us! We learned a lot.

Stay tuned for more conference takeaways from the WPA Team members.

Update from "The Well"

The Innovators were commissioned by Pastor Bob Croft as the Hyde Wesleyan Church celebrated planting The Well in Philipsburg. The Well has been doing activities in the Philipsburg area since January, and are currently hosting a Loss Support Group that meets on Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m., and a Bible Study that meets Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.. Both meetings are at 1 North Front Street Cafe-Books-Events.

For more information please contact us.

Update from "The Bridge"

Sunday we had our first meeting with individuals interested in being involved with The Bridge. Twenty-three people gathered at our house for a time of worship, followed by a potluck, and then we spent the afternoon casting vision and planning for summer ministry. A young couple who lives a mile from us heard through one of the couples coming that we were planning a worship service and asked if they could come. Of course they can come! During our worship time we shared our journey of how God led us into church planting. Then different ones shared their journey of how God has led them to get involved with The Bridge. During the time of sharing both the man and woman opened up and shared how they have gotten away from their faith and knew they needed to get back to God. The woman wept as she shared. This is why we're here. We thought we were having some worship with our planning meeting but God had other things in mind. Great things are happening in this couples heart. Will you please help us pray for them. Also help us pray that God will lead us to others who are hungry for God. We believe that God is on the move and we are following.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

The Bridge

Rick, Eunice, & Trevor