Two years ago—today—a group of us launched Grace Church of Dover in the Tri-City area of the New Hampshire Seacoast. Two months into the plant, I wrote a prospective philosophy of ministry called Simple, Small, and Strategic. In it I shared our distinctives, laid out expectations, and charted our course as a new church. I laid out a vision where culture eats strategy and maturity beats momentum. In other words, when it comes to church growth, depth is more important than breadth, and conviction is more essential than ingenuity. I explained that the truth-and-love, Gospel culture of deep doctrine and deep relationships we aimed for could not be fast-tracked without bypassing the hard, consistent groundwork that needed to be done. I’m humbled and happy to report the extraordinary fruit that God has provided in spite of our many insufficiencies and despite myriad obstacles. He has rewarded our ordinary faithfulness.
Carrying out Our Commission
On May 22, 2022, our team was commissioned by our sending church in Simi Valley, CA. A charge was given by Pastor Jordan Bakker from 2 Timothy 4:1-5. With conviction and passion, he laid out the same serious, simple, and straightforward charge to our young church that Paul gave to a young Timothy. He called us to keep the preaching of God’s Word primary, to maintain fearlessness by staying prepared, and to fulfill our ministry. He warned us, “There will always be those places that give people what they want and those places will seem to be successful, bursting at the seams with people. But giving people what they want is rarely what they truly need. You must enter into this preaching ministry fearlessly, without compromise or capitulation, because you love people to much not to.”1 Our commission—to preach God’s Word rather than our own ideas, to be ready in season and out of season, to remain sober-minded, to endure suffering well, and to work hard at evangelism—has proven to be manifestly prescient and evidently necessary for the throes of church planting, especially here in New England.
It was a simple and straightforward charge. I do not believe Gospel ministry to be complex—difficult and exhausting, yes . . . but not complicated. Overall, our charge was to keep the Gospel of Jesus Christ the main thing. With the groundbreaking nature of a church plant, the temptation is to do something different—something novel, unique, exciting, unprecedented, or, well . . . groundbreaking—that will garner attention and manufacture growth. And then the ends are used to justify the means. But that’s not how the economy of God’s kingdom works. God cares deeply about the means. The means matter. As Nathan Knight reminds us in Planting by Pastoring: multiplication shouldn’t come at the expense of depth; and reaching others shouldn’t be prioritized over formation.2 We have worked hard these past two years to be a simple church—a Gospel-saturated, Christ-centered, Word-driven, and relationally focused community. We have committed to the ordinary means of grace: God’s Word read, sung, preached, seen in the ordinances, integrated into our lives, lived out in relationships, and proclaimed in the community.
Initial Growth and Independence
We didn’t know what to expect when we planted. We had no idea who would come or how we would grow, but we trusted that God would bring who he wanted. We didn’t worry about the empty seats, but focused on the ones that were filled. The first year, we saw growth from people who knew us—family, friends, past acquaintances, people we had equity with. As more people saw what we were doing and discerned our distinctives, they came. Lots of Mainers. The Tri-City area borders many parts of ME, and probably half our church is from there. I didn’t expect this. In our second year, we saw different kinds of growth. Many transplants to the NH were directed to us through various ministry pages we are affiliated with and by the recommendation of their sending church and elders. We’ve had families join us from CA, AZ, NV, OR, NJ, MA, and TX. We have visitors every week. We are now starting to see new believers join us and college students. We’ve also had many babies born this past year and currently have four expecting families. “There’s more than one way to grow a church,” they say.
While we certainly didn’t come to hinder other existing churches’ effectiveness, we did see a need for revival through reformation. I met many people who shared a frustration with surface relationships, insulated culture, mission drift, biblical illiteracy, ideological intrusion, political division, revolving doors of leadership, eccentric hobbyhorses, and church splits. We knew that balancing the theological and relational would not only be an intentional effort but a countercultural one. We didn’t want to simply know the Gospel, proclaim the Gospel, and defend the Gospel, we desires to live it out in community with one another and to keep the Gospel central. As shepherds, we desired our sheep to be fully known, fully loved, fully cared for, and fully fed.
Even though we were a church plant with a supporting church, independence was a mutual objective from the beginning. The goal was to become an independent church by three years and our sending church committed to supporting us financially for that period of time if necessary. The two markers of independence were clearly defined: 1) financial viability, and 2) a plurality of elders local to the church. We thought this would take three years, but God had other plans. We accomplished this in half the anticipated time. Together, by God’s ordinary means and exceptional glory, we accomplished in 18 months what we thought would take three years! We are now an independent, autonomous, self-sustained church. The financial support ceased and four representative elders came from CA to officially declare us to be an independent church. On January 28th, they helped us commission two new elders (making four), three deacons, and 22 members. We have been firmly planted and supported and we have thrived. The stakes and the ropes that held us up have been removed. We are self-supporting.
We don’t measure success the same way the secular world does. Numbers are not the target. We don’t boast, tout, glory, or gloat in mere numbers, yet numbers do tell a story—especially here in this context of planting in the post-Christian Northeast. We have grown in every direction. We have 150 people in our care with 120 in service each week. We have 50 members and five more on the docket. Again these metrics don’t necessarily constitute health or success. A church can have a lot of people and a lot of money and still be unbalanced and unhealthy, shallow and anemic.
Numbers alone aren’t arbiters of success. There are other representative metrics that reveal maturity and health—the diversity of our group, the number of formal members, the majority of people actively serving on Sunday mornings, the high percentage of people contributing financially, the majority of people involved in a midweek shepherding group, the plurality and maturity of our leaders, the number of leaders in training, and the deep, prayerful, and tangible care our people demonstrate toward one another ordinarily and especially when difficult trials arise . . . and they have. It’s the quality of the people, not the quantity. We have close-knit small groups, a wonderful children’s ministry, a vibrant worship team, a burgeoning youth group, and a growing biblical counseling team. God is so kind to have brought such discernable growth in such a short time, both spiritually and numerically.
Turning Challenges into Connections
Churchill once said, “Success consists of failure after failure without loss of enthusiasm.” In our case, we haven’t had to face countless failures (thankfully), but we do face death by a thousand inconveniences. The call to be sober, resolved, and to endure suffering has proven to be most helpful. Pastor Jordan called us to “take ministry seriously, not [ourselves] . . . keep laughing at the ironies of life and the deficiencies of your own human condition.”3 This advice has been rather easy to follow simply because our church—even after two years—is very much a bare-bones outfit. Trust me, there is no shortage of ironies and deficiencies. We do not have a building. For two years now, we have been leasing space from the public school district for just four hours every Sunday morning. Our first year was in an elementary school and our second year we graduated to the middle school. While it is a particular joy to “turn a public school into a sanctuary” on Sunday mornings (as one of our members likes to say), we have faced every major inconvenience you can think of. Setting up and tearing down is exhausting and time-consuming. We have been without heat on the coldest Sundays and without AC on the hottest and most humid Sundays. No joke . . . one Sunday morning we were welcomed to church by the sound of a drum line practicing inside the halls of the school. Time doesn’t permit me to list out all our “woes,” and I want to avoid digressing into a gripe session. At least we can laugh . . .
First-world problems, I know, but these little inconveniences can keep you up at night and wear on you over time. David Mathis writes, “A level head and a balanced mind affect essentially everything the elders do, from their teaching to their leading, oversight, and decision-making . . . we need preoccupation with ‘the faith.'”4 Conviction and consistency are key, yet planting requires a willingness to improvise at times. Throughout all these “joys” of church planting, we’ve managed to grow closer together as a body. They really are blessings in disguise that fuse us together like nothing else can. These challenges have proven themselves to be opportunities for connection. We’ve learned to sacrifice, to depend on one another, to laugh together, to serve and to suffer well with endurance. Our people come with Bible in hand, smiles on their faces, and with eagerness to be together and worship our gracious King. We’ve learned commitment and contentment all while looking to better days ahead. It has been especially incumbent upon the leadership to model joy and contentment amidst these less-than-ideal circumstances. Enthusiasm is endemic after all. I hope we will look back at these years as the good ol’ days. And we might even miss them, maybe. Did I say I hope to look back on them?!
Focusing on the Future
Churchill once said there are two types of success: initial and ultimate. By God’s grace, we’ve experienced discernable, initial growth. But we are not content with initial success. We desire to stay the course and maintain a long-term vision for our future. We have established ourselves on a reliable foundation, and we will continue steadfast to build on the same solid rock. We are growing but we’re not changing. Success is not measured by numbers and figures, conveniences, comforts, buildings or programs. Success in God’s economy is measured by faithfulness—faithfulness to him, his Word, his Gospel, his mission (Josh. 1:7-9). We will continue to plod and persevere, to make and mature disciples, to shepherd and equip, to train and develop leaders, to love and care for one another, to know and be known, to preach and proclaim, to worship and glorify our great Savior.
Two years ago in CA, John Durso, chairman of the board, concluded the commissioning service this way: “Lord, I pray that You stand with them and protect them, and that You give them the endurance that they need. I pray that the soil is soft and I pray that minds and hearts are opened. I pray your Word is received. As we commission them to carry your Word across the country to preach it loudly and clearly and boldly, I pray that You’re with them.”5 God is still answering this prayer two years later. Even though our vision was simple, small, and strategic, what we have done together these past two years has been nothing short of ambitious, audacious, and arduous. We have attempted and accomplished a challenging feat in a challenging place at a challenging time.
Eisenhower aptly stated, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” We find ourselves in the exact same situation as when we launched. Two years ago, we had no idea what God would do. And he has done immeasurably more. God has done immeasurably more than we have asked or imagined in these first two formative years. I deeply love the individuals and families and children of Grace Church. I count it an immense privilege to worship with them, serve alongside them, and be their pastor and their friend.
It’s been a wonderful journey so far. With confidence we look to our future. With conviction we press on. With consistency we minister the Gospel to God’s people. And with constancy we pray for a building we can call our own. I believe having our own space will more than double the impact we are having on our people and the community.
They say the first two years of a child’s life are the most formative and foundational. They are the most crucial and critical to the child’s development, health, well-being, and overall trajectory. More milestones occur in this span of time than any other. We are thankful for the solid foundation and growth God has granted us in our first two years. We have developed core knowledge and core mobilities that will be indispensable to our continued development. We have grown in our knowledge of, affections for, and commitment to Christ and to one another. The future is bright.
- https://gracesimi.com/sermon/grace-dover-commissioning-service/ ↩︎
- Nathan Knight, Planting by Pastoring, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2023), p. 7-9. ↩︎
- https://gracesimi.com/sermon/grace-dover-commissioning-service/ ↩︎
- David Mathis, 97, 100. ↩︎
- https://gracesimi.com/sermon/grace-dover-commissioning-service/ ↩︎
Maximum Mandatum 