On March 24, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck northeast Burma. Since then we’ve heard from David, who leads a Burmese church-planting ministry we partner with. Some of the churches he leads are in that area. David let us know that a number of church members were injured in the earthquake and several are still missing. At least one pastor’s home, along with all his possessions, was destroyed. Church buildings were damaged as well, and two of them were destroyed.

When disaster affects churches we partner with in ministry, we often open our disaster relief fund so our friends can contribute to the need. Today we opened the fund for Burma, so if you’d like to give financially to help restore these churches, you can do so here. Your donations will go to the church-planting ministry David leads, and will be used in their rebuilding efforts.

And whether or not you can donate, please join us in praying Psalm 67:1-3 for these churches: that God will restore them, provide for them, and protect them, and that his saving power will be known in Burma.

Photos: Earthquake damage in northeast Burma.

For more about church planting in Burma, see our report from February on medical outreach and pastoral training and a report from southern Burma last year.

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Registration rates increase tomorrow for both our Next 2011 and WorshipGod11 conferences. 

Why attend Next?

If someone is called to full-time ministry, Christ should shape their approach to that vocation—we all get that. But what does it mean for Christ's sovereignty to shape and influence a person's calling to politics, business, parenting, music, teaching, science, or any other field?

With the help of some great teachers from a diverse set of vocations, that's the topic we'll be tackling at Next 2011. We believe that in Christ, Christians should be the deepest thinkers, the most passionate explorers, and the most innovative entrepreneurs. Whatever your vocation, we hope you'll join us for the conversation.

In addition to vocation-based breakout sessions, we have these main session topics planned: 

• God on the World: The Bible's Framework for a Christian Worldview (Jeff Purswell)
• Think or Believe? The Role of Reason in the Life of Faith (Scott Oliphint)
• The Gospel and the Postmodern Mind (D.A. Carson)
• The Reality of Truth in a World of Relativism (R.C. Sproul)
• Who am I? Humanity in the Eyes of the World and the Christian (Kevin DeYoung)

Why attend WorshipGod?

In his book, Christ-Centered Worship, Bryan Chappell says, "Where the gospel is honored, it shapes worship." That statement has proven true for as long as Christians have been meeting. Every meeting tells a story, and the story we're supposed to be telling is clear. We gather to rehearse, celebrate, and respond to the gospel of the crucified and risen Savior, Jesus Christ.

Discovering what it means to build our meetings around the gospel is what we'll be focusing on at WorshipGod11. There are a few dozen seminars planned in addition to these main sessions:

• Gathering to Behold (Ray Ortlund, Jr.)
• Gathering to Rehearse (Bryan Chapell)
• Gathering to Hear (Thabiti Anyabwile)
• Gathering to Edify (Bob Kauflin)
• Gathering to Commission (Craig Cabaniss)

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Next month, Eric Holter is planting Redeeming Grace Church in Durham, North Carolina. Yesterday he outlined next steps and prayer requests for the new church. Today, Eric explains how his entrepreneurial background prepared him to plant a church.

(Photo: Eric and Rebecca Holter)

How did you become interested in pastoring with Sovereign Grace Ministries?

I was part of a house church movement in Rhode Island for about 17 years, beginning when I was in college. I served as an elder in that group for about ten of those years, and was involved in planting a few churches. In this movement none of the elders or leaders were supported financially. So ever since college I’ve been very active in ministry, in leadership, in church planting, in a grassroots, tent-making way. At the same time I was running a website development business that I started in 1995.

There were a lot of upsides to the house churches, but after 17 years, the elders started to think about some changes we wanted to make. Around 2004, someone mentioned Sovereign Grace Ministries to me, and I was really impressed. It was almost shocking—the changes we wanted to make in the ministry I was part of were closely aligned to what Sovereign Grace had already been doing for years. It was so encouraging to find a church that had all the same values for local church and for community.

Eventually the ministry I was part of closed. My family and I started visiting Crossway Church, led by Bauer Evans. It was wonderful to see in action what I’d read about—to see that it was real! It sounds good on paper, but to see it in practice was amazing. Several months later, in 2005, my family and I moved to North Carolina, and bought a house within range of Sovereign Grace Church in Apex (we actually ended up about 40 minutes away) so that we could attend there. I continued running my business from North Carolina.

How did you move from business owner to church planter?

The next few years were interesting. I did not feel called to full-time pastoral ministry. And I had to think through the issue of supporting elders financially. I now think it’s fitting to support elders, especially if they’re teaching and preaching. But that was a big change for me. It took me a while to process that one.

During the same season, God did a lot of work in my heart with respect to my business. Before that time I had a skewed theology of calling, and I viewed my work merely as that which was required to support my family and ministry. But during that season, I learned to embrace God’s calling for me as a businessman.

So for the next three or four years, I was really enjoying it—and the business was doing better. God had made me content to be a businessman. I recognized that it was a calling from God and I was eager to fulfill it. By the end of 2007 my business was doing well enough that I began the process of selling it to one of my key employees and started consulting.

Then I went to Together for the Gospel in 2008. During the conference, at a meeting of Sovereign Grace pastors, Dave Harvey presented the refined vision that Sovereign Grace Ministries was developing for church planting. And as he was describing this, my heart was just pounding. I sensed God saying, “This is why I’ve led you here; this is how I’ve prepared you.” As Dave described the church-planting pastor, I felt like my entrepreneurial bent made me very suited to that. This sounded like something I could give my whole heart to.

After the conference I prayed, and I talked to my wife about it. She was all for it—in spite of the fact that we had just started to fulfill one of her lifelong dreams to start a small farm. I talked to my pastors at Sovereign Grace Church, and we prayed some more. In 2009 I did an internship at the church for six months, then I attended the Pastors College in preparation for planting a church.

Now we’re getting started. Redeeming Grace Church has our first public meetings on April 3.

You owned a successful business before you became a church planter. What would you say to guys who are thinking about leaving a career to plant a church, but aren’t sure they can make the jump?

I would say to take that possibility very seriously. I do think there is continuity between the gifts that make someone successful in business and the calling to plant a church. It’s not the only qualification, obviously. But if you’re a businessman who’s good at everything that goes into being an entrepreneur, and you have a passion for the Word of God—if you find yourself alternating between business books and theology books—consider that. Maybe God is using your calling in business to prepare you for church planting.

It’s not always the case. But I do think it wouldn’t be surprising if those God called to plant churches had some business experience beforehand. I think risk taking and decision making are great training for the ministry of church planting. All of us, in the sovereignty of God, are free to take all sorts of risks for the kingdom of God.

Are there aspects of the entrepreneurial mindset that do not transfer well into church planting?

There definitely are. And some of them caused me to hesitate in pursuing pastoral ministry and church planting.

One of them is independence. People who are entrepreneurial tend to be independently minded, and if they’re successful, they end up with means that allow them to pursue whatever they want. And that value does not serve a church well. As a pastor you need to be willing to lay down your independence and take on what God has laid upon you. So that takes some adapting. You have to count that cost. A willingness to embrace others in this process is crucial.

I think you also have to be careful of ambition. There is godly aspiration, and there is selfish ambition. Dave Harvey’s book (Rescuing Ambition) is great at purifying this. And the book of Ecclesiastes is wonderful at helping to purify godless ambition into godly aspiration. If you’re entrepreneurial, you’re ambitious. And God can use that ambition as a very good thing. But you really have to temper that.

I can’t remember who said this, but I love this quote: “Never overestimate what you can do in one year, and never underestimate what you can accomplish in 20 years.” So I need to embrace that as a church planter. I am eager to plant this church, to establish it, to develop leaders, for the church to grow, and then to plant another church—I’m already thinking about that. But I need to remember that this will not happen in a year. It won’t happen in two or three years. Maybe it will happen in five years, if it moves fast. But 10 years, 15, 20—that’s where my ambition is.

I very much want to see more churches planted out from this church and through Sovereign Grace Ministries. But I have to take that entrepreneurial vision and remember: you can’t rush this. There’s no venture capital firm to back your business growth so you can heat it up. I love how C.J. Mahaney says, “We’re small, but we’re slow.” I really value Sovereign Grace’s values that govern our pace in church planting.

And so all of these things protect and qualify ambition. You have to be willing to adapt to a new pace. You have to let your ideas push you, but not beyond what’s appropriate.

What do you find helpful about partnering with Sovereign Grace Ministries?

I really think that this sense of pace in church planting, and the values that govern that pace, are very important. And gospel centeredness, and the humility that flows from that, is essential. A fear of pride could potentially keep me from church planting. But with the doctrine I’ve been taught, I know that I will stumble, and I know there will be men around me who will be faithful to point it out. And there will be constant reminders of the gospel, which will protect me. That is one of the major blessings of planting with Sovereign Grace Ministries.

Note: For more about pace in church planting, see this series by Dave Harvey: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

Redeeming Grace Church begins on April 3 at Rogers-Herr Middle School. For more about the church, see part 1 of our interview, or visit www.redeeminggracenc.org.

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Next month, Eric Holter is planting Redeeming Grace Church in Durham, North Carolina. The church holds their first meeting on April 3.

Eric graduated from our Pastors College in 2010 and has been involved in ministry for a total of 15 years. In part 1 of our interview, he talks about next steps for the church plant and the generosity of their sending church, Sovereign Grace Church (Apex, NC).

Check back tomorrow for part 2, where Eric explains how God used his entrepreneurial background to prepare him to plant a church.

(Photo: Eric and Rebecca Holter with their seven children)

First, the basics: where and when will the church plant begin?

Redeeming Grace Church will be in Durham. Our first meeting is April 3 at Rogers-Herr Middle School. It’s really a neat location. We’re within range of Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Durham, and some areas that are growing northwest of Durham. We’re also within range of Duke, UNC and NC State.

Redeeming Grace is being planted out of Sovereign Grace Church (Apex, NC). What does that involve for the Apex church?

In 2008, when I first started talking to my pastors at Sovereign Grace Church about planting a church, I didn’t have a sense for where it would be. I just wanted to plant a church.

Phil Sasser [senior pastor at Sovereign Grace Church] was the first one to mention Durham, which is 30 to 45 minutes away from Apex. There are several families in Durham who were attending the Apex church. I had been leading a small group in Durham, and when we talked with them about a church plant, they were thrilled. I can see now that God was establishing the seed for a church plant before I even started thinking about it.

Since then that small group has multiplied into three, so now there are a little more than 90 people from Sovereign Grace Church who will be part of the church plant.

Having almost 100 people (42 adults) to start is a huge blessing. We will probably be close to self-sustaining from day one. And the fact that Sovereign Grace Church in Apex is giving us all these people, and all that’s represented in that—the spiritual gifts, leadership gifts, worship team gifts, small-group leaders, financial blessing—it’s huge. It amounts to about 20% of the sending church. Sovereign Grace Church is pouring themselves out to plant this new church. To me, when I think about where the greatest display of faith to plant this church is, it’s the people at Apex. They are the heroes of this church plant.

What are your plans for outreach as the church begins?

A bunch of guys on the church-planting team have joined the local dart league, and we go out on Tuesday nights and get to know other folks in the league. That’s one way we can build relationships.

We also happen to have a lot of doctors, nurses, and hospital staff on our team. We think God may be leading us to reach out at Duke Hospital. We’re brainstorming, thinking about Bible studies and how to serve and pray for folks in need. We’re going to see where God leads us.

What are your present needs at Redeeming Grace Church? How can we pray for you?

1. What’s most on our minds right now is pulling off Sunday morning! So much goes into that, and we’ve never done it before. We launch on April 3 and we’re going to dive right in. Please pray that we’d be able to get rolling smoothly, and that we’ll quickly get the rhythm of what it’s like.
2. Please pray that I will get into the rhythm of preaching every week. I love to preach and I’m really looking forward to it, but I know that it’s intense. I’m not fearful, but I feel the weight of that responsibility and the time it takes to prepare—while keeping up with other things. Please pray that I won’t be anxious and that I will adapt well to that schedule.
3. Please pray for wisdom for our outreach and where we invest our time. There are all sorts of things we could do, but we want to know what God wants us to do in particular. And please pray that God would bless our outreach and make it effective, that we’ll be able to reach the community with the gospel.

How can interested folks find out more?

Visiting our website is the best way: www.redeeminggracenc.org. You’ll find there a link to our Facebook and email. Our first meeting is April 3 at Rogers-Herr Middle School.

Check back tomorrow for part 2.

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The panel discussion from the sixth and final session of Plant, our church-planting conference, featured Mark Dever, Mike McKinley, C.J. Mahaney, and Daniel Montgomery, and was moderated by Dave Harvey.

C.J. Mahaney closed the session with a brief message.

Panel discussion 3: Church planting and church revitalization

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Here’s what was asked:

• Why do churches fail?
• Daniel Montgomery: What are you building into your church-planting movement to prevent the failure of churches?
• Mike McKinley: Tell us about replanting a church.
• Mark Dever: What’s behind your decision to move in the direction of church revitalization?
• What are the differences between a core group for a church plant and a core group for church revitalization?
• How do you handle a church plant that emerged from a church split?
• How do you handle doctrinal differences when revitalizing a church?
• What are some recommended resources on how to do church replants?
• If a young man came to you who wants to plant a church or get involved in a church replant, what questions would you explore with him?
• What’s the church’s role in affirming a man’s call to plant a church?
• If a young man has a sense of internal call to plant a church and is wondering what to do next, how would you advise him?

(RSS readers, you may have to click through to the post to stream the audio.)

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Darrin Patrick preached at the fifth session of Plant, our church-planting conference. Darrin is lead pastor of The Journey (Saint Louis, MO), and is vice president of the Acts 29 church-planting network.

“Mistakes in Church Planting” (Ephesians 6:10-18)

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(RSS readers, you may have to click through to the post to stream the audio.)

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C.J. Mahaney preached at the fourth session of Plant, our church-planting conference.

“Profile of a Church Planter” (1 Thessalonians 2:1-12)

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(RSS readers, you may have to click through to the post to stream the audio and video.)

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The panel discussion from the third session of Plant, our church-planting conference, featured Mark Dever, Darrin Patrick, Jeff Purswell, and Tim Witmer, and was moderated by C.J. Mahaney.

Panel discussion 2: The importance of preaching

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Here’s what was asked:

• Why is preaching so important in a church plant?
• How should the priority of preaching be reflected in a church planter’s weekly schedule?
• A church planter, because of his many responsibilities, might find it easy to postpone his preaching preparation to the final day or moments. Do you have any practical counsel for someone who finds that the pattern in his life?
• Take us through a normal week: what’s your preaching preparation process like?
• Let’s say you’re going to start a church this Sunday. What book of the Bible do you begin teaching from? Why?
• How would you counsel men who find themselves transitioning from a large, attentive, responsive congregation to addressing 30 people, ten of whom are children, at the outset of a church plant? What would you say to them about the temptations they’ll encounter? How would you encourage them?
• How would a church planter obtain evaluation of his preaching?
• A church planter can be particularly tempted to discouragement as he’s laboring week after week and there doesn’t seem to be significant growth, while he’s hearing reports of other churches that seem to be expanding quickly and significantly. Talk to us about your familiarity with that temptation after you’ve preached, and how you take your soul to task.

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Mark Dever preached at the third session of Plant, our church-planting conference. Mark is senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Washington, DC) and president of 9Marks.

“The Great Commission and Church Planting” (Matthew 28:16-20)

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Darrin Patrick preached at the second session of Plant, our church-planting conference. Darrin is lead pastor of The Journey (Saint Louis, MO), and is vice president of the Acts 29 church-planting network.

“The Call for Men” (1 Timothy 3:1-7, 2 Timothy 2:1-3)

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(RSS readers, you may have to click through to the post to stream the audio.)

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