Chad Veach — VOUS Conference 2019: Confessions of a Church Planter

let me just see your hand if you are planning on you have yet to plant a church let me see your hand come on let's clap for these guys that are going to start a church that's amazing it's exciting raise your hand if you've planted a church in the last two to three years let me just see your hand okay so you're going to understand all my confessions this is really exciting and i'm very honored to to share with um all the church planners and if you're involved in the team or you are yourself you and your wife or your you and your husband uh planted a church we're we're just so thankful we're so grateful for you accepting the call of god in your life and the dream that god has for your region and your area and um i can tell you from experience that it is quite unbelievable to see how committed jesus is to build his church and when you plant a church one of the things that you will become very obvious is this is so much more god than i ever thought and so my confessions to you aren't going to be about what you need to do it's going to be about more how awesome god is so i'm really excited for you why don't we just clap one more time for all the church planters in the house so exciting a little bit about our story um i first had a dream to plant a church in the month of march i think it was in 2014 if i'm not mistaken and um i felt like i was i went to l.a right out of high school and lived in l.a for six years and when i got my dream to plan a church i felt like god was calling me back to los angeles so i got really excited and this was when the original ipad came out remember when they were like the vcr size i had one of those big old uh ipads and carl lentz was preaching and i sat down in my chair and i just started to type out with my finger as fast as i could because you couldn't hold it that it wasn't that small back then and i started to type out the the church that god wanted us to build and it would be maybe about a month later three weeks later that our daughter would be diagnosed uh with a rare brain condition and so our dream got put on pause right there and so it's amazing and many church planners here you've gone through that process where you thought you were gonna plan probably in a different timeline but god's ultimate will will unfold and so uh we went and spent two years with uh pastor judah and he was kind enough to in that season pay us a salary to sit you know you got a good friend when someone's going to give you money just to be around that's a great friendship so so we got paid two years just to kind of sit and hang out and um and then after that we felt like we received the green light to go to la to plan our church so we moved to la we spent one year just kind of prepping one year getting everything ready in fact when we first moved to la for the first two or three months we didn't do anything with church we just kind of set up our family and our life and our house and our kids and then we started having meetings in our house we just started inviting some people to have meetings in our house and we met every tuesday night and it grew from 11 people was the first group we had and it grew quickly and then it got cut at 82. 82 was was the limit and it wasn't about the amount of people to be honest it was just that one night on the tuesday night i looked out and i was like that guy should never be in my house that's scary that he's here and i was like looking for the security team oh wait we don't have a security team we're playing a church and so that's the next week we met somewhere else on a tuesday night so we met for nine months every tuesday night and got ready and then um as i said yesterday we planted our church on august 23rd three years ago and uh it has been an unbelievable uh thrill ride in the three years of our church's existence we've seen almost 7 000 people say yes to jesus in three years so it's a pretty remarkable thing to see god uh god move and so uh planning a church is so much fun it is so thrilling and so all my confessions are going to be positive mainly just because i hate negative is that okay so these are my five confessions and then i'm going to read a scripture to you uh confessions of a church planner here's the first confession i have for you today number one it's so much easier than i thought again i hate negatives so i'm going to be very positive you need a lot of positivity to plan a church but to be honest it's so much easier than i thought and the reason why i say that is because i really can't believe how things just start lining up and sure you're going to have obstacles sure you're going to have some resistance sure you've got to work really hard and have a lot of coffees but it's much more easier in fact one of the prophetic words that we got spoken over our lives before we moved from seattle to l.a was from judah's mom and judah's mom prophesied over our lives and over our church this is going to be easy and i was like that is a word from god yes i receive this you are not a false prophet you are a true prophet you do hear from the holy spirit but if i can just prophesy over your church plant it's going to be easy and it's going to be easy because it's going to be jesus remember jesus said this i will build my church so who's building it jesus is whose is it it's his church so as hard as you work you're not working harder than jesus as much as you build you're not building more than jesus it's easy because jesus is in it this is his commitment the local church is the hope of the world and i didn't anticipate i grew up as a pastor's kid i've been around church my whole life and i've heard so many church plant stories of like it was so hard and we got our trailer stolen and then the devil was in the team and they split the team and then we lost our finances and then our pets heads fell off and just and i'm just like i don't i don't know i think when jesus is in it you've got the wind of heaven at your back just want to encourage you as a leader never be involved with anything where you don't feel the wind of heaven at your back when you're walking in your grace zone and when you when you're doing what god's called you to do you're going to sense an ease to it you're going to sense a natural grace to it you can sense that it's god because when you do it you're like this feels right this is working this is this is god there's a grace here and when jesus is in it you're gonna have to work long hours you're gonna have to have a lot of coffees you're gonna have to put in the time you're gonna have to go uh i remember going to buy all of the sound equipment and taking our guys around and i remember helping get our trailer and i remember having to set up payroll and i remember doing all the church plant stuff but i never looked at it as like hard i always looked at it as going like this is a privilege this is an honor it is an honor to build the house of god so i want to tell you number one it's much easier than i thought write this down as a subpoint grace grows the church we get a uh we get a text after every service at our church and it gives us um a rundown of how the service went and it shows us kids and it shows us how many cars parked and it shows how many salvations were in the service and how much money came in the service and how much attendance was in the service and the title of that group text i like a good title to the group text that's the only way you're going to get me to respond to a group text if it's if it's titled and the title of our group text that we get after every service is called grace grows the church because i want to always be reminded i'm not growing this jesus is growing this and so it's easy because it's jesus right down the second confession the miracles are going to amaze you the miracles are going to amaze you you are going to be amazed by the miracles that are about to transpire it's just life is that thing that once you move god moves once you take that faith step all of a sudden now god can move a lot of times god can't move simply because he's waiting for your obedience but now that you've said yes to planet church and you've said yes to step out in faith now that you've listened to hillsong's ocean song and you are walking on water now that you are on the water don't be afraid of the wind or the waves keep your eyes on jesus and watch the miracles pour in you're going to see financial miracles you're going to see miracles of locations you're going to see miracles of life being changed like our whole church was planted off a message by jensen franklin and um remember my dream was shattered because i had to wait for two years and we were waiting to see when i could go when could my wife and i go plant this church and we really got the green light in el paso texas while pastor jensen franklin was preaching anybody loved pastor jensen pastor jensen who is the george clooney of christianity it has the greatest southern accent ever a lot of times people like where did you get your accent from and i'm like i blame jensen franklin i've always wanted to preach like jensen and so jensen was preaching this message called plop it's an unbelievable message and in the message he talked about how in the middle of the outback of australia all of a sudden it started to rain fish in the middle of the outback of australia in the middle of nowhere all of a sudden it started raining fish and he tells this story where there was a tsunami and all these fish were sucked up in the air like in asia and by the time it ended it dropped all the fish off in the outback of australia and he preached a message called plop and he said i don't care where you live i don't care how big your city is when god wants to bless you you're going to receive a plop and he talked about three plops he said there's going to be a plop of miracles a plop of resources and a plop of salvations come on church planter you ought to expect those three plops to happen in your city and your church into your region come on does anybody have faith no matter where you are then no matter your last name you don't need a church pedigree if god wants to bless you he'll make it rain all of a sudden miracles and i'm telling you from the moment we stepped out to plant a church all we experienced was pop like checks started coming in from like people i never even talked to people i never had a conversation from i'll never forget you know when we when you start a church your home address is the church address so you have to sift through your own personal mail and the church mail and so in fact i'll never forget one of our first sundays i forgot to take off our home address from the church website and so people started to show up at our house for church on sunday morning and so but we had it on our website because we needed the checks to come in and i'll never forget when a check from joyce meyer showed up at my doorstep for an absurd amount of money i'll never forget when a check from joel osteen showed up at my house for an absurd i'll never forget when a check from steven for i never talked to pastor joel i never told joyce meyer i never had a conversation and from time and time again miracle resource miracle money started to show up and it only happened because we moved god started to talk to people god started to put it on their heart you're going to experience miracle after miracle like that's all you're gonna experience if i were you and you're starting a church you should just get ready what miracle am i gonna see this week what door what relationship all of a sudden you start meeting people you start having relationship with people i just think god's looking for people that are willing to do the ridiculous so they can see the miraculous planning a church is a ridiculous thing you got no money you don't even have a team we're not even that good at what we do but we're stepping out in faith with a dream with a call and god said you walk on water like that and trust me and i'll bring a miracle your way i'll plop the miracle i'll plop the resource and i'll plop the salvations it's amazing some of the people that you're going to see come to find jesus in your church they would have never come to find faith unless you started this church they would have never come to know the good news and the gospel of jesus had you stepped out and planted this church people's lives people's legacies people's children are gonna get changed because of your yes because of your obedience and you ought to just get get excited and say what miracle are we gonna experience it's not limited to the miracle of money it is greater it is gonna be the miracle of salvation come on put your hands together and thank god in advance i gotta confess get ready for the miracle in fact write this down as a sub-point he's more committed to building this than you are just get you're going to see it the miracles only happen because god takes our weakness and he shows off in his strength god takes our obedience and he breathes on it to do a god-size work just using your your simple obedience number three here's the third act or the third confession that i want to tell you just wait to see who he sends you just wait to see who he sends you the greatest resource in church planning is not money someone could buy you a truck a trailer or all your kids equipment that is not the greatest blessing the greatest blessing that you're going to experience is the people that he sends your way god's about to send people that love you that are for you that believe in your dream that believe in your call the greatest resource in all of life is relationship and god's about to hook you up with relationships you never imagined you never thought god would send people to hold up your arms you never thought god would send people to watch your kids you never thought god would send people to lead worship for your church you never thought god would send somebody to help run the church for you but god's about to tug on hearts god's about to wake people up in the middle of the night god's about to talk to somebody in a church service and put you on their heart come on is anybody thankful that god's sending people your way come on get faith for it right now you got to get some expectation he's sending people your way never forget when we started our church i felt like a little bit of wisdom a lot a bit of god a little bit of wisdom because i i had heard that if you know i was a youth pastor for 15 years and so they say that if you take your youth team to go plant a church they'll turn on you because they knew you in one season and knew you in one context and it's hard for them to make the jump and the adjustment in the new context they often say that if you take your youth team to start a church it's like taking a a youth team on a mission trip all the devils come out and so and so i had heard that before and above that the wisdom i heard god say you don't get to do any of the recruiting let me recruit your team because if you recruit people to come to la from seattle you'll be responsible for them you'll have to clothe them you have to feed them you have to entertain them you'll have to take care of them so you let me talk to people so again i told you i was at pastor judas but the church i was at before that i was there for pretty much 10 years 10 years as the youth pastor so i had a whole generation of kids that came up and i also ran the interns so i had a lot of loyalty because we invested our lives into youth and so when i went up to judas church for two years i really remember the way you leave something determines the way you start something so i knew i had to leave really well from this church to get to judas but not just was i concerned about judas i knew something bigger was in my heart and on my life so i really had a lot of integrity and was very careful when i was at judas church after two years when pastor jensen preached the message and i felt like i got the green light i called my old senior pastor on the phone and i said hey i want you to be the the first to hear from me julia and i feel the green light because he knew what was in our heart before julia and i felt like we got the green light and we're called by god to go to la to start this church he said oh man that's exciting that's awesome he really championed us and i said hey i want to i just want to give you a heads up i respect you way too much and i loved my 10 years at your church i want to vow to you a promise i will not speak to any person at your church or on your staff about what we're about to do i will not recruit any person in your church or on your staff to come with us so i just want you to know this from me and hear this from me i'm not talking to anybody i really felt very serious about this so i made that phone call we hung up the phone we announced on instagram we're gonna go start a church some people text some congratulations but would you believe that once we started in motion because remember god can't move until you move once we started in motion and moved to l.a 12 staff members at our old church resigned their positions and moved down to los angeles to help build this church because he's about to send you people and he's going to send you people you never thought would come he'll talk to people when you don't have to talk to him god is more committed to building this than you are so god is building your team above you god is still talking to people about your church we still have people we just had a couple move and resigned there were the youth pastors at a church in texas and they just moved to los angeles last week and they felt called by god to move to l.a to help build our church i'm still in the business of waiting on god and letting god recruit because i know when he sends people i don't have to clothe them feed them or entertain them they are here on mandate from heaven and they're being obedient to the holy spirit come on somebody say amen he's going to send you people the question is not if god's going to send you people the question is if are you big enough and secure enough to handle the talent that comes your way are you big enough to make room at the table for someone to sit there that might not look like everybody talk like everybody or act like everybody remember god's not going to send just you to the table he's going to send someone with a different skill set he might send someone with a different flavor and the only test of them being allowed at the table is if they're willing to receive a heart transformation let me say it again the only test is not how good they were at their old church it's not the skill that brings the resource the only test is can they lean in and receive your dna and your culture and have a heart transformation if they can't receive a heart transformation bless their old work and their old life and who they used to be but don't make a seat for them at the table somebody say amen god wants to send people to your team and send people to your church they're going to sit there and go we feel called to this house and we want to receive the dna and the culture and the mandate that is on this church somebody say amen the fourth one anybody being encouraged by this the fourth one write down number four these are confessions of a church planner number four i must confess your systems are set up to deliver the results you're getting your systems are set up your systems are designed your systems are set up to deliver the results you're getting so if you don't like the results at your church plant all you are saying is you don't like the systems of your church plan if you don't like the results on your team or your baptisms or salvations it is not a dream or vision problem it is not an anointing or faith problem it is quite simply practically a systems problem now when we planted our church we were unapologetic we said we want to be like two other churches anybody like having church heroes like churches you want to be like like don't you think vue is the most creative church you've ever encountered come on make some noise for vu and their creativity like they're just the most creative church i've ever seen in my life that's unbelievable but when we started our church we went with hs we wanted to be like two churches in the world hillsong and highlands hillsong for culture nobody builds culture better than pastor brian and i love his voice mate you know when he talks like this yeah good on you so i wanted to be like hillsong because i love their culture and i wanted to be like highlands because i love pastor chris's systems i got to confess that the hardest part of playing a church in my opinion was working the system cracking the culture code is one thing but cracking your system code is a whole nother level and you got to spend time developing this how do people become a volunteer at your church how does one get elevated at your church what does it look like for people to get into a connect group at your church how does someone get baptized at your church it is the system i was really afraid when i when i started the church in this regard that they say people that preach and at the time of my life i was traveling out of judas church and preaching they say preachers build awful churches and so not that i saw myself as a preacher but i felt like i was being pegged as a preacher and i heard someone say that and i was like oh gosh am i gonna build a bad church like is that is that gonna is that gonna be me and so i really tried to focus a lot of my attention to my energy on really building the system because i knew if i could build the system the system and the culture i'm telling you church planner if you have the right culture and the right system that combination it will unleash the greatest church that you could ever dream of you got to get your culture down and your system nailed down and all of a sudden i always think the test of a church planner is would you come to this church like i want to build a church where it's like i like this so much i would come here and some you're like i would never attend my church i'm only there because i have to be there no no get your culture down and get your systems down and all of a sudden it's going to soar it's going to take off again god will send you resources one of the greatest blessings we had at zoe is right here in the front row josh anderson who by the way is getting ready this september he's planted church in denver colorado make some noise come on you're gonna be louder than that church planters he's planned one come on and god sent us literally showed up at our doorstep a blessing from god josh who is a master at systems it's not really my skill set that's a lot of times god will send you your weakness you got to recognize this is a blessing because i'm not that good at this and i think god loves our church enough he's so committed to building this thing that he sent us my weakness remember to every leader there is a dark side and god's so good he'll probably send what you're not that good at not because it's pointing at you it's because he just loves his house and he wants his house to be filled with resource remember the greatest blessing that he sends you is not a check it's a person and god blessed us with josh who's a master of systems and helped tweak our systems and work our systems why because your systems are set up to deliver the results you're getting if you've hit a lid and you're stuck i'll bet you it's not faith i bet you it's not giving i'll bet you a system and you've got the hardest part of church is just matching the system for the season you're in what do we need to change about the system so we can raise the level of the lid and we can grow remember church is just a dance church goes from plateau to grow plateau to grow plateau to grow and every time you plateau it is always a result of system and so i want to confess to you to me in my opinion the heart hardest part of playing a church it was not the money it was not the team it was not the culture it was the system get people around you that can help develop and work the strategy and the system because it's going to bless every person that comes to your church somebody say amen come on you can clap for that here's the fifth and the last confession these are my confessions i feel like usher right there okay number five the church is you you are the church the church is you you are the church i have to confess to you what you probably already know but let me remind you everything about your church is you you are the church it takes on your personality it takes on your values remember culture is not what we say culture is what we do so you can sit at a starbucks and come up with your 10 values for your church but if you don't live out those values those are just words on a wall that is not the dna of your house you are the church so if i were you more than working on the church i would work on you because if you want your church to pray you've got to pray if you want your church to be generous it will never be more generous than you if you want your church to have a bunch of faith and have the atmosphere of faith well then you better become a faith person if you want people to be kind and loving and gracious they will never be kind and loving and gracious unless you're kind and loving and gracious remember as preachers and leaders and teachers you teach what you know you reproduce who you are your church is you so if you're like i don't like my church what you're saying is i don't like me because the church is you and so you got to develop you you've got to go under construction and really determine what are the things that are really me what is i just i want to encourage somebody don't put up on a wall something you're not don't say you value it if you don't value it you know what your values are because it's you it's how you live your life it's how you see the world and guess what if god didn't want it to be that way he wouldn't have called you but there's something about you there's something that's on you there's something unique about the way you see church and the way you see the city that god wants you to build a house and build a church that has your culture and your vision and your values and your faith so it's not a bad thing that the church is you it's a good thing so identify who you are identify what you do so for me in fact i found this from louis giglio when we started our church i'll never forget about five six years into passion city pastor louie told me that for the first time after five five or six years in they had their volunteer conference he finally put out their values i said wait a second you're five six years in and you're just now like did you not develop them earlier like why five six years in you just now put out your values he said i knew for the first five or six years we were gonna feel our way and land eventually on what really is this church about he said so i knew in year one we probably don't know that all the way year two we're still feeling our way into what is the mandate on this house year three we're still under construction and developing our voice right now we might be the echo of a hillsong or a highlands but pretty soon we're gonna be a megaphone of the mandate that's on our house so i'm gonna slowly back into what i know that i know that i know for zoe right now we haven't released our values because i only know about four things that i know for sure we're a faith church we're a generous church we're a kind church and that's we're a coffee church that's all i got that's where we're at right because right now that's that's where i'm at that's who i am and so you are the church so if you know how to love people and make people feel welcome your church will love people and make people feel welcome because they're you it's amazing like i was in seattle and i watched the mars hill thing with pastor mark driscoll who i have such a tremendous respect for i have such a tremendous respect for what he did and read the books and i watched this whole thing happen where what ended up taking him down in seattle wasn't necessarily things that he said from the pulpit it was what he reproduced in his people because it's it's who he was at the time it's not who he is now it's not who he is in this season of his life but it's who he was in that season of his life you teach what you know you reproduce who you are your church will be a reflection of your life your church will be a reflection of your vision and your values so i say for us let's go under construction let's let the holy spirit really do a mighty work in our life amen i say all that to say to read a scripture to you ephesians chapter 3 verse 20. ephesians 3 20 and i want this to be a verse for every church plant that is in this house this is ephesians 3 20 now to him who is able to do anybody believe he's able to do it come on anybody believe he's able to do it today now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think according to the power at work where is it working within us within us to him be the glory in the church plan and in christ jesus throughout all generations forever and ever amen now unto him who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly come on i'm telling you church planter he's going to do far more than you could ever ask he's going to do far more than you could ever think and i promise you he's going to do more than you could ever imagine i never imagined what's happening in our church i didn't get this far in my dream that little old school vcr ipad i didn't type that stuff out with one finger i never saw what we're doing right now i never had a moment it's bigger than i asked it's bigger than i thought and it's bigger than i imagined all the praise be to god in the house all the praise not be the team or the staff or the preacher all the praise be to god in the church come on somebody praise him right now it's his church he's building it he's committed to it god's gonna do it so get ready because we're planting churches and i don't care if you're a city small or big in the midwest the northeast no matter where you're planting it's the same gospel get up and preach about jesus and you're gonna see life's changed he might walk off the stage and go that's the worst message i've ever preached it was god still used it we'll never know how or why we'll just know this is the way he's chosen to reach humanity it's through churches the local church is the hope of the world and that's why he's using it that's why he's building it that's why your vision does matter that's why your life does matter so please we only have one life we only get to do this one time please do this to the best of your ability please live with an ephesians 3 20 conviction god's go just believe it he's for me he's not against me god's going to do the big thing the mighty thing the god thing it's going to plop the miracle is going to plop the resource is going to plop the salvation is going to plop amen come on lift a hand to heaven jesus i thank you for every church that is here every church planter that's in the house and god we confess it's going to be easier than we thought god we confess we're going to be amazed by who you send god we confess we are unbelievably blown away by your commitment to build your church so right now god give us the systems we need give us the culture we need lord do a mighty work in us because we know you've called us to build this house so lord we thank you lord all the praise all the honor all the glory be to you and the church we love you more than anything else in jesus name and we all said together come on let's give a resounding praise to jesus today let's really thank god for his power and his might

Channel: VOUS Church

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Keywords: vous, vous church, vous conference, rich wilkerson jr, sermon, conference, miami, no one else is coming, faith, church, rejection, evangelism, people, love, Future, 2020, 2019, Chad Veach, Chad, Veach, Confessions, confession, Church planter

Id: vveoM9VAwkc

Length: 34min 39sec (2079 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 26 2019