Paul Stewart

Apple Trees, Small Groups & Church Planting

 

The fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, but another tree. 

The fruit of a small group is not a new Christian, but another group. 

The fruit of a church is not new groups, but a new church.

Thankful

We received over $4500 in our Advent offering this weekend!!! 

So proud of our Gateway Church family. 

This was, I believe, a benchmark moment in the life of our church and represents the kind of sacrificial love our young church has for the 'poor, the widows, and the orphans' of our world. 

May it always be so.

What if the Church Marketed Like a Hipster Beer?

Many of you are probably familiar with the viral video What if Starbucks Marketed Like the Church? 

But today I ran across this article on CNN that caused me to wonder, what if the Church marketed like a hipster beer?

In the late 1970s Pabst Blue Ribbon was moving about 20 million barrels of beer per year, but by 2001 that number had plummeted to less than 1 million. The company only had a fraction of the advertising budget of Anheuser-Busch.

But then Pabst started to see a huge increase with the hipster crowd in Portland, OR. The reason: they liked the beer because it did not have a lot of advertising behind it.

"People don't like to be shouted at," says Jack Anderson, CEO of brand design firm Hornall Anderson, which works with beer companies. "It's more authentic and cooler if you discover it or you're told by a friend."

Pabst still does minimal marketing, which continues to be part of its allure.

As a church planter, I received a lot of pressure to spend money on advertising. It seems that most of the successful church plants of the past decade have spent thousands of dollars on direct mail or television/radio advertisements.

But early on we determined to focus on word-of-mouth marketing. We did no traditional advertising, believing our audience would be skeptical of someone selling them something.

Instead we served at music and arts festivals, worked in local coffee shops, left fliers in food courts, bars and restaurants and built relationships through social networking. We wanted to create buzz through face-to-face interactions, real conversations and simply by serving our community.

Who knows, maybe your lack of an advertising budget is a blessing in disguise.

Momentum

Church planting really boils down to one thing: momentum. When you have it you must capitalize on it. When you don't, more than anything, you have to focus on getting it back.

Momentum is created. It does not randomly occur. A leader's number one job is to build, harness, maintain and restore momentum.

In March, we began forming a launch team with just a handful of people in our living room, dreaming and praying about a new kind of church in the heart of the city. There was momentum at those first few meetings, but soon it was apparent that we needed to do more than just cast vision for the future - we had to give people a glimpse. We had to start serving, building relationships and praying together within our city.

After launching with over 200 people we had a lot of momentum - but even that waned quickly. Volunteers got tired, attendance leveled off and even our Sunday morning gatherings started to seem a bit mundane (after just a couple of months!). We had to stop talking about bringing renewal to the city and get out and do it.

We announced a Habitat for Humanity service project and over one third of our church showed up to work for eight hours on a freezing cold Saturday. On Sunday the energy in the room was palpable. 

We had to teach about the importance of service and outreach to build momentum, we had to get out and actually serve in order to maintain momentum, and we had to openly celebrate the event in order harness the momentum for the future. 

What are you doing to create momentum within your organization?

Thank God for Church Finances

Yesterday my wife and I spent the day working on church finances. Not my favorite part of the job. Sorting through receipts, reconciling bank statements, organizing contribution records, and creating budgets… it can all be a bit stressful for me. This is partially due to my complete lack of analytical thinking ability. But, if I’m honest with myself, it is also because sitting down and crunching the numbers is a strenuous exercise in faith.

Don’t get me wrong, starting a church from scratch requires a lot of faith, but I think that a part of me wanted to believe that once we got started the finances would just be there. I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. I wouldn’t need so much faith.

But just as I felt a massive headache coming on Jessica handed me a list of all the people, churches and organizations that have partnered with us over the past year to help launch The Gateway Church.

Sometimes looking in the rear-view mirror is the best way to propel your faith into the future. Even in the midst of uncertainty and fear, it is better to stop and thank God for his enduring faithfulness before inundating him with prayer requests for the future.

So I wanted to take a minute and thank a few people publicly.

• GOD - I am more aware then ever that this is your mission, this is your dream, and you’ve simply asked us to go along for the ride. Thank you so much for the invitation!

• My Wife - The only person who works harder than a church-planter is the spouse of a church-planter. Thank you for opening up our home for 5 months of launch team meetings, making everything run so smoothly behind-the-scenes, raising three amazing kids, and most of all putting up with me! You are the simply the best. 

• Dave Beroth and the people of Des Moines First Assembly - Thank you for your incredible vision and generosity. We wouldn’t be here without you!

• Tom Jacobs and the Iowa Ministry Network - Thank you for encouraging, inspiring and resourcing the local church.

• Steve Pike and the Church Multiplication Network - I love your vision to multiply churches across the nation. We are honored to be a part of this network!

• Rod Carlson and the people of Oak Hills Church - The Gateway has OHC in its DNA. Thank you for investing in a kid right out of Bible College and giving him the chance to grow, even when it meant leaving the nest.

• Mark Batterson - Its hard to describe the influence you have had on my life through your books and blog and I am so incredibly thankful for your support.

• Tory Farina and the people of High Point Church - for being a church-plant that invests in church-planters.

• John Caswell, Dick Hardy, Justin Mack, Jeff Wendt, Steve Goold, Eric Sheldahl, Gary Meyer, Dave Russell, Jeff Ostrander, Dave Kutcher, Mark Mather, Dan Moeckl, Ed Ashby and all of my friends and family for your prayers and support.

• To all of the pastors and churches in Iowa and Minnesota who contributed - Josh Singleton, Josh Potter, Todd Jones, Russell Kinney, Mark Olson, Eldon Assembly of God… thank you!

• To all my blogging friends: Ben Arment, Scott Hodge, Brad Leach, Chilly Chilton, Jeff Leake, Justin Wise, Steven Brewster  - You have all been such an inspiration to me. Thank you for all of your encouragement and support!

• Our Family - we are SO blessed to have both my parents and Jessica’s parents in our church. We could not have done this without you!

• Our Staff - to the Kretzu’s for moving half-way across the country to take such a huge step of faith with us and to Chelsea for helping to make The Gateway Kids a reality. We are so glad to be on this journey with you!

• The Launch Team - I can’t imagine a better group of people in the world to start a church with. Thanks for your flexibility, your faith, and your incredible passion to reach this city.

Finally I’d like to thank all of the readers of this blog. Thanks for taking this journey with me, for praying for me, and for all your comments, emails and letters of encouragement. I am so grateful.

What's in a Name?

I was recently asked why we chose the name "The Gateway Church" which is a great question and not something I've ever really articulated before. 

Basically we chose the name for three major reasons...

• First, our church is located in the Western Gateway Neighborhood downtown Des Moines. We are near the Gateway Park, Gateway Market and the Gateway Lofts. Along with all of the restored buildings, new restaurants and cultural festivals we want to be part of the fabric of this emerging neighborhood. 

• Second, Jesus refers to himself as a "Gate" or the "Gateway" to life (Matthew 7:14; John 10). We want to be a place where people who are far from God can come and meet the risen Christ and enter into His abundant, eternal life. 

• Finally, we want to be a "Gateway" bringing people together from all over the city. A mosaic of people with different racial, religious, economic, generational and political backgrounds coming together to make a positive difference in Des Moines and around the world. We believe "The Gateway" can and will be a place where people with a lot of differences can come to learn from the ancient scriptures as well as from one another. 

So the next question might be why "The" Gateway Church. That's easy, because gatewaychurch.com was already taken by a terrific church in Austin, TX (We are still in negotiations over the twitter name). 

Some Photos

     

The Grand Opening

Yesterday was a good day.

It was the culmination of a six-month journey we’ve been on to start a brand new church from scratch. We spent most of that time meeting with a handful of people in our living room dreaming and praying about a new kind of church in the heart of the city.

Our launch team worked hard to immediately begin serving together and to build relationships downtown Des Moines. Our goal was to create a positive image and buzz in the city in preparation for our opening day.

Yesterday we launched with 204 people at our Grand Opening service. People from all over the city, from all walks of life, who had heard about us in all kinds of different ways - outreach events, newspaper articles, websites, twitter, friends and family.

But yesterday was just the beginning.

Those of us who are starting this church hope to continually grow in loving God, loving others and our world. 

Our prayer is that as this new church comes together we will begin to embody the vision and the values the Lord has placed on our hearts. That we would become a life-giving community engaging in God’s life-changing truth and committed to life-long spiritual growth. A church committed to worship and beauty - unleashing the creativity inside the human spirit to change the world. That more and more people will be drawn in by our love, and begin their own journey toward loving God and loving people. And, thus, we will join God’s renewal one life at a time.

How Does a Church Use Social Media?

The good people of Lava Row, a social media consulting firm here in Des Moines, stopped by the Village Bean today during our "great coffee purchase" (more on that later). They asked me to describe how we've used social media to launch The Gateway Church.

Here's how I responded

Special thanks to Nathan and Hillary for stopping by!

The Paper

Yesterday the Des Moines Register ran a nice piece on me and The Gateway Church in their "Get to Know" column. Check it!