So This Is How It Starts... Church Planting 101

This is terrifying. No way around it. But let me explain a little background first.

I helped start a church in Burlington. I invested a lot in that group, and leaving it was really difficult. It was 45 minutes away, and frankly, it's just hard to be in community with people 45 minutes away. You'd think that I could find something delicious church-wise here in Montpelier, but you'd be wrong. So for three years or so now I've been keeping my eyes and ears out for the possibility of starting something new. I've been in a variety of iterations of Bible studies and discussion groups and established churches all of which were precious and valuable in their own way, but they all stopped eventually (or I stopped going). No judgement. I enjoyed those iterations for what they were.

But it seems now that I have a core group of spiritually homeless Christian folks who would like to start something in the Montpelier area. I know this may sound shallow, but I think it's actually kind of important: We're all in the same demographic. Specifically, we're all mid-twenties, young professionals, relatively open-minded to what church means and looks like.

Truth be told, there are at least 13 others who I would like to invite once we have something more established, but we'll see... let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Another point I feel is important: In no way do I want to "steal" people from established churches. Of those 10 folks only two regularly go to church elsewhere, so I want to be very sensitive about what I may be asking of those two... we'll see. No pressure. Let's not burn any bridges. Even so, I'm not including myself in that count. I will need to have a difficult conversation with the pastor of the church I currently attend and for which I lead worship. I'm sorry, but it's just not home. I think they'll understand.

We have no real pastor for our group, though we do have the blessing and potential oversight of an area pastor, so it might be nice to involve him somehow, though I'm hesitant, because in no way do I want his or any currently established pastor's influence in the structures we set up for ourselves.

I write this for my own good as well as anyone reading this... here are my "must haves" in a church. (I feel like I'm writing a personal ad). haha.

Church should:

• Engage people with multiple learning styles (ah, differentiated church)
• Rely primarily on social construction (People learn through talking with each other, finding meaning for themselves)
• Be about something in the community (feeding the homeless, CSA's for low income families?, etc.)
• Be intellectually and spiritually stimulating
• Be a safe place for people to disagree, be heretical, & express doubts (Don't belittle someone's thinking on account of it being different).
• Be a place where all voices matter and can be heard (maybe the pastor isn't always the one who leads)
• Be FUN! (I think we may need to sponsor a condiment war - see below: chocolate sauce vs. ketchup)
• Must love dogs

This is my list, but I KNOW that I will need to be open to the lists of 10 other people. We will need consensus... at least on some core issues.

I met with two of them yesterday, and three more this coming Saturday. One more on Sunday. So far it's looking like meeting Sunday afternoons at 3pm may be best time to gather as a whole group. The couple from yesterday volunteered their place to start. Welcome to church in Montpelier. Now, I've never given birth, but I hear that at some point during labor there's an uncontrollable urge to push. It seems like we might be about there now...