Necessary Roughness

I attended a very interesting meeting at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Columbus, OH. The topic was a potential church plant in the Pataskala area.

After a short Bible story about the disciples who prayed for boldness in Acts 4:23-31, the LCMS church planting representative took us through a life cycle of churches from conception through adolescence to parenting and grandparenting. Instead of giving a typical timeline, the size of the congregation was used to separate the groups.

There were about 15 people in the meeting, 10 interested in committing to the Pataskala plant. There was some good discussion from those representing Prince of Peace, including whether or not they wanted to be a “mother” church or a church that had a satellite campus. There is potential for a satellite campus to become its own congregation at some point in the future. No decision has been made yet.

A couple of interesting comments were made by the representative. Apparently some young churches collapsed when they began worshiping too early. I would have liked to know more about those instances, since I’m impatient. Another comment is that more and more churches are meeting without permanent buildings. In some areas, especially the coasts, the land is so expensive that the mortgage was an tremendous hardship. Buildings, though, convey trust to people, that the church will be there for a long time.

Several of us got to say what our interest was in the church plant. One person who was attending church at Newark (strange that I don’t remember seeing him) said that he had four kids and would like them doing things with other Lutheran kids in the area. He was enthused about the opportunity for youth activity and evangelism.

My interest is blatant. One site being considered for the church plant is less than two miles away from my house. There are other churches in my area, but in order to go to an LCMS church we’ve had to drive 20 and 30 miles with twin toddlers on tight schedules. There is a pocket in our area where there are churches, but none with the combination of the history, unity of doctrine, and built-in catholicity and common practice of confessional Lutheranism. Our Savior sang “A Mighty Fortress” on Reformation Sunday. So did my parents’ church in Kansas City. So did our former church in Duncan, OK. Even Prince of Peace, who prints its services in the bulletin and uses Christian Worship for hymns, sang “A Mighty Fortress.” Visitors know what to expect. We have a nearly 500-year-old base of theology where we do not expect multiple answers from multiple pastors. Today we are faced with atheists who believe the sole purpose of religion is to establish a given morality over everyone. We need Christians who can refute that line of thinking and hold fast to the 2000-year-old promise of justification by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone.

(Okay, so that wasn’t a direct quote. )

The first step according to the LCMS representative’s church classification system is “Conception”, where there are 5 or 6 committed people. Their tasks are to: put together a prayer group, recruit a planting team, discern and verify the potential field for planting, set the vision of the ministry foundation, and choose the method of church planting.

The next step is “Prenatal”, where we have 25 to 35 committed people. Typically a mission plant achieves this around 6 months to a year. In this stage we will set how the daily business of church is accomplished.

Public worship isn’t started until “Birth”, between 60 and 70 committed people. A full-time pastor doesn’t get called until “Adolescence”, between 125 and 140 people.

Tonight it was decided (with some intrepidation among some members) that we have a conception. Please pray that we with God’s help bring the Pataskala Area Lutheran Mission (PALM) to term and beyond.