Church Planting with Kingdom Vision

we want to just carve out some time to talk to pastor vance on the podcast and i want to hit one topic that really has been life-changing for me on my journey as a church planter and that's the topic of the kingdom of god how does the kingdom of god work together with church planting how does the kingdom influence church planting kingdom framework stuff like that that i've heard you just really impart into planters throughout your journey family multiplication restoration i'm d'hoddy lewis join me noah odom and haydn radner as we come to you from atlanta st louis and las vegas as we seek to add value to your church planning journey we'll have real-time authentic conversations that are relevant to the life of the church planner and pastor join us as we hear from leaders of this movement from across north america and discover what it really takes to plant churches everywhere for everyone hey welcome everybody to the we are send network podcast pastor hayden here from walk church in las vegas nevada and i'm also here with come on the man himself dr dahadi lewis blueprint church in atlanta georgia always with noah odom from st louis august gate church and today we have a special guest who actually is my pastor our sending church pastor of walk church in las vegas senior pastor of hope church pastor vance pitman in the house today what an honor it is to have you your family for me but you're you're so well known to so many that watch this that lean in that listen we're actually here in nashville for sbc 21 the annual meeting and we want to just carve out some time to talk to pastor vance on the podcast and i want to hit one topic that really has been life-changing for me on my journey as a church planter and that's the topic of the kingdom of god how does the kingdom of god work together with church planting how does the kingdom influence church planning kingdom framework stuff like that that i've heard you just really impart into planters throughout your journey when you think about kingdom of god in church planning where does your mind go pastor vance it actually backs up one step before that because for me the whole journey of the kingdom was born out of my own personal journey of a pursuit of just christ's likeness in my life i had kind of gone through a season of ministry for about 10 years and up until that moment if you'd asked me what's the primary call on your life i'd have said ministry and it was through a period of brokenness that god showed me the primary call was really not ministry it's intimacy ministry is what he does out of the overflow of intimacy and in that brokenness a guy began to disciple me and taught me to pursue christ's life in the gospels in my devotional time not as exclusively in the gospels obviously but to rhythmically build in this pattern of pursuing christ's life in the gospels and so i was doing that one morning and came to luke 4 verse 43 where jesus in response to the disciples in the crowd seeking after him said i must preach the kingdom of god to the other cities also for i was sent for this purpose and that morning when i read it i saw something in jesus that wasn't in me this passion for other cities and this passion for the kingdom because up until that point in my life as a christian and a pastor it was all about a church wow like if the church was good i was good if we had good attendance decisions offerings i didn't think about the city and i sure didn't think about the kingdom it was just the church that was my metric of success and so i saw this thing in jesus that wasn't in me and that's where my whole journey started was a pursuit of just something in me that didn't look like jesus and got my wife we prayed said lord yes and you know the story the rest of the story is that we said yes thinking we're going to go to some city overseas and god orchestrated the events through pastor johnny hunt first baptist woodstock to invite us on this church planting journey in las vegas 20 years ago and really it was that pursuit of christ and seeing his passion that word i must it in the greek language it means it's absolutely necessary jesus didn't say i might he didn't say maybe it was the passion of his life to engage in the expansion of the kingdom and for 20 years now that's really shaped the trajectory of my life this pursuit of kingdom reality rooted in christ's likeness that's changed my life and it's really something that unfortunately in a lot of the churches in north america we don't even think about the kingdom and yet it's referenced 100 times in 16 different books of the new testament one of them is jesus saying seek first the kingdom it wasn't a suggestion to put it in your top ten list it was an imperative that everything should revolve around the kingdom and it really changed my life yeah so how would you define kingdom you know how would you kind of pax that because that's a word that many times people talk about but very few kind of put definition for sure yeah and we've kind of had a definition that's been a work in progress through the through the years in vegas and we i still say that because i leave room to change it but now for probably 10 12 years it's been the same but the way we define the kingdom is god's sovereign activity in the world resulting in people being in right relationship with himself the kingdom is the big picture of what god is doing locally and globally we know this but from the beginning of the bible god is on this mission this eternal redemptive mission of redeeming to himself a people from every tribe tongue people nation we read the end of the story in revelation when jesus in in revelation 5 they look at jesus and say you're worthy to take the book and to break its seals for you were slain and purchased for god with your blood men from every tribe tongue people and nation the problem is we stop there we don't read the next phrase the next phrase says and you made them to be a kingdom wow meaning what's eternal what what eternity is is the eternal reign of this diverse kingdom from every tribe tongue people nation with king jesus ruling and reigning and what that means is every local church now is simply a temporary tool established by jesus for the expansion of the kingdom the end game's not the church it's the kingdom and what i'm afraid we're doing today is spending all of our time energy effort and resource on the tool when the real deal is the expansion of the kingdom jesus said i'll build my church you leverage that for the sake of expansion of the kingdom in cities and nations all over the world so the kingdom is the big picture of what god's doing in the world redeeming a people to himself and it's why god births a church most churches have a missions department i think we should crucify the s there's not missions there's the mission which is the eternal redemptive mission of god and the local church doesn't do missions the local church is born for the mission which is local and global it's the big picture of what god's doing that's so good one of the things about about kingdom is you have to care more than just about your church and i've seen that in your ministry every young guy that i talk to on the west coast i feel like has a connection to you now haydn he can't stop talking about you loves you you're obviously a hero that's mutual uh and then last night i had dinner with the planter i had i know but first time we've ever sat down and he he spoke about you as well and i don't know if you know this but today is the five year anniversary of when we met at sbc five years ago and you gave me your phone number and he said text me anytime i did it and you're the only leader that did that with me that actually responded to the text message the first time i sent it so i just want to say like i respect that in you i've seen that tell me why that's a part of your heart why you see pouring into other leaders is so essential for this thing of kingdom because the kingdom is bigger than any one of us and it's bigger than any one church one church cannot reach a city by itself one church can't reach a region by itself for example i live in las vegas have for 20 years when we started our church we broke the thousand barrier and weekend attendance in our three and a half years if we to continue to grow at that trajectory by 2035 we would have averaged 35 000 people in weekend attendance which would have made us one of the fastest growing largest churches on the continent of north america however by 2035 there would be three and a half million people projected to live in las vegas which means we could be the fastest growing church in our city one of the largest in our country and not penetrate the lostness of our own city by even one percent wow that can't be kingdom success so here's what we realize if we reproduce and multiply five churches every five years that reproduce and multiply five churches every five years and those churches reach 250 people with the gospel by 2035 we can reach two and a half million people for christ that's kingdom expansion it's awesome and that's the metric when jesus returns it's not going to be about how many people we had on sunday listening to us preach it's going to be about the mission of making disciples locally and globally which is the expansion of his kingdom and tribes tongues peoples and nations all over the world so when you realize one church can't do it by itself and one leader and here's the other side of that i only have a window like if i want to have lasting kingdom impact for 20 years i've been able to be somewhat of the face of planting in las vegas but that window's closing and that's why i'm so thankful for a guy like hayden that god's raised up and we've had this conversation that's a man you're the future face of church planting in las vegas that's got to be who you are because what god is doing in the expansion of his kingdom is bigger than any one of us and it's bigger than our lives and when god births a church he always has something bigger and let's let's talk about that because as we talk about the the kingdom and specifically church planting how does having a kingdom view impact like your year one how do you when as you're going in you're talking to church planters and they're planting a church them having a kingdom mindset as they're planting the church because they're thinking about surviving is it going to make it all the you know all those intentions so how would you i'll give you three i'll give you three with maybe an added fourth but uh first there has to be a um a passion to serve the city i believe when the kingdom expands in a city it means more than more people go to church it means the city becomes a better place to live what happens too often in north american context of church planting is they go in the first thing we do is try to find a place to meet we try to get us a storefront a school a movie theater we buy our sleek pulpit we spend all our money designing this slick mail out to let everybody come to our church service when that's really a backwards missiology in the new testament it starts with a city and so you have to begin to think not like a pastor of a church but a missionary in a city and look for domains in the city to begin to engage so at hope we're involved in foster care we're involved in the fight against human trafficking we're involved in the community community service through the criminal justice system process we're involved in the fight against homelessness and poverty in our city we're involved in the educational domain we're involved in crim social justice issues reconciliation issues all of those not because we're trying to be something that we're not supposed to be but because as the missionary in me i'm the look for ways to serve the city so the planter needs to go not thinking i'm the pastor of a church i'm planting but i'm a missionary that's been planted in this city to think about the expansion of the kingdom through domain so that's one the second one is there has to be a plan to multiply the church i just said one church can't reach a city by itself so you need a plant pregnant not saying one day maybe we'll plant no you plant with the expectation we are going to reproduce and multiply not just once not just twice but we're going to we're going to leverage everything we are so from the very beginning our very first membership process we ran at hope i told the people in that first 35 group 35 people in that first membership class if you join hope church we're going to do everything we can to talk you into leaving because from the beginning i wanted them to know if you think kingdom as a church the church exists to introduce people to king jesus disciple them in kingdom living and then send them out for the expansion of the kingdom so if you begin to think about uh if you start that way you have a plan to multiply the church another thing is there has to be um the the the pattern of multicultural ministry if you're going to think um kingdom in a city you have to understand that the church should be a reflection of the community if the church that i've planted does not look like the city i've planted it in there's a gospel problem with what i'm doing in my city because the gospel is no respecter of persons if the church doesn't look like the community then i've started not thinking city i've started thinking church and i've created a homogenous culture that's attracted people like me but if you start with a city like paul did in philippi you wind up with lydia you wind up with a jailer you wind up with a demon-possessed girl the church looks like the community and the last thing i would say is there has to be global engagement a lot of times church planners think about missions like that's what we do when we can afford it that's what we can do when we get that's like saying i'm going to have kids when i can afford it if that's what you say let me tell you what you're never doing you're never having kids right so you start from the beginning understanding everything god's doing locally he's birthed to be a part of what he's doing globally so like we took our first international mission team overseas uh three months after we launched our public worship service so we we were meeting for three months but we're already taking teams overseas engaging in the big picture of what god's doing so if you're going to think kingdom from the beginning those are four things that i would say have to be in place that's good yeah i love all those topics and what's been so good is that the stuff that pastor vance is kicking right now is not theory but is stuff you're practicing stuff that you've lived out for the past 20 years if this was like year one of church planning and you said all this but we'll see how it works out um but fast forward now two decades and you're able to celebrate so much fruit and not just locally but but globally and in response to the king of the kingdom and i love that maybe just sharing the last few minutes that we have for this episode some of the vision for what's next this has been a milestone year for you hitting that 20-year mark and i think it'd be cool to even do a part two of this episode because i just want to hear about i want to look backwards and talk about what you learned along those 20 but even think what's the king speaking to you in this next kingdom season probably the biggest dream yeah from a church planting our church planting strategy that's in our hearts is in 2015 i you know had been in vegas we we we're on the campus that we're in now and i kind of thought okay what's next for me because 15 years we've been there and i thought is this are we is god done with us here and in 2015 god really solidified a life call to the city of las vegas for us and i know that i'm where god's placed my family and so we began to really seek the lord about what that looks like and what god really birthed in our hearts from a church planting standpoint is 75 million people live in the western united states um 95 of that 75 million are non-christian wow about 60 percent of them are in the none category in the census meaning they don't declare any faith affiliation at all so 95 non-christian 60 non-religious 75 million people in the mountain and pacific time zones if you look at it numerically it makes it the fourth largest numerical mission field on planet earth wow only china india and indonesia have more lost people living within their borders as a nation only china indian indonesia have more lost people than the united states of america and 40 of the lost population of the united states of america is in the mountain and pacific time zones so we thought okay god what do you want us to do to reach the west because when we went to las vegas from the beginning with this kingdom mindset it was las vegas the west and the world god how do we reach the west and god birthed in our hearts this this idea this this dream to plant 300 churches that would reproduce and multiply 10 times each to give us 3 000 new churches in the west we just launched our 71st so we're 71 church plants towards the 300. 300 church plants multiply 10 times each 3 000 churches if each of those churches reach 250 people for christ that's 750 000 people that's one percent of the 75 million people that live in the mountain pacific time zone we can't create movement we can obey the principles of multiplication so we're going to put in a plan to obey the principles of multiplication and trust god for movement if the lord allows for that and we see that one percent and that one percent reproduces that in the next 15 years that one percent 3 000 churches becomes 30 000 churches now think about that we're here sbc sbc boasts 45 000 churches and two generations of multiplication we could have 30 000 churches and arguably the most unchurched portion of our country yeah and god could use that for a sweeping movement back across america here's why i say that if you study movement globally movement always happens in a pre-christian context the west is the last pre-christian context left in america new england the northeast largely lost people but it's post-christian the bible belt what i like to call now evangelical catholicism is rapidly becoming post-christian the west is the only portion of america that has not seen great awakenings it's not seen the great revivals it's largely pre-christian are they unreached no they have access but most of them have never been exposed to the gospel they've never been to a church never had a gospel conversation if there's hope for a movement of god in america again it's the western united states so we've asked god to give us in our lifetime this one percent vision as the seed to what could become movement for the glory of god and seeing a movement that would sweep our nation and then touch the nations again for his glory how about that that's really exciting and just as a person wow who's grown up in california i was raised in the los angeles area and just i don't remember ever having a christian conversation you know in my life so i wasn't like against god or anything it just wasn't a theme you know so hearing that heart hearing that vision really touches my heart and really excited about well my neighbor when i moved to las vegas two doors down from me we invited them to our home for an easter gathering and she's a college graduate in america husband's in the military and she honestly had no idea easter had anything to do with christianity of the church wow she didn't know she knew a bunny and eggs she had i mean it wasn't she wasn't against it yeah nobody had ever told her that easter was a christian celebration she had no clue that it was um and that's the west i love that vision you know st louis is called the gateway to the west i would love to come on pray that that happens and say lord let saint louis be the gateway from the west revival comes through st louis to the rest of the country yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna latch on my wagon to that vision man i love that man that's so good that's major that's awesome well this has been a jam-packed episode of the we are send network podcast i know that i'm going to have to revisit this and some of this i've even heard before but it's just so fresh to hear it again and to try to examine my own self in our church and say are we living some of these principles out and so grateful to have a resource like pastor vance in our network champions and network activity locally globally so so powerful so i hope you enjoyed this episode we're going to be jumping back in to the next one where we're going to go deeper with pastor vance and look back at that 20-year journey and extract some kingdom principles that we can learn from as well as always if you want to find out more information about send network you can go to the website sendnetwork.com or you can text the number 888-123 just text the word send network 888 123. i'd love to get you the information that you need after all we are send network have a great day you have been listening to we are send network a resource of the north american mission board for more information about today's podcast and other relevant resources visit sendnetwork.com

Channel: North American Mission Board

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Id: 0pOFMdOK1AQ

Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 08 2021