Location, Location, Location

We launched Brier Creek Fellowship in Raleigh last October.  We had about 20 people in our core group, who were all a part of an earlier effort to plant a church at the same spot.

It's hard to call it a "church" when there are only 20 people involved, but that's where we were.  

Growth was slow at first. By February, God had built the church up to 30 people. We stayed stuck in the 30s until May, when we started to hit 40 sporadically. 

Then a new location opened up.  We weren't really sure it would be a better location, actually.  The building - a new elementary school - is a great landmark in community, but it's hard to find the entrance.  The most obvious place to park is actually a giant no parking area.  We have to direct traffic around the block.

But we jumped on it.

Our first Sunday at the new location was July 5th.  This is not a good weekend to plan anything.  We only had a couple of visitors and 15 of our regulars were out of town.  It was lonely in that giant auditorium, even though we had carefully draped it out.

The next Sunday, however, saw a ton of visitors, and the people who came July 5th came back. Since then, things have generally trended upward. We are currently on our 3rd straight week of record attendance, with almost 70 present last Sunday.  Everyone is excited.

Here, then, is my updated list of lessons-for-church-planters, based on my experiences:

1. A bad location is going to hurt you.
2. A weird name is going to hurt (I think this alone killed my first church).
3. Invite every visitor out to dinner; befriend them.
4. Encourage angry, religious people to exit.
5. Don't tolerate contentiousness in leadership.
6. Don't make critics your counselors.
7. Don't be someone you're not (don't dress like a teenager if you're 43).
8. Exalt Jesus & the Word in your preaching.
9. Be prepared to preach Sunday mornings with minimal notes.
10. Close every message with a soft decision opportunity.
11. Don't baptize people hastily.
12. Spend money on outreach.
13. A part-time & volunteer worship team stretches the money further.
14. Forgo a salary, but don't try to be bivocational.
15. Don't preach from a platform unless you're near 100 people.
16. Use videos for previews, but use podcasts for sermons.  Here's an example of one:

If you're planting a church anywhere in the world, please call me sometime at (919) 214-1461.  I'd love to give you whatever encouragement and advice you need, and maybe get some from you.

The Brier Creek Fellowship Honey-Do Team

The backstory:

That's not Noah with the L-square. It's Nathan.

For the last several months, Nathan and I have been meeting for several hours every Friday afternoon & evening to brainstorm and build stuff for Brier Creek Fellowship.  Since we’re a mobile church, we’ve built AV carts and a pipe & drape cart, and outfitted our trailer to handle it all. 

Jamarcus, Ken, Mark and Amanda have all helped out at different points.  Collectively, we’ve labored for hundreds of hours in order to save valuable Sunday morning setup and breakdown time.

The time we’ve spent together has been awesome.  We work hard but not fast, and we always break for dinner, dessert and good conversation.

Starting this Friday, we are making it official.  Our venerable group is now called the Brier Creek Fellowship Honey-Do Team. 

 

Our mission:

• To build and rebuilt things our church needs
• To do odd jobs for the seniors and single women of the church
• To be a fun place for men to fellowship together

       Some guidelines:

• We are going to be really selective about our projects so we don’t get burned out.  We’re not looking to do a lot of work for friends-of-friends. 
• We are not precision carpenters.  We do “good enough” stuff.  We can paint, move furniture, lay tile and build shelves, and we can do complicated things, but don’t expect perfection.  Our workmanship fits our price:  free.  Remember, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
• The Bible says, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”  But if you come out for Honey-Do night and just stand around jawing, we’ll still let you eat.
• Wives & kids can fellowship with my family while we cavemen do our thing.  If a member of the gentler sex wants to join in, we won't complain, provided they still let us grunt and burp.

Requirements to join:

•  An absence of whatever internal malfunction causes perfectionism.

Location & Time: 

We will meet at 710 Obsidian Way, Durham, NC 27703.  If we are going onsite somewhere, we will let everyone know in the newsletter for that week.  Nathan and I start at 3 p.m. every Friday.  Join us whenever you get out of work.  We break for dinner & dessert around 6, then work ‘til around sundown.  You're free to cut out early, or hang out later.

Caffeine for Church Plants: CHANGE

"Change" is usually considered a 4-letter word in American churches.  "That's not how we've always done it," and, "You need to make sure you don't try to change too much, too quickly," are lines I frequently heard when I was preaching at old SBC churches during seminary. 

This is not so at a church plant like ours.  Change is exciting for us.

Since we launched 9 months ago, we have been meeting at a community center in Brier Creek.  It was very nice, but the words "community center" probably don't conjure up a good image for most folks.  Also, few people had ever heard of the facility, even if they lived a block away.

As we have grown, we've run out of space, particularly in the children's department.  So when Brier Creek Elementary opened up, we wasted no time in jumping on it. 

This Sunday will be our first service in our new facility.  Everything will be new:  cushy chairs, an additional video display, new draping, and a new "in the round" seating arrangement.  We need a new trailer to hold it all on new set up carts.

Last Friday, a work crew built our new pipe & drape cart and modified our other setup carts.  We loved doing the work because we knew it was because God has been growing our church.

Last Saturday, our setup team ran a rehearsal service in the new facility.  Setting up, praying, and breaking down took over 3 hours.  It was hard work.  But it was soooooo exciting!

My attempt at a panoramic of our new facility.  Looks like Dali was a photographer.

I am reminded again why I love new churches:

• There is no sense of entitlement on anyone's part at BCF.  Many church leaders fear change because it means they might lose control over their little fiefdom.  Not at a new church, since no one is controlling anything.  (In fact, we might be a bit out of control.)  
• There is a spirit of camaraderie here not just born of shared struggle, but of mutual excitement about what God is doing here, and about what He's going to do in the future.  
• Everyone's ideas are weighed equally here, whether they've been with us 1 day or since launch. We had a guy building the pipe & drape cart with Nathan who had only been at BCF once. 
• And new churches mean no cliques.  Everybody is friends with everybody. 

Thank you, Lord, for putting this family together and taking us this far.  May there always be fun & exciting changes on the horizon for BCF.

Never Mind the Old Days. How Does God Work Now?

Long ago, folks really knew how to pray.  Instead of just talking to God, people expected to also hear from God.   Guys like Samuel and King David prayed for signs and instructions, and they were prepared to obey and accept what God told them.  And He was faithful to speak to these men in supernatural ways.

God hasn't changed.

A few weeks ago, our church in Raleigh, Brier Creek Fellowship, learned that Brier Creek Elementary School (BCES) would soon be available to use for our Sunday morning church services.  The church which has been meeting there was moving.

Immediately, we connected with the staff at BCES.  They were incredibly kind and welcoming. 

The benefits of moving our church to BCES were obvious.  We're growing.  We need the space.  BCES is a landmark of northwest Raleigh - possibly the best known location in Brier Creek.  It is a gorgeous, $17M facility, with great exposure on Brier Creek Parkway.  It has lots of parking and handicapped accessibility.  It's walking distance from home for half of our members.  It seemed perfect.

But we didn't want to make the move from our current home just because it seemed wise to us.  We wanted God to speak.  In fact, from the beginning, we decided we wouldn't settle for less.  If God wasn't in it - if He didn't clearly tell us to move - we were going to stay right where we've been.

BCES's Chairs

We looked at the downside of moving to BCES.  The auditorium is too big for us, and it doubles as their cafeteria, which means it is cluttered with fold-up tables and a buffet line.  The folding metal chairs the school owns are noisy and uncomfortable.  The blinds are badly tattered.

We determined that $4,000 would be needed to rectify the problems by purchasing pipe & drape and nice, large, cushioned chairs.  We prayed that God would provide the funds to purchase these items if it was his will that we make the move.

As the ancients prayed, "Lord, let it be that if..." In other words, we asked God to tell us what He wanted, using a sign we made up ourselves, just like Gideon, David's friend Jonathan and King Hezekiah had done.   Even though we couldn't be sure that God even agreed that we needed the chairs and the drapes, our method gave God a clear way to say no to us.
 

The Chairs We Asked For

I determined to make the minimal possible appeal to raise the funds.  With just a 1 week notice before were to take up an offering, I announced our intentions to the church.  I made a short presentation on the case for moving.  There was no emotionalism employed.

I explained how we intended to entrust the entire decision to God.  If we raised $4,000, we would move.  If we got $3,999, we would refund whatever donations we had received, and stay right where we were. Large donors would be asked to reduce their offerings if we went over what we absolutely needed.

Either way - whether God said to stay or to move - we committed to praise Him and rejoice, in excitement or in disappointment. 

A week later - last Sunday - at the end of our worship service, we took up the offering.  I had not intended to share the outcome during the service, but the team was eager because they immediately saw that we had crossed the bar.  They announced to everyone that God had given us $5,550.  (Late donations would bring the total to $6,000.)

God had spoken.

What I did not expect was the emotional reaction.  Even first-time visitors - who were expressly asked not to contribute - were in tears when they saw what God had done.  Of course we were just as overwhelmed.

We received many donations, but four individuals each gave the same, large amount.  Incredibly, all four refused to reduce their donations later, when they were privately invited to do so.  I was amazed.

God had tangibly shown Himself to us.  Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we all realized that while we were wrestling with this decision, God had been right there with us.  And He was pleased because we were relying on Him, and because we were committed to obeying Him and praising Him, come what may.

That's how God works nowadays.  Which is exactly how He's always worked.

Does God Want You to Spend 3 Years Preaching From the Book of Numbers?

I just ran into another Southeastern Seminary alum touting the propriety of verse-by-verse, expository preaching.  Entire books of the Bible must be taught sequentially, he believes.   

They have to beat them away.

Many Baptist and Bible churches boast on their websites that they offer this type of preaching as if it were the only proper way to teach the Word.

Where do they get this?

Verse-by-verse teaching is not directly commanded in the Bible.  However, it does have some scriptural support.  

King Josiah read “the Law” to the people (2 Kings 23) and later, Ezra would do the same (Nehemiah 8).  Ezra explained the text as he read it (Nehemiah 8:8).  

But Ezra didn’t exposit the whole Bible (since it wasn’t finished then) or even all 5 books of the Pentateuch.  He wouldn’t have had time to even read it all from “sunrise until noon” (Nehemiah 8:3) on a single day, let alone explain it.  

Ezra either read Leviticus or Deuteronomy, or, more likely, he read particular passages to the people.  

So while there may be an example of  verse-by-verse teaching in the Old Testament, there might not be.  We’re not really sure.  

Most importantly, a biblical example only becomes a biblical command when the Bible tells us so.  David slept with Bathsheba, but we don't preach the virtues of wife-stealing. 

So if verse-by-verse preaching isn’t really commanded in the Bible, where does it come from?  Tradition.  (Sola Scriptura means this should count for very little with Protestants.)   

A couple of the church fathers (2^nd & 3^rd Century) preached verse-by-verse, Martin Luther did so sometimes, and John Calvin did it always.

John Calvin: To blame for the 6 years you spent in Nahum.

I think we can blame Calvin for all of it (though there is no indication he wanted the church to universally adopt lexio continua, as verse-by-verse was then called).

Steven Lawson wrote of John Calvin, “As a faithful shepherd, he fed his congregation a steady diet of sequential expository messages.”[1]  Sounds responsible.

The Bible, of course, does not define a “faithful shepherd” this way.  Lawson might as well say, “As a faithful shepherd, Calvin fed his congregation a steady diet of Smarties.”  

Without scriptural support, there is nothing particularly “faithful” about verse-by-verse preaching, nor anything “unfaithful” about topical preaching (provided it comes from the Bible).

Lawson ascribes one benefit to expositional, verse-by-verse preaching, one which sounds biblical:  Verse-by-verse exposition means the pastor ends up preaching “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).  

The inconvenience of verse-by-verse exposition

That sounds biblical, but it’s not.  Jesus preached “the whole counsel of God,” but He did not go verse-by-verse through entire books of the Bible.  Neither did Paul, Peter, John or any other biblical preacher of the Old Testament or the New, to our knowledge.

In fact, if Acts 20:27 - “proclaim the whole counsel (βουλὴν) of God” - is the support for verse-by-verse preaching, the Greek word βουλὴν is being twisted badly.  It means “predetermined plan,” not "the whole Bible."

We can’t change the words of Scripture.  We might as well make Acts 20:27 read, "Proclaim the whole enchilada of God."  (This idiom actually fits the meaning of the passage better.)

 

Ironically, Lawson lists the specific books that John Calvin preached through during his ministry.

Get it?  

Calvin didn’t get to them all!  If never skipping a verse is what the Holy Spirit meant by preaching “the whole counsel of God,” it didn’t work for Calvin!  He missed a ton of verses that he never got a chance to preach.  Oh no!

Did Calvin use Nehemiah 8:8 as his biblical support for verse-by-verse preaching?  We don’t know.  He never got a chance to preach it!  That makes me laugh.

It's cool that Calvin liked to preach verse-by-verse.  But it was just his thing.  It worked for him.  That doesn't mean God wants you to do it.

How does verse-by-verse usually work today, as a practical matter?

 

Typically, it stinks.  It’s either boring, or it’s a fraud.  

He missed a verse.  We'll have to go back.

As one preacher crawled painfully through the Gospel of Mark, I realized that I would be dead before he reached Luke.  I heard another preacher read a long passage from Chronicles, then tell an endless story about his days as a rock & roll guitarist which had nothing to do with the point of the text.  Verse-by-verse, indeed.

So, if you won’t dare to darken the doors of a church that exposits the Scriptures non-sequentially (gasp!), just know that you’re being stuffy, religious and tradition-bound. There’s nothing sinful about preaching verse-by-verse, but there is nothing particularly holy about it, either.

At our church in Raleigh, we are faithful to preach the whole "plan" of God, from a specific text each week.  But we're not spending 3 years in the book of Numbers, no matter how proud Calvin would be.

---

[1] Expository Genius of John Calvin, Steven Lawson.  It’s a great, well-written book.  I’m only picking apart the verse-by-verse stuff.  Otherwise it’s a first-class read.

How 15 Private Minutes with Ergun Caner Wrecked My Career Plans

Ergun Caner has always had impact.  As the former dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and president of Brewton-Parker College, he taught thousands of students.  Millions have read his books.

In many ways, God has used Caner to make some big or small affect on people for Christ.  The impact Caner had on me personally was profound and life-altering.

The back story:  Almost 10 years ago, I enrolled at Liberty University as an undergrad in their Religion program.  I believed that God had called me into pastoral ministry, but He was still fleshing out the details.  

Ergun Caner taught a number of the classes I took, and he had written some of my textbooks.  He was the giant of Liberty University.  We all looked up to him because he was irreverent, funny and in-your-face. 

By the time I had graduated, my own ministry plans had been derailed.  I had lost my business, and along with it, my reputation.  I was sure my "calling" to enter the ministry had been a mistake.  I must have misheard God, which has happened to all of us.  I was unsure of my future.

Liberty University has an open house every summer to let prospective grad students meet the faculty of their various graduate schools.  I made plans to attend.

What was I going to do?  In my heart, I wanted to help other people who had lost everything, or were worried they might.

An MBA could help small business people survive as entrepreneurs.  On the other hand, a law degree would mean I could fight to save other business owners from the defamation we had suffered.  Maybe both degrees together would be useful.

I hoped to make my decision at the open house.  I was leaning toward starting with an MBA instead of law school, but I could be swayed either way.  I just wasn't sure where God was leading, but I was trusting Him to make the final call.

We had to travel from our home in Burlington, North Carolina, up to Lynchburg, Virginia, a 2 hour drive, to get to the open house.  We left too late to get there on time.  There was a lot of stress in the car as we drove because we would be missing part of the event. 

The open house was at Bruner Hall.  The event was already underway, but we didn't walk into the auditorium right away.  First we wanted to pray, so we ducked into a little room just off the entrance and sat down.

I said, "God, You know what I am about to do."  I was about to enroll in business school.  "If what I am about to do is not your will, please stop me.  Amen."

I jumped up, and my wife and I hurried into the auditorium.  A dean was on stage, in the middle of a speech.

Bruner Hall is poorly laid out as an auditorium.  The entrance doors are on the side of the hall, not the back, and rather close to the stage.  So as we entered, a couple hundred people turned to look as us.  This was embarrassing.

I tried to cut left, toward the back of the room, away from the stage.  Unfortunately, someone had stacked some equipment on the floor just beside the door.  I tripped over it and went flying, in full view of everyone in the room.

I would have landed on the floor, but I was caught by a stout little biker dude.  What was a guy dressed like that doing here?

I had worn a suit, but this guy was dressed to actually kill.  He was wearing studded leather wrist straps and a scraggly beard.

Suddenly I realized who it is who had caught me.

"You're Ergun Caner, aren't you?" I asked him.

What are the odds?  There were hundreds of other people I could have smashed into, but I had actually run over the dean of the seminary.

"Yes, I am," He smiled, shaking my hand.  For the next 15 minutes, we chatted while the man on stage droned on. 

Caner's wife was from Alamance County, where I lived.  He had attended services at the Lamb's Chapel, where I had been a member for 8 years.  He was a big fan of their preacher, Brian Biggers, who I also love.  We had tons in common.

Caner had a fantastic ability to carry on a conversation with me without any sense that I was a nobody.  It was impossible not to love this guy, and his outfit was a piece of it.

After all that talking, Caner asked, "So, what are you doing here?"

"I'm about to enroll in your seminary," I told him.

I was confident that God had answered my prayer.  What I was about to do, God had sent Ergun Caner to stop.

I have since finished seminary and entered full-time ministry.  Today, I pastor a sweet church in Raleigh, Brier Creek Fellowship, where we're all about connecting wrecked people to God.

I thank God that He sent Ergun Caner to wreck my plans.  I hope Caner will let me wreck his plans sometime, and accept an invite to come preach at my church plant.  He is always welcome.

If There Was Only One Man Allowed to Preach Today, This Ought to Be Him

Just over a decade ago, my wife and I drove out to the little town of Haw River to visit a country church whose name we saw stamped inside a YMCA Bible.  It was quite a trip to get out there.  Our jaw dropped when we saw the tired building with its faded gray shingles.  I could not persuade my wife to turn around and take us home, so we walked in and sat down.

A barrel-chested man bellowed out the music.  He needed no microphone, so strong was his voice.  I believe people in the next county could hear Rick Surles singing.  His face turned red and dripped with sweat as he roared out the lyrics. He had a beautiful, powerful sound.  Rick's voice was full and rich, like an entire orchestra, all by itself.

Then a robed choir got up and sang a number.  We had been time-warped back to 1950.

Finally, a chubby, countrified man named Brian Biggers stood up to preach.  He wore a plaid shirt and cowboy boots.

I could see he had a way with the Queen's English.  Or rather, he had made up his own way.  He was not legalistic when it came to grammar.

No thought was complete without a folksy metaphor.  His uncultured mannerisms, his southern mispronunciations and his irreligious style meant continuous amusement for his audience.  And no one seemed to enjoy his preaching more than he did.

In his simple way, he moved the congregation from laughter to tears and back to laughter effortlessly.  Somehow, when he spoke, it truly felt as if Jesus Himself was speaking.

A few minutes into his message, it occurred to me that I needed to do whatever I could to get as many people as possible to hear this man preach. His words were alive with Christ.  There was no way to sit in that room and be unaffected.  This was what an anointing looked like.

So much of my life was changed by Brian's ministry:  I fell in love with the Word, attended and graduated from seminary, entered full-time ministry, and planted a church in Raleigh.  There is no part of my life God did use Brian to touch.

Today, that old country church has become a megachurch.  Sunday mornings, the tiny population of Haw River explodes to thousands upon thousands. 

The beloved Rick Surles past away years ago, but The Lamb's Chapel choir croons on.

And Brian Biggers is still belting out the best Bible preaching you will hear anywhere.

Click here to listen to some of Brian Biggers' recent messages.