Church Planting 2006

1 day ago
3 min read

The year was 2006. Skinny jeans and band shirts were coming into style, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man’s chest was playing in theaters and ipods were everywhere.

We were working at an established church in Seattle, and new church plants were beginning to spring up all over our city. After nearly a decade in a fifty year old church that seemed to only attract other Christians, Rich and I felt called by the Lord to join Acts29 in their work to reach the lost.

After a rigorous vetting process, we were given the greenlight to church plant in our suburban Seattle neighborhood. We were pregnant with our third child when Rich announced our new calling and resigned from his youth pastor role.

In private, the lead Pastor of our church wasn’t onboard with the idea of inviting anyone in the congregation to plant with us. He made it pretty clear that he wasn’t interested in sharing resources. Publicly, he put on a smiling face in front of the congregation and offered us his "unwaivering" support. His duplicity was hard to bear.

We said good-bye to Rich’s nice cushy office with his name plate on the door, to a steady paycheck, private health insurance, and to the many hundreds of people that we had ministered to over the years.

The church threw us an amazing going away party at a country club on Lake Washington. That same pastor wrote us a poem and placed it in a rather large eye-catching frame, which he read aloud to the crowds that had gathered to wish us well. It felt like a show that was more for him than for us.

We were both used to doing things alone without support. Sadly, that felt pretty normal to us. The origin of that would come up years later when we began to understand our own stories.

Rich was a master fundraiser and became known as somewhat of a guru among the Planter guys in Seattle. So, the church had a hefty bank account and a small core of people. We had a brand new baby, and a whole lot of passion to see the lost saved and the city renewed for the Gospel.

What we didn’t have, though, and what we really needed most was an understanding of our own stories.

We hadn’t really considered that what we had experienced in our families of origin, the unacknowledged dysfunction and pain that had profoundly shaped us, would follow us into church planting.

We didn’t know how foundational emotional health was in ministry.

We didn’t know that our inner emotional landscapes would be so laid bare or that the internal resources that we had developed from our families of origin would not suffice for the roller coaster of a journey that is church planting.

We didn’t know that my conflict avoidant, people-pleasing style of relating was rooted in emotional abuse in my family of origin. We didn’t know that Rich would be vulnerable to narcissistic personalities since some of those traits just felt “normal” from his home.

We didn't know that we would experience the heartbreak of betrayal by those we trusted most, or the shame that would settle on us as a result. We didn't know whether the church would ever grow past forty people or that some days would just feel so lonely.

As I look back, there was just so much that we didn’t know. We’ve grown and changed and learned. And in the words of Maya Angelou, “we’ve forgiven ourselves for what we did not know.”

We’ve spent the last several years in ministry focusing on emotional health.

We’ve looked back at own lives to understand where we have come from and how it has shaped us, where searching for safety, love and connection apart from God began for us, and why.

We’ve had many guides along the way from counselors and fellow sojourners to beloved authors and teachers. We hope to be a guide for you, to support you on your own journey.

Whether you are thriving or struggling to survive, you are not alone.

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