One Year In – Ministry Update
A “Brief” Update
I’m not sure how anyone could sit down and spell out everything that’s happened in the course of a year through a written update. The thought, as I sit here trying to accomplish just that, seems daunting. Even if I pair it down and just give you the highlights, how do I not give you a novel? The reality is that an update in this form could never really capture all of the things the Lord has been doing in, through, and around The Parish Church. And maybe that’s okay — we’re always looking to meet one-on-one and share the amazing things that are going on. But I do think that it’s a worthwhile endeavor to at least give you a glimpse of the incredible evidences of God’s grace that we’ve experienced in this last year of planting, rooting, and establishing The Parish Church.
Sunday Gatherings & MCs
The Parish Church’s Sunday Gatherings just celebrated our first anniversary. And we got to do it in grand fashion by gathering with other area churches around Petaluma at the annual ‘Together Service.’ I was able to preach from Philippians 2 and it was an honor for The Parish Church to be a part of that amazing event.
When we started with our Core Team back in January of 2018, our hope was to grow and multiply until we had 2-3 Missional Communities (MCs). Our plan at that point was to launch Sunday Services. But as we got to learn our city even better, we realized that many people were reluctant to come to a Bible Study or even one of our ‘Family Meals’ in homes — the opposite of what we expected. And so with only 12 adults, we decided to start meeting at Meadow Elementary School on September 9, 2018. We had 30 people show up that week and dipped down after that to around 20 until this past Spring. As word got out, more and more folks started showing up. And they didn’t just show up to Sunday mornings… they wanted to get plugged in and explore what MCs were… learn more about how we planned to be a gospel-centered family practicing the way of Jesus for the renewal of our cities.
In May of this year we multiplied our Core Team MC into an East and West Petaluma MC. We’re averaging about 45 folks combined every week in our MCs Family Meals and a little over 55 at our Sunday Gatherings. We’re seeing people show up hungry and willing to jump in. We’re seeing skeptics and the hurting find a community that loves them and meets them where they are. God is on the move and it’s incredible just watching him do it.
Our East Side MC is growing rather quickly and we anticipate we’re only a few months out from launching another MC in Rohnert Park/Cotati/Penngrove. This would give us 3 MCs and two of those would be on the verge of planting new ones themselves within 6-12 months. This is an incredible grace as it’s through these MCs that the rubber really hits the road for folks. MCs are the primary place where life-on-life and life-on-mission discipleship happens. It’s here that people become a family of servant missionaries, reminding and equipping each other with the truths of the gospel in the everyday stuff of life.
New Leaders
We also started training our first elder candidates this year. We’ve got one man on track to be commissioned early next year. This is a huge step for The Parish Church and something that we’ve been asking you all to pray for since last Christmas. We’re very deeply committed to the biblical principle of a plurality of elders/pastors and this is an exciting season to be growing towards that.
Not only that, but we’re praying in anticipation of being able to reach out and hire a full-time elder/pastor to come alongside us in early 2020 as well. We’re praying for someone who’s very administrative and apostolic in their gifting. Someone who can help cast the vision and see it through. This would be an amazing opportunity for The Parish Church and it’s something that our coaches, mentors, and board members have been praying towards for the past few months. We truly believe this person will help us better care for and grow our people towards becoming a gospel-centered family practicing the way of Jesus for the renewal of our cities.
Finances
Thanks in large part to amazing brothers and sisters like you all, we’re hitting and even exceeding all of our financial benchmarks as a young church plant. Beyond faithfulness to the gospel, a large part of a church plant’s success is determined by their ability to become financially self-sustaining. Usually a church aims to have 33% of their budget coming from internal giving by the end of year one. By God’s grace, we surpassed 50% of our budget coming from our church family members’ tithes and offerings this year. THIS IS HUGE!
Part of this has come from our commitment towards a ‘simple church’ approach. Rather than spend tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of dollars on media and marketing, we simply wanted to live within our means in equipping our people for the work of ministry here in Sonoma County. And we’ve seen the fruit. We’ve nearly tripled in size in 1 year! And we continue to see our internal giving slowly fulfilling more and more of our budget with an aim to be 100% self-sustaining by the end of year 3 (December 2021).
But this doesn’t mean we’re there yet. We still rely on the generosity of faithful folks like you all and outside institutional support from amazing ministries like the North American Mission Board, NextGen Churches, Golden Hills Baptist Association, and Anthem Church. Without all the support, we simply wouldn’t be where we are today. Ministry in the Bay Area is unlike ministry in nearly any other place in the world. Beyond the hostility and ill-regard for the gospel here, it’s also one of the most expensive places in the world — literally. The average home price in Petaluma in 2018 was over $850,000.
I write all of that to simply let you know that your support is invaluable. Ministry ‘fruit’ or ‘success’ looks different here than it does in a lot of other contexts where churches are being planted. To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, discipleship here in the Bay Area is absolutely ‘a long obedience in the same direction.’ And your love, prayers, and financial support are evidences of God’s grace that he’s with us in that long obedience! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Moving Forward
As we head into the Fall, things certainly aren’t slowing down. We’ve got a baptism service and baby dedications scheduled for November, a humungous endeavor to adopt a few families from around Sonoma County to love and serve through the holidays, and we’re gearing up for a year-long Sermon Series called ‘A Year of Biblical Literacy.’ I’m pumped about it all! Please keep praying for The Parish Church and that we’d continue to grow as a gospel-centered family practicing the way of Jesus for the renewal of our cities.