20/20 Vision Series -- Church Planting As Evangelism

My name is Elliot. I'm one of the pastors here and it's great to be with you this morning either in person or virtually. I wish we all were in person but this is what we've got.

A couple of months ago, a kitchen accident led to a trip to my doctor to stitch up my hand. I've known my doctor for a while. He knows what I do. His pastor is someone I worked with as he was starting his church, so visits to my doctor often end up with conversation about churches and church planting, which I enjoy talking about much more than issues related to my health.

Anyway, as he was stitching on my hand, he said, "I would imagine the pandemic has put your church planting work on hold." As some of you know, I spend much of my time helping pastors and church planters through an organization called Leaders Collective. If you ask me back in March, I would have said a similar thing—much of our church planting work would be on hold for a while. He and I were wrong.

In the last ten months, Leaders Collective worked closely with 16 church planters, all starting new churches in 2020. They are quietly heroic. They are courageously faithful. And they're getting the best stories.

I think of my friend Brandon, who's planting a church in a severely under-resourced area of Cincinnati. When the pandemic hit, his new church gave key leadership and raised money for a meal program that served over 300 families each day in their community. They had a college student attend their online service so she could write a paper for her sociology class about how religious communities deal with tragedy. She had no interest in Jesus or the church—she was just there to write her paper. Yet when she heard them pray prayers of lament, she's still coming to church.

For all of 2020, Brandon worked three jobs so he could plant his church in an under-resourced community. He longed to give more time to the church, so he asked God to make a way. God did. Brandon quit his other jobs in faith. He made a simple ask to a few other churches, and in two weeks, the churches he asked—and those even that he didn't—gave enough to cover their entire 2021 budget. Quietly heroic. Courageously faithful. And easily the best stories.

When I was in high school, my parents helped start a new church. Other than a couple of years in college, all of my church experience has been either in church plants or church planting churches. Sixteen years ago, my family moved to Raleigh to replant CTK, and since then, most of my vocational work stayed focused on church planting. One of the parts of my job that I enjoy the most is that I get to hear a lot of church planter stories. I'm convinced that church planters get the best stories.

I want to look at one of those stories today, recorded in Acts 16. Let me read it, and you can read along with me either in your Bible or in the bulletin, and then we'll talk a little bit about it.

So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace and the following day to Neapolis. And from there to Philippi, which was a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in the city some days. And on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to the riverside. We supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." She prevailed upon us.

As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation." And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And it came out that very hour.

But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, "These men are Jews and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice." The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had afflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. — Acts 16:11-24

About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them and suddenly, there was a great earthquake. So, the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately, all the doors were open and everyone's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword, was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, do not harm yourself, for we are all here. And the jailer called for the lights and rushed in and trembling with fear. He fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You and your household. And I spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house and he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds and he was baptized at once. He and all his family. Then, he brought them up into his house and set food before them and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. — Acts 16:25-34

Let me pray. Father, we thank you for bringing us together here this morning and giving us the opportunity to look at these wonderful things in your word and Lord, we ask by your Spirit's presence that you would bring about the change in our hearts that you desire as we study these things. We'd leave here people deeper in love with you and deeper in love with one another. It's in your name Jesus that we ask these things. Amen.

Church Planting Vision

Okay, we're in the middle of talking about our ten year vision. What we hope to see happen in and through CTK in the next ten years. Our vision is this: by God's grace, CTK will be a people deeply transformed by the gospel, who plant churches, become cross cultural disciples, and pursue biblical justice. It's detailed in that drawing of the tree that you'll see in your bulletin.

Two weeks ago, Jeff talked about the whole diagram or the whole vision. Last week, James talked about the roots, part of the tree, and now we're on to some of the fruit and the first fruit we're going to be talking about today is the church planting part. One of those pieces of fruit on the tree.

See, just before Jesus left Earth and returned to heaven, he commissioned his disciples to continue his mission on Earth. The stories recorded in Matthew 28 and Jeff preached a great sermon about that two weeks ago. That commission finds expression in our vision. We want to do what Jesus has told us to do and though Jesus didn't say, "go plant churches," what we see in the book of Acts is that his disciples fulfilled his commission by planting churches. So, we want to continue to do church like they did and that means we plant churches.

We sent out three church planters in the last seven years. We want to send out seven more in the next ten and continue to work with Leaders Collective to plant at least six more churches each year.

The Philippian Story

In Acts 16, we find Saint Paul and his fellow workers, Silas, Timothy, and Luke in Philippi. They're there as part of a long church planting journey that's taken them through Western Asia. The journey kind of stalled out in the area we now call Turkey and then one night, Paul received a vision of a man asking him to come to Macedonia to help them. Believing it was from God, Paul and his companions set sail and three days later, wound up in Philippi, a city in Greece.

Paul and his crew arrive and as is their pattern, they visit a Jewish worship service. Paul tells the story of Jesus who died for the sins of his people and at least one of the women there believes what Paul says, gets baptized and offers her house as a home base for this newly formed church.

As Paul and his companions continue this weekly pattern of going to worship services, a demon possessed, fortune telling slave girl follows them shouting. Paul, in verse 18, we read, having become greatly annoyed, cast the demon out. The inference is that the once possessed girl then joins the church. Her owners get angry. Not because she was delivered or healed but because this trafficked woman isn't making the money anymore. No demon, no fortune. So, they direct Paul and Silas to the marketplace, the center of commerce and judgment. Paul and Silas are accused. They're beaten and sent to jail. All without a trial.

In jail, they start singing and praying. God sends an earthquake. They're released from their stocks. And the jail doors come open. The jailer fearing that all the prisoners have escaped decides to kill himself. Just before he does, Paul shouts that no one has escaped and the jailer believes, rushes in, sees Paul and Silas, believes in Jesus, gets baptized, and joins the church.

Church planters get the best stories.

There are a number of things in this story that are actually common to many church planters' stories and I want to highlight three: conversion, opposition, and supernatural victory.

Conversion

Church plants tend to see people believe in Jesus for their salvation. That's what I mean by conversion, and the reason they see more conversions is because they're often focused on those who don't yet believe in Jesus as their savior. In the case of Paul and Silas, they don't have anyone to start the church when they arrive in Philippi. So rather than somehow hoping that people will show up and find them, they went looking for people that might have an interest in Jesus. They told them about Jesus and then watched God do his work.

Look again at verse 13:

And on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to the riverside. We supposed there was a place of prayer and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul, and after she was baptized and her household as well, she urged us saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful in the Lord, come to my house and stay," and she prevailed upon us. — Acts 16:13-15

Lydia is an immigrant, originally from a city in what we now call Turkey. She deals in the finest, most expensive fabric available—purple goods. Our equivalent today might be mulberry silk. She's a wealthy homeowner and neither single nor widowed. She's pious but as yet to trust in Jesus. As Paul talks about Jesus, well, again, verse 14: "The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul."

It seems to echo Saint Augustine: her heart was restless until it found its rest in Jesus. Anyway, Jesus saves her. She's baptized and her house becomes a meeting place for this fledgling church.

Her story makes me think about my friend Kyle, a church planter in Dallas. Like most church planters, he intentionally reworked the rhythms of his life to make sure he had regular interaction with people that didn't yet believe in Jesus. So he and other members of the new church started frequenting a local Thai restaurant. They got to know the manager—his name was Dew. They got him a Thai Bible. They threw a birthday party for him. They discovered that Kyle and Dew shared a passion for FIFA, the soccer video game. They became friends, often playing FIFA at Kyle's house, but their conversation never turned to spiritual things.

Dew took a trip home to Thailand and, in his words, "For some weird reason, I brought the Bible." When he got back to Dallas, he asked Kyle if they could read the Bible together, and so they did. After the first time reading, Dew said, "It was like my eyes had been blind and all of a sudden I was beginning to see."

The next week he came to Kyle's house. Kyle was setting up FIFA. Dew was resistant to play. Oblivious, Kyle kept setting the game up, and finally Dew interrupted him and said, "Dude, how can I become a Christian?" Kyle explained the gospel. They prayed. Dew was baptized the next Sunday and is now an active member of the church. I actually got to spend time with Dew at the Thai restaurant when I was last in Dallas. Quietly heroic, courageously faithful—the best stories.

Paul and his companions' work in Philippi doesn't end with Lydia or even the gathering at her house. The reason is, well, their goal is not a weekly meeting or a place to worship. The goal is to see the good news about Jesus—the gospel—advancing in the lives of his people. So as we see in verse 16, they keep going back to the place where they met Lydia, the place of prayer, to engage with others that don't yet believe in Jesus. Again, they're intentionally setting the rhythms of their life to be around people like that.

As they're going, they're met by a girl. We might call her trafficked. Look at how she's described in verse 16:

As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. — Acts 16:16

Her life is an absolute nightmare. Her owners care for nothing other than the money that she makes them by telling the future for her clients. She is trapped and has zero hope for change. She follows Paul and his companions, shouting some general truths about them. Eventually, Paul becomes annoyed with her, her situation, the commotion she's causing. We don't really know the exact reason, but anyway, Paul turns and he casts the evil spirit out of her. The inference is that she also believes in Jesus and joins their fledgling church, having found a new family that loves her for who she is rather than using her for what she can provide.

But the account of the church plant in Philippi doesn't stop there.

As we'll see in a minute, the exorcism gets Paul and Silas thrown in prison. God intervenes, delivers them, and in the process, Paul prevents the jailer from taking his own life. He asked Paul how Jesus can save him. Paul tells him the jailer believes in Jesus, is baptized, and becomes part of the fledgling church.

Now, Philippi, we learn in verse 12, is a Roman colony settled and ruled by former members of the Roman army. Though the jailer wasn't an original founder of the city—it's probably eighty years after the city was colonized—he was most likely a former military guy who took an early retirement in Philippi and was appointed to the position by other military veterans.

So church is planted in Philippi and it's a diverse group. An insider, the jailer. An immigrant, Lydia. And an outsider, the slave girl. Jesus saves them all. The gospel crosses ethnic, social, economic, and gender lines. Jesus's life, death, and resurrection is good news for all types of people.

But I think Luke, the author of Acts, is telling us something more. See, if you were a pious head of a Jewish household back then, you'd begin each day thanking God that you weren't a woman, a Gentile, or a slave. Even that's turned upside down. A woman, Gentile, and slave are the ones who helped start this church. Quietly heroic, courageously faithful. The absolute best stories.

Great stories, but they don't come without opposition. The gospel doesn't advance without opposition. Sometimes you do everything right and everything goes right. Sometimes you do wrong and everything goes wrong. Sometimes you do right and everything goes wrong. Sometimes it goes wrong because people are evil, and sometimes it goes wrong because we live in a world where everything doesn't always work the way it's supposed to work.

A couple of years into the plant—the CTK replant—I asked a friend to lead our music one Sunday. We and the other musician showed up at our rented building, a gorgeous old stone church in Glenwood South. Well, gorgeous on the outside. It had years of deferred maintenance and a sanctuary that was gutted to become a cafeteria. It honestly wasn't the nicest space, but it cost us $750 a month, and at that time, that was all we could afford. It came with a challenging landlord who cared little for the state of the building and seemed to often forget that we rented it on Sunday. That was obvious this Sunday. The lights were off. The alarm was blaring.

I called the landlord, woke her up, and she said, "Yeah, I forgot to tell you. The power's out of the building. We don't know why. It can't get fixed till Monday," and she hung up the phone. I got the alarm off and told the musicians to practice while I scrambled for a solution, but I was discouraged. It seemed like another Sunday would be upended by something completely out of our control. We did right. It went wrong because we live in a world that doesn't work like it's supposed to.

A minor inconvenience, especially compared to the evil that Paul and Silas faced. Look at the response to casting the demon out of the slave girl. Look at verse 19.

But when our owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, "These men are Jews. They're disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us Romans to accept or practice." The crowd joined in attacking them. The magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in stocks. — Acts 16:19-24

Once the demon is cast out, the girl becomes useless to her owners. Angered at the loss of income, they dragged Paul and Silas to the marketplace—not just the center of commerce but also the place of judgment and law. Their accusations show that greed isn't the only thing in their hearts. Prejudice is there as well. Look at verse 20. "These men, these men are Jews"—playing to the anti-Semitism that's prevalent in the city. "They are disturbing our city"—playing to the Romanism that's present in the city. "They advocate customs that are not lawful for us Romans to accept or practice"—playing to the fear of a strange cult. Racism, nationalism, fear—all converge in this single accusation.

Without a chance to defend themselves, Paul and Silas are attacked by the crowd, stripped of their clothing, and publicly beaten by the police. Following the brutality at the hands of the police, they're put in stocks and wrongfully imprisoned. And we know the government and the police acted unjustly toward Paul because once he's released from prison, Paul calls them on it.

They apologize for the shameful, unlawful treatment that he and Silas received. Paul and Silas are in jail. They're in pain from the beating. The wounds are open and untreated. Their feet are in stocks that can't get comfortable. So, they start to sing and pray loudly, loud enough for all the prisoners to hear.

Verse 26 details what happens next.

Suddenly, there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately, all the doors were opened and everyone's bonds were unfastened. — Acts 16:26

The jailer freaks out. Paul tells him to calm down. He then believes in Jesus, brings Paul and Silas to his house, tends to their wounds, gets baptized along with the rest of his house, and feeds them a meal. And in verse 34, it says,

he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. — Acts 16:34

Quietly heroic, courageously faithful, the absolute best stories. Now, I wasn't praying the day that the power went out at our building. I'm not sure exactly how I responded but I don't think it was God honoring. But the musicians did start practicing, singing, and playing. When they started singing an old hymn that starts, "Come holy ghost, creator blessed, and in our hearts take up thy rest. Come with thy grace and heavenly aid." The lights came on. And the power stayed on until the service was over and then it went off and it got fixed on Monday. The best stories but to get those stories, you need to reorient yourself a bit.

See, Paul and Silas prayed to God instead of cursing their accusers because they knew their accusers and the government weren't the ultimate enemy. Satan was. Paul cast a demon out of the slave girl because he didn't see her as the enemy but instead as an image bearer of God whose story was yet to be fully told. Paul stopped the jailer from taking his own life because he wasn't Paul's enemy but instead a fellow image bearer whose story of God's glory was also yet to be told. My anger towards the landlord did nothing to get the power on but singing and praying did.

Spiritual Warfare and Gospel Advancement

Look, church planting is a spiritual street fight. There are no rules and Satan and his demons will throw everything at you to knock you off your game. They have one primary goal: try and show the work of Jesus is ineffective and powerless. That means stuff's going to go wrong and it means you will suffer.

When we try to fight these spiritual battles and these spiritual powers with what we can muster, we'll at best get a temporary victory. But if we trust in the power of God and fight a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons—things like singing and prayer—we get to see God work in some pretty amazing ways. We get to share in his supernatural victory. Like the power coming on without reason or explanation or any other answer to prayer.

Look, you may hear these stories from the church planters I know and say, "Man, that's New Testament church stuff." And I used to say similar things but over time, I've come to realize that's a little bit of a truncated view of God and his ability to work in the world. These stories are simply church stuff. It's the way God chooses to advance his gospel. Quietly heroic, courageously faithful men and women, trusting God to do what he says he will do and acting accordingly.

Honestly, that's not a bad prescription for the next week, especially because we don't know what's coming. When we do that, God tends to show up and we get to see supernatural power show up and bring about life altering change.

Lydia, the slave girl, the jailer. Each story includes prayer to God before the conversion. Each story takes great care to make it clear that God acted and it changed everything. The 16 churches planted in 2020. My friend Brandon and his salary. My friend Kyle and his friend Dew. The lights coming on at the fledgling church so they could have their service. Each story: people ask God to do his work, they stepped out in faith and God acted and it changed everything.

And it happened for my friend Canaan, who is planting a church in an area of Fort Worth known to those outside the community only for its poverty and crime. Canaan lives there and instead sees it as a place for God's glory to shine.

The church was meeting in an elementary school before the world was overrun with COVID, but got kicked out of the elementary school because of COVID. They prayed for a new place to meet. They found a field next to a community center in the middle of their neighborhood that would both meet their needs and give them an opportunity to engage with the many residents that lived and walked by the field. They were thrilled.

Initially, they got it for Saturday evenings and after the first gathering, they realized that the noise of the service might bother the neighbors. So, they went door to door around the field that week, handing out gift cards and letting the neighbors know what they were doing.

The assistant pastor knocked on one door and as he introduced himself, the woman who answered started crying. She said she knew there was a church across the street and wanted to come last week but was afraid. The field was affiliated, meaning a group in the neighborhood claims it as their territory. She had just gotten out of prison and her past made attendance at the church and the field seem a little complicated. Nevertheless, she accepted the invitation, came the next week, and Jesus saved her. She was baptized and she found the very thing she longed for coming out of prison: a new family.

Quietly heroic. Courageously faithful. And then God flexes with supernatural power and we get to see the best stories. But we often miss the best stories because we—and that includes me—expect too little and try to control too much. And so we miss the best stories. But it doesn't have to be that way.

The story of the Philippian church doesn't end with Lydia, the jailer, and the former slave girl. No. The church actually brought the gospel to the palace of the Roman Emperor. Well, Paul got there, but as he explains in his letter to the church that we now call Philippians, he and the church have this thing called a gospel partnership. They have a shared commitment to the same goal: to see the gospel advance throughout the world. They all give everything they can to see that happen.

Paul travels, preaches, and plants churches. Sometimes those from the church go with him. Sometimes they send financial support. Sometimes it's just their faithful commitment to their church and their fervent prayers for Paul. No matter what they did, they did something. And together, they get to share in the best stories of God's work.

An Invitation to Gospel Partnership

And so in closing, I want to invite you to join us in planting churches and sharing in the best stories. The stories I told today—they're not my stories. They're God's stories and they're our stories. The sixteen churches I got to help plant this year on my church plants—they're our church plants. That's gospel partnership. We each give what God has gifted us and he does something spectacular with it. So find your place in this partnership. Don't be like the one who watches the team win on TV and then thinks he has something to do with the victory. Do something.

Well, how? You might have noticed I didn't tell any stories about our most recent church plant, CTK Reconciliation Church in Knightdale. That's not because they don't have great stories, but because I want to encourage you to find out those stories for yourself. Go be a part of that church. Starting next week in their online service or showing up at one of their smaller meetings during the week or visiting once they start meeting in person in March.

Contact Ted Yap, the director of operations, and ask for a list of the ways they are praying that God will act. Join them in praying and celebrating when you see God at work. Find those from CTK that are at Reconciliation. Ask them to share stories of God's work in the church and then celebrate those with them. Ask Ted Yap how you can serve the church. Don't tell him how you want to serve, but ask him what they need.

And if you aren't at Reconciliation, commit to ask the CTK elders on a regular basis: When is our next church plant? And as you commit to asking that, start asking God how he wants you to be part of that plant. It's not superhuman strength that plants churches. It's the quietly heroic, courageously faithful men and women trusting God to give them more of the best stories.

Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would now continue to work through the churches we're involved in and continue to work in our hearts to help us give good expression to this gospel partnership in the ways that you would want each of us to do so. And Lord, that we would have opportunities over the next ten years to come back and share together with much rejoicing of all the good work you've done in and through us. To your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.