Church planting during a pandemic is a unique challenge! Church Planting at a “normal” time is challenging, or, so I’ve heard. To be honest, I wouldn’t know what church planting is “normally” like. In many ways for my husband and I, that has been a gift.
We began to discern planting a church a couple of years ago. After attending the Multiply Vineyard Summit last winter, we felt ready and equipped to jump into the planting process with both feet.
Then COVID-19 hit in all its glorious chaos, and we had to adapt along the way. Through the process here are a few things I have learned:
Embrace the Slowness
The slowness of this season is much like watching my eight-year-old try to pull weeds in our backyard; it is painfully slow.
If you are anything like me, you love to get things done on a timeline and as efficiently as possible. Yet, during this time, we have thousands of distractions and most items on our to-do lists are left partially done for weeks at a time.
Though the slowness of this season can be frustrating, it is an opportunity to grow your patience and to live each moment with more intention.
As we are embracing the slowness, it has given us the time to soak in the information and data we’ve learned about ourselves through the assessments in the Multiply Vineyard discernment process. We have been able to have conversations about how to leverage each of our giftings and find where they fit inside of our church vision. We’ve also spent time learning about the demographics of the area we’re moving to.
Begin Healthy Rhythms
We’ve also spent a lot of time putting healthy family rhythms into practice for this upcoming season. Along with the spiritual practice of slowing, our family has implemented solitude and sabbath. We are intentionally setting aside playful family time. We even started exercising more often in the form of mountain biking, which has been an incredibly rich time for my marriage.
These spiritual practices have helped us to stay anchored in who God has made us to be in the midst of what God is inviting us to do.
Spiritual practices have helped us to stay anchored in who God has made us to be in the midst of what God is inviting us to do.
Do the next right thing
Staying on track and completing the church planting process with Multiply Vineyard during the pandemic, when there is so much going on, has been difficult. Instead of getting overwhelmed, my husband and I decided to focus on just doing the next right thing. (Emily P. Freeman has a great book called The Next Right Thing that dives into this idea.)
My husband has been amazing at helping us keep up momentum. We worked to keep steady progress by checking in with each other once a week. No matter what part of the process, whether it was a phone call or filling out a background check, we practiced slowing down, being fully present, and taking the step together.
Because we have been slowing down and waiting on God to guide us in this process, we feel confident about where he is calling us to go and what he’s asking us to do. I simply know my part is doing the next right thing.
Multiply Vineyard Summit: Now and Next
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