God's Mission for Church Planting (3/22/26)

Hello and welcome to the Church Newtown Square podcast.

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church nsq.org. That's CHVRCHNS q.org, and now

let's listen in to today's teaching.

Back in 2015, my wife and I went on the only cruise we've ever

been on. It was a cruise in the

Mediterranean, seven days out of Athens, Greece, and we up in

Istanbul, Turkey. It was amazing.

The ports of call were amazing. We went to Ephesus, Santorini,

Mykonos. It was amazing.

And we dream at someday we're going to go on a river cruise in

Europe. That's sort of our my wife

doesn't allow me to call it a bucket list.

It's a bouquet list bucket sounds too like morbid for her.

So our bouquet list a cruise on a cruise ship is all about the

comfort of the people on board. It really is.

By the way, if you go, make sure you get a balcony room, OK, Just

the recommendations. It's about the comfort of the

people on a boat. Now keep that in mind.

Cruise ship comfort of the people that the the passengers.

OK, now I want to talk about another kind of boat.

My mom was born and brought up in New London, CT where there's

this big industry called the electric boat where they make a

lot of like submarines and things.

But also it's the home of the US Coast Guard Academy and the

Coast Guard has in their fleet of boats these things called

Coast Guard cutters. Now they can arrange from

anywhere from 45 feet long to 4 or 65 feet long to 400 feet

long. There are different size

vessels. Those vessels have food, they

have a, they have a mess hall, a kitchen, they have places for

the crew to sleep. They have a, a medical unit.

But those boats aren't designed for the comfort of the

passenger. They're designed because often

one of the missions of the Coast Guard is to search and rescue

those who are in trouble. Let me use those two analogies

of two boats to say, often it's easy for us as Christians to

look at the church as a cruise ship and it's about our comfort

on our journey to paradise when in reality, with a lot of the

same systems and structures, we really are meant to be a Coast

Guard. Carter, that exists because

there are people who need rescuing and once they're

rescued, they can then be trained to be crew members.

I'll keep those two word pictures in mind and think about

the tension that creates because the priority of the mission of

God demands that his people on this mission have a posture

towards the mission. And so I want to talk about the

mission of God and church planting.

Jesus had this nagging habit of hanging out with sinners.

This this story we just read is not the only time you go to Luke

Luke 19 · chapter mention

chapter 19. The same thing happens.

And what does he get? He gets guys who are very

religious, who are in their comfortable religious setting

going, you're messing with our boat.

You like, you put yourself on a cruise ship and let's just say

someone is a, a, a boat is sinking and, and the cruise

ship's captain, I don't know if this is even possible, but they

divert their cruise ship to rescue people who are drowning.

Now, if that happened once, you, you kind of go, oh, you can

actually tell the story, you know, Oh, our cruise, we, you

know, we, we rescued somebody. But if the captain decided, you

know what, we're not going to stop at the ports of call.

We are going to now just sail the Atlantic or Pacific or the

Mediterranean and look for those who are lost.

The people on board might get a little upset.

And that's what the scribes and Pharisees were.

Jesus was messing with them because he cared about sinners

and in this case tax collectors, which were were very wealthy

elite who were oppressive to the poor.

Jesus said I came into the world to save sinners.

Now this text, Luke chapter 15 is the only time I think is I

Luke 15 · chapter mention

think in all of the teachings of Jesus where there are Jesus

tells three stories back-to-back to to emphasize the same point.

And I think the reason this Luke 15 is so significant is because

it it keeps before us the mission of God and the rescuing

of the lost. And so we've already read that,

that first parable, the lost sheep.

And in a minute we'll read about a lost coin and it ends with a

lost son. But the priority of our

existence is not primarily our comfort.

We will be comforted forever. There's a day coming.

There's a rest for the people of God.

Every tear, sadness, every brokenness, every pain, will we

be wiped away. Our hearts cannot begin to

imagine the kind of joy and peace of heaven right now.

God has a mission and his His mission has a church.

And our job is to take a posture that inclines us towards the

messiness of the brokenness of people around us.

And one of the outcomes of that will be not just more people

coming to Jesus, but more churches being started where

there are needs for outposts of the gospel.

So let's start start by looking at this first, this first

parable and think about this, the priority of the mission.

If you had 99 sheep and you lost one, you might not think that's

a priority of we work with the Acts 29 church planter.

By the way, great video. And and Chris they, they

actually just in January, they finally after 10 years were able

to move to a Sunday morning. They had an old Presbyterian

Church that was declining and approached them about merging

and they went through like an 18 month process.

And now they meet in this beautiful stone church with

stained glass windows on Sunday morning.

But every fall, his church takes a group over to Uganda to do

that Pastors conference. They'll have 100 pastors being

trained. And if you want to go call

Chris, he's a great guy. Actually be in town for the

prayer thing tomorrow and Tuesday.

This priority of the mission is because something vulnerable

needs rescuing. Jesus is getting critiqued

because he's hanging out with sinners and tactically electors

people far from God. Friends, you and I are called to

be witnesses of Christ saving work in our lives and we either

have the opportunity to be on board with God's mission or

complain because it's messy and uncomfortable.

I mentioned Luke chapter 19. Jesus was going through a town

Luke 19 · chapter mention

and healing people and there was another tax collector.

I don't know why all these tax collectors, I mean, they were

the wealthiest guys in town. They seem to be attracted to

Jesus, Zacchaeus and and these guys here in chapter 15, but

Zacchaeus was one of these guys where again, he wanted to see

Jesus. Jesus came after him.

Jesus said I'm coming to your house and the same thing

happened. The complaint about Jesus

hanging out with a Sinner. Now let's back up for a moment

and just think for a moment. If Jesus primary purpose is to

save sinners, everything else matters like our sanctification.

If you're new to Christianity, following Jesus is a is not just

you're in and done. You're in and begin.

It's this journey of following Jesus and every stage of life.

I'm in the last quarter of life and, and, and there are new

challenges, new sins to fight. Like it's it's a whole, whole

new ball game for me. I'm almost 63 And like that, you

know, as you get older, we can get cynical, we can get envious.

Like I wish I was young again. We can get cynical like that,

generate these young people just so dumb.

We just be. We could be, we could be like

dark thoughts spin around in there.

Or we can check out. We we go like I put in my time

with Jesus. I'm just not going to go play

pickleball or something. There is an urgency to the

priority of the mission because something vulnerable is in need

of rescuing and something valuable has been lost.

This leads us to that second, second parable.

Let me read it verses 8 through 10.

So Jesus is telling. Remember this is the only time

he's ever done this three stories to get at one point he

says or what woman who has 10 silver coins, if she loses one

coin does not light a lamp, sweep the house and search

carefully until she finds it. When she finds it, she calls her

friends and neighbors together saying, rejoice with me because

I have found the silver coin. I lost this in this day.

This was about one day's wages, but it's still valuable, right?

It's, it's the reason Jesus tells the story is I think first

of all, because of the, there's a value to like, let's just say

you make 25 bucks an hour. That's about $200 a day.

I think I, maybe, I don't know, I'm terrible with math, but

let's just say you just lost 200 bucks.

I mean, and, and you know, it's somewhere in the house, you're

going to look for it, unless you're so stupid wealthy that I,

I, I don't know, I don't understand that.

But like 200 bucks is something, it's valuable.

And so you, you, you focus on trying to find it.

Jesus tells this story because he wants us to know how valuable

people are. We're all called to this thing

called the mission. Now there are some gifted

evangelists, Billy Graham, you've heard that name, perhaps

the great evangelist of, of the last generation, my dad who

passed away in 2011. He was a one-on-one evangelist.

He he was a pastor and he, he just had, he was in World War 2

and he just had this came out of the war and came to Christ and

just had this unflappable way about him.

Like he could talk to anybody. He, he used to like to golf the

local golf course and let the local pastors play. 3 This is in

rural New Hampshire and and he would go and try to find people

he could play with and just start talking about Jesus in the

most unassuming and confident way.

I'm not like that. I have to do the work of

evangelist, but all of us are called E Jesus said of you, you

are my witnesses. You say, what do I witness about

two good illustrations? The woman at the well, if you

don't know that story, she was not the nicest lady in town.

She's been married five times. Number six, she went out to the

well at noon when nobody else was around because nobody liked

her. But Jesus meets her.

Not only does she come to Jesus, but she goes back into town and

says, you've got to come meet this guy who told me everything

I've ever did. They said there's more.

We want to know more. No, they came out because this

woman had been transformed. And it says that after meeting

Jesus said we don't believe just because of what you told us, but

because we heard the words of Jesus.

The part of it is just telling your story.

There's another crazy guy. He had been possessed by demons.

Jesus delivers them from him, from demons.

He'd been so crazy. He was living out in the in, in

a grave, graveyards, yards. And he comes to Jesus.

His mind is restored and he, he, he, he asks Jesus if he could

get in the boat with Jesus and follow Jesus.

And Jesus tells us demoniac who's never been to Sunday

school, never had a theology class, but has only been

transformed by Jesus. Go back into your towns and

villages and tell them what God has done for you.

All of us. If you're in Jesus, you have a

story. I came to Jesus when I was a

little boy. I remember the day, I don't know

what the Sunday school teacher did.

I said I, I think it was a Sunday, but I came home with

this weight of sin on my little heart.

I mean literally I was like 4 years old and all I knew is I

need, I didn't understand the incarnation of Christ.

I didn't understand the Trinity, although I still don't

understand the Trinity. Like I didn't, I didn't believe

in the inerrancy of Scripture. I didn't know what that was.

All I knew is I had weight inside of me as a little guy and

I needed Jesus, who I didn't understand fully to come in and

lift that weight. I found my dad sitting in the

rocking chair. You know, I think he was sitting

upstairs in his bedroom preparing for the Sunday night

service. I think that was what how it

happened. But he got, I still remember

sitting on his knee and I don't know what I said.

All I knew is I said Jesus come in and it was like the weight

lift and the light came on. How does God come to little boys

in rural New Hampshire? That is a mirror.

Like we all have a story. If you're in Christ, you have a

story and your job is to tell the story because there are

people like that are valuable to God.

It takes effort. It means we have to say no to

some of the things we'd rather do.

Our elders meet and we ask ourselves 4 questions every time

we meet. I'm the old elder, the other

guys are out in their 30s and 40s, but we ask what's a

blessing you're enjoying? What's a burden you're bearing?

What's a sin you need to bring to light and who you're trying

to bring to Jesus because we feel like it's essential for us

to hold ourselves accountable to all those things.

But the bringing to Jesus part is because church life can take

all of our time. 2010, 2009, my wife and I joined a book club.

In fact, we just met on Friday night.

And these are just the lostest people, most of them, and we

fall in love with them. We read some of the craziest

books. Just read 1 about cannibalism.

It's great. Stephen King's Holly horrible,

fantastic and and part of my job, and I believe it to be the

case is and now they ask, like Dave, where do you see God in

this? That was a hard one.

I said, well, I go to church every week and we say that Jesus

gave body and blood for us. So that's about as close as I

can get. But we joined that group because

as uncomfortable as it originally was, we need to be

around people who need to hear our story.

And you know what happens in heaven?

We, we, there was one of the songs we sang here, the hosts of

heaven. We can't see the angels, but

someday we'll be hanging with them.

Like heaven is filled with joy when one more person discovers

the love and grace and forgiveness of Jesus.

And you and I get to contribute to the noise of heaven.

The mission of God demands prior.

If you're taking notes, we're talking about priority people.

By the way, the story here is just like he, he tells 222

parables so far and 1, he says, if any of you, so he just said,

he says to all the people listening, any of you who have

sheep. And then he brings the woman

into it and he's empowering the women in the room saying,

listen, just like you search for coins, you can search for

people. I love how Jesus empowers women.

Like the first woman to ever declare that God's Son has come

into flesh was Mary and her song Magnificent first human voice to

declare that Christ is resurrected is Mary Magdalene, a

woman who had demons in her before Jesus she met Jesus.

This is love. The way these stories empower us

all regular people to be on mission.

Well, then there's this last story, the longest story.

This is you can hear it coming. I would raise Baptist those

three PS right. The priority, the people and the

posture of the mission. The posture like how what's our

heart towards this? I'm going to read it as long but

hear hear it out And Jesus said a man had two sons, verse 12.

The younger of them said to his father, father, give me the the

share of the estate I have, I have coming to me.

And so he distributed the assets to them.

Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had

and traveled to a distant country where he squandered his

estate in foolish living. Some of us had kids like that.

After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that

country and he had nothing. And then he went to work for one

of the citizens of that country, who sent him into the fields to

feed pigs. He longed to eat his fill from

the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give

him anything. When he came to his senses, he

said, how many of my father's hired workers have more than

enough food? And here I am dying of hungry.

I'll get up. I'll go to my father and say to

him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your

sight I'm no longer worthy to call your son.

Make me like one of your hired workers.

And so he got up and went to his father.

But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him

and was filled with compassion. He ran and threw his arms around

his neck and kissed him. The son said to him, Father, I

sinned against heaven, and in your sight I'm no longer worthy

to call your son. But the father told his servant,

Quick, bring out the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on

his finger and and sandals on his feet, and then bring the

fatted calf and slaughter it. And let's celebrate with a

feast. Because the son of mine was dead

and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

And so they began to celebrate. And the story could stop there.

But it doesn't because we get a picture of the older brother

who's on a cruise ship. How?

Now his older son was in the field and as he came near the

house, he heard music and dancing.

And so he assumed that he summoned one of the servants,

questioning what what, what these things meant.

Your brother is here. He he told him.

And your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has

some back safe and sound. Then he became this is a The

older brother became angry and didn't want to go in, so his

father came out pleaded with him, but he replied to his

father. Look, I have been saving a

slaving many years for you and I have never disobeyed your

orders. Yet you never gave me a goat so

that I could celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came. Who has devoured your assets

with prostitutes? Who slaughtered the fattened

calf for him, his son? He said to him, You've always

been with me and everything I have is yours.

But we have to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of

yours was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.

Listen, the posture towards the mission is there's a lot of

broken, hurting, messing people out there.

And if we focus on them, it's it.

It is what the Father does and it's we.

There's no loss for us. But it does make life messy and

it does mean we're not on a cruise ship.

It's not about our comfort. It's about the rescuing of those

who are dying. This posture of the heart, I

think the reason Jesus tells the story.

If you haven't read Tim Keller's book, The Prodigal God, it's a

great deep dive into the story. Listen, it's easy for any of us

to look down our nose at sinners.

It's easy for us. We've got our life a little

Better Together and we're paying our taxes and you know, there's

some semblance of order in life because Jesus has come in.

It's easy for us to think, well, missionaries need to do the

mission, or we can outsource it to an occasion like Vacation

Bible School. Nothing wrong with missionaries

and vacation Bible school, but if you're on this boat, you are

a crew member and consider the Father's heart.

He wants to fill the home with those who were lost.

This older son had become so fixated on his comfort, he got a

little cranky because he's slave for his dad.

That's what it felt like. He he, he didn't see the

Father's blessing. In fact, he he pointed the

father finger at his father and said you never gave me a fatted

goat. He, he missed the whole heart of

God and the mission costs us and that's our posture.

So in New Hampshire there are 231 towns and we have discovered

somewhere around 2015, one of the larger churches in New

Hampshire did a study of all the towns we discovered there are 60

towns in New Hampshire that have no identifiable evangelical

witness. 60 towns. So in 2016 and 17 we started

2017 we started praying for three towns that we have people

traveling into Concord from that had no, that we could not

identify an evangelical gathering. 1 was Northfield, NH,

1 was Dunbart, New Hampshire and one was Henniker, New Hampshire.

In 2018 we meet a young couple from Bethlehem Seminary.

They're from he's from Massachusetts and he had another

buddy. They wanted to come to

Massachusetts to plant a church, but they we had lunch together

and somehow we tell me the story of the 60 towns.

The Holy Spirit used that to convict them that maybe they

need to consider New Hampshire. So 2019 they brought their

family out and they convinced that they would be graduating

2020, they would move to New Hampshire and plant a church.

They travel around several of towns and, and when they went

into Henniker, which is your quintessential New England town,

I mean, it has a College of 1000 students, 5000 residents, a

river that flows through it, old buildings.

It's just beautiful, but no identifiable evangelical

witness. And they said we're going to

come to Henniker. So in 2020, they moved and

joined our church. And with COVID and then trying

to build a core, it took a longer than we had hoped.

And there were some bumps along the way.

But a year ago this month, they launched Hope Church Henniker,

and they've already baptized new believers.

In a year, they're running around 100 people, which in

rural New England is a massive, massive blessing.

But the hardest thing for us was sending not just Elliott and his

wife, Olivia and Andrew and his wife Lyda and their kids, but we

sent three other families. And we went from like 120 people

down to like 95 people by sending them out.

We didn't want to do it. We got a lot of complaints.

Ellie was probably the best preacher we had.

He was uncomfortable. He was messing with our cruise

ship. But there are people in Henniker

that are lost and they need the church to be the Coast Guard.

Card of this is we're going with a lost car.

I, I get to, it's a dream job of mine.

I my job is with X Twain on the North Atlantic, which stretches

from Maine down to Virginia over to Pittsburgh, 13 states.

In the District of Columbia, we have 54 churches.

Last year we planted 2, one in Manhattan, one in Henniker, New

Hampshire. Both, by the way, still need

support. This fall we'll be planting a

church in St. Albans, WV, the Radiant Church.

Next year we have a guy who passes a large, excellent church

out West. He's moving back to his home

state of New Jersey to plant a church.

God is at work. And one of the questions I have

for you is, are you looking at the church here in Newtown

Square as a cruise ship or Coast Guard?

There are people that need to be rescued.

It's messy. On Easter, we'll be baptizing

Dan and Liz. I just did their wedding on on

Valentine's. Yeah.

Valentine, she started to come to church because her brother

came to Christ in 2020. She started to come to church

and she and her boyfriend living together and she comes to Christ

and wants to be baptized. But we have this weird

conversation like, you know, you're living with Dan and Dan's

not a Christian. So I had the privilege, I was

the elder assigned to meet with them and it was so cool.

And Dan was totally, totally like open.

And so about a year ago, he started attending every week,

got a Bible, got into a community group, and about three

months ago, we do communion every week.

And not that sermon said, you're either in Christ or outside of

Christ. There's no in between.

You either without Christ or without hope in the world or

you're in Christ and you have hope for your sins and death.

And Dan at that point says, I want to be in Christ.

He comes to Christ and then we have the awkward conversation.

Well, if you're in Christ, you can't be sleeping with the girl,

You know, like this whole thing. He says, well, that's, that's

good. Can we get married in a couple

weeks? That's the we can work that out.

They get baptized on Easter. It's messy.

It's been messy. That is fantastic.

I want to end with these questions.

God's mission. Let me ask you personally, who

are you trying to rescue personally?

Like who in your life are you spending time with?

It's probably messy and sharing your story and and trying to

answer their questions and trying to get them to meet other

Christians. What effort am I giving to the

mission? That's a good question.

And how what is my heart posture towards sinners?

Think of the craziest people in your life, and do you have a

heart of the father toward them or the heart of the older

brother toward them? And finally, this is a question

for the church. Where might the church in

Newtown Square be called to launch a rescue mission?

Where might there be a dark spot around where perhaps in a year

or two or three or four, you need to send a bunch of people,

not just a church planter, but like when we used to planted the

River Grace Church, we had a team of, we had a young college

graduate who could play the pelia guitar.

And we moved up from York, PA back to Concord to plant.

I've been down there for five years.

And this young college kid had been in our young adult

ministry. And I just said, hey, come spend

a year with us. And he did.

Another young couple was supposed to hike the Appalachian

Trail. He busted his knee, couldn't

hike it. And so they said, we'll come

join the church plant. We had an accountant who joined

the church plant because we needed someone to keep accurate

books. Lord knows most pastors can and

shouldn't. We had a young woman who had

been in my youth group, my first church, and she's a elementary

school teacher, and she volunteered for a year to run

our children's ministry so we could have a a vibrant

children's ministry. Perhaps God would call you to be

part of a church plant, not as a church planner, but maybe in a

strategic role, maybe just being a faithful member.

I don't know what God has to do. That's the beauty of being my

job. It's the Holy Spirit's job.

But here friends, this You look at church as a cruise ship on

your journey to paradise, or Coast Guard cutter on a mission

to rescue people. The sermon you've just listened

to is a presentation of Church Newtown Square.

To find out more about our church, check out Church

nsq.org. That's CHVRCHNS q.org.

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