An unconventional path to church planting

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:08

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the unfiltered podcast. My name is Lee Stevenson.

I have the pleasure and privilege of being the executive director of church planning for Converge.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:17

My name is Danny Parmelee, and I oversee church planting with Converge Mid America.

And we are very excited because we've got a special guest with us today, Glenn Hirshberger, who I met for the first time while he was a church planter. But the story starts before even then. So, Glenn, why don't you tell us a little bit about your story and your journey in church planting.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:00:36

Well, honored to be here, guys. Good to see you in sunny Orlando. So I'm excited.

I got called into ministry in: 1997

I didn't really know what that meant, but my wife and I went to that and kind of got the bug to church plant and really didn't think that we were church planters at the time. So moving forward, we had a community that kind of came to the surface as far as planting.

And we drove into the community and we felt God's call, like, this is where we're supposed to plant.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:16

Now, you were knowing a little bit of your story before being called into ministry. Vocationally, you were a police officer. That is correct. How did vocational. What were this. This. What was the situation?

How did this scenario play out in your life, Glenn, where you decided, man, I'm a police officer working towards, honestly, a fairly good pension and loving your job, to feeling like God's calling you to give this up and go into pastoral ministry. Like, what were the circumstances around that change?

Glenn Herschberger: 00:01:47

Well, it really began in: 1990

And so then Promise Keeper comes on the scene, and there's just something that resonated with me. And then I'm attending this church. I'm asked to start a men's ministry.

So a guy that I knew that I was in accountability with, we started men's ministry, and it just took off. And so now I'm seeing some of my friends on the force coming to church, being, quite frankly, evangelized.

And there was just kind of this turning point. Like, I didn't think I would ever retire as a police officer.

Like, I knew God had something else and really, for the first 15 years of our marriage, every year, at some point we'd say, I wonder what God really wants us to do. Because I knew it wasn't law enforcement long term.

And so I think after that assessment, it's like I never look back and go and said, you know, what are we supposed to do? I knew this was it. I was made for this and I was called to do this.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:02

So how, I mean, that's an interesting conversation.

I mean, how did your wife process that along with you when you come home and go, hey, I think I want to go into pastoral ministry and be done with being a cop?

Glenn Herschberger: 00:03:15

I have an amazing wife because she was raised in a surgeon's household. So she saw her dad being called out, going to the er, doing these surgeries. So she understood, hey, there's a sacrifice.

I actually called her in: 1997

And I said, hey, I think we're supposed to go to Houston to be a youth pastor, because I was a police officer in junior high school. And she said, well, okay. And so she is just a wonderful, wonderful woman. I had great support through the whole journey of 35 years.

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:49

But you didn't, but you didn't go to Houston, though.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:03:51

No. God just, he had, he had planted that seed like, I am getting you ready to move.

And we actually put our house up for sale before I knew God was calling, calling us into church planting.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:04

Wow. So what were the, what was the thing that compelled your heart to become a church planter? Because church planting is hard.

And you know, you're coming in going, okay, I think maybe youth pastor going to ministry to. No, I think we're going to actually start a church. And that whole process.

What were the unique things that God did in your life in that moment to say, no, this is what we're actually wanting you to do?

Glenn Herschberger: 00:04:29

That's a great question.

he lostness of humanity after: 12:00

And I'm just saying, they need Jesus. And so I saw these kids. I wasn't there to evangelize them, but they'd asked me spiritual questions and I had permission.

In fact, the principal gave his life To Christ. The vice principal gave her life to Christ. My wife is discipling her in the school and God is blessing that. And I knew that there was more.

And I know that church planting is really one of the most effective ways to evangelize. It's a way to reach people that are far from Christ.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:25

Yeah. Now did you start as a bivo church planter or did you go straight into full time church planting?

Glenn Herschberger: 00:05:31

Yeah, I had decided that we had a formula of support raising that I didn't have all our support.

My wife was working in the school and so I had decided that I was going to drive back and forth from where we planted to where I worked as a police officer.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:48

Which, by the way, you can actually say those. This is unfiltered, so you can. No secrets.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:05:54

So we planted in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, and I was working at Fond du Lac Police Department in junior high school. And my work said, yes, we can let you live out of county and out of really the area. And so that was 65 miles one way.

So I'd have to get up at the, you know, crack of dawn and drive up there, work, work a shift, a day shift, and then come back and do launch team meetings and evangelism and Bible studies and all sorts of, you know, church planting, pre launch stuff.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:23

How long were you at that church then that you planted in Lake mills?

Glenn Herschberger: 00:06:28

Those are 11 years.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:29

Okay.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:06:30

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:30

And then you felt another move of the Lord in your lives. Explain a little bit of what took place at that point and where God took you.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:06:38

Yeah.

d du Lac Police Department in: 2000

And then I get hired to be a part time police officer in the school of Lake Mills, which gave me instantaneous credibility. I mean, like people trusted me from the get go. And of the 11 police officers we, we saw four attend church, give their life to Christ, get baptized.

And one of them is part of the AWANA program at Real Hope Community Church. That's kind of cool.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:14

That's great.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:07:15

So then there was a tension. So I had a sabbatical about eight years in. And by the way, I'm a huge advocate of sabbaticals. Yeah, it probably saved the ministry, saved me.

And, and God's really pressing in. It's like, okay, what's the next step? And, and I thought it was to get our church ready. We had Purchased land. I thought it was a building project.

And all of a sudden God does a flip on us. And we had been taking our church for about eight years to Ecuador on short term mission trips.

And I thought it was, he was calling me into missions to Ecuador. And long story short, Tom Neebel at the time we meet with him and he says, hey, we're, we're still doing this international thing. It's English.

And, and, well, we're, we're going to Panama. I said, well, that's great. It's March snowing, it's sleepy. Quite frankly, I'm ready for some.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:08

Sign me up.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:08:09

I'm ready for some tropical warmth, you know, and I get a call the next day.

One thing leads to another, we take a vision trip and it's like, yep, God is calling us to plant an international English speaking church in the heart of Panama City, Panama.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:24

Wow.

I mean, when you really begin to think of that, what a transition, there's not a lot of people that I've had the opportunity sitting across the table from and planted both in America and then both in an international situation. Looking at both of those situations, what were things that carried over from the first experience that helped you in the second time around?

And then also what, what ways was it just completely different and it would have been a disaster if you approached it the same way you did the first time.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:08:56

Yeah, that is a great question. I would say first and foremost, you have to know your culture.

od. The town I grew up in was: 1500

And so I think what I learned in the first plant was I need to really love these people. Well, and what did that look like?

And so when we went to Panama, we said, you know, if nothing else, we are just going to love these internationals incredibly well. And I think that even to this day, there are people that have visited real, I'm sorry, lifebridge International Church of Panama City.

They're like, there's something unique about this because you only have an expat community. You only have people that are actually true expats, people that are from a different country living in Panama.

They may be there two years, three years, four years, and then they transition out. So we were constantly saying, you know, goodbye to people, hello, welcome, you know, hope you stay a little longer, you know, that kind of thing.

So the dynamic is, as a US Church planter. I know the culture and I can, I can kind of define things. I've got the expertise, I have the books at the conferences in Panama.

I'm dealing with multiple cultures. We had 28 different nationalities represented at our opening launch, you know, in the movie theater.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:32

Yeah.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:10:32

And actually we were the minority group. So how do you deal with that? And then different languages, others speaking English.

But we had some people that were learning English and so they like coming to our church.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:45

I would ask the question then, what did you learn? Even being international, that then translates back, especially in your role now as you work with other church, church planters.

Are there things where it's like, oh, being in an international setting actually helped me to realize some of the ways that we do church planting in the United States that just kind of bubbles to the surface?

Glenn Herschberger: 00:11:03

Yeah, I think we, I think I made a lot of assumptions.

I'll give you one for, as an example, I thought, okay, you speak Spanish because you're from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, but they don't speak the same Spanish.

And so that's why a lot of our Latino expats, they would speak English and they liked our church because they could understand we're saying kind of the same language. So don't make the assumption like, oh, everybody speaks this language, therefore they're all the same. They're uniquely different.

I also think it helps. It helped us go, okay, I need to be present. I need to actually be with this person and love them through.

And we actually moved in with a New Zealand couple, lived with them for three months when we got to Panama, and as they're leaving, he had worked. The husband worked for a bank. His wife said, you know, love us, love us through.

And that really stuck with us because I think we discard people in relationships, and that's not good. And I don't think Jesus did that to any of his disciples and any of his followers.

And he certainly had never did that to me or you guys, you know, so can I love people like Jesus loves people and love them through because they're dealing with a lot of stress internationally. And then coming back to our culture, there's a lot of stress, you know, today, whether it's urban or suburban, city, rural.

I mean, there's a lot of stressors.

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:31

Yeah, that's great. What is one of the funniest cross cultural experiences you experience? Why in Panama, trying to do the church thing.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:12:40

Okay, so I have a lot. But one that just comes to the surface is we're doing this leadership training. We Live in an apartment.

We have to rent the community room, you know, and we always have meals and it's, it's very social.

But I have my lap and my projector and I'm trying to do some training and these two little Panamanian boys are just running around it and I don't speak fluent Spanish, so I can't correct them. So we have a lady that worked on the, you know, the Panama Canal, worked actually for our US government, and she was fluent in English and Spanish.

And I said, brusaida, would you tell them to stop running around? And she just looked at me and I'm like, I just kind of gave you an order and you endured me.

So the next week in our launch team meeting, I said, help me understand, what am I missing? Well, Pastor, in Panama we never correct someone else's children. We never tell them to do anything. I said, yeah, but I told you to do it.

Well, Pastor, we're just not going to do it.

So that I am very grateful because that is that cultural thing that I have no clue because I was raised, my parents actually told anyone, hey, listen, if my kid misbehaves, you have to.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:04

Complete opposite takes a village, you know.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:14:08

So that, that was, that was a good experience too.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:12

As we kind of wrap up our time, Glenn, I'm going to ask you to just speak into people's lives that may be on, you know, listening to this podcast. One is for those that are in a career based situation and they may be sensing God is doing something. What would you say to that person?

Glenn Herschberger: 00:14:29

Man, I tell you what, I think there's a whole lot of guys that are even mid career guys or maybe they're coming out of college. It's like, what is the next step? Well, I think church planting assessment or missionary assessment.

I think that helps clarify your call and teaches you some things. I certainly think reading resources, taking vision trips also for me and my story helped plant that seed. I had to go on a vision trip.

I had to see it, taste it, smell it and go, okay, Lord, I'm ready and willing to do that. And then I think, are you going to make your life matter? Like, time is running out in my life.

When I think of, okay, do I have 30, 40 years left of living? I want to be totally sold off for Christ. I want to see more people come meet, know and follow Jesus.

And there's so many people in our country and our culture that don't. And then the international scene, there's so many opportunities out there.

So I would say if you're a risk taker and you're sensing God's call, then get some counsel. Talk to us.

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:31

And I don't think we covered this, but talk to me about the transition or education or not education that you have. Because I know a lot of guys that are mid career.

They're like, I'm, I'm not going to go back to school or I just, I can't do that because I don't have some sort of degree. So speak to your experience and even just working with other guys that are mid career.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:15:50

Yeah, I think.

Do you have the expertise in the business world that you could help with those principles and offering workshops internationally, but also to church planters and those that are ministering to people in business? I think that is a wide open field. I think if you have advanced degrees, that gives you instantaneously credibility in the expat world.

Because these are the movers and shakers of the world. I mean, they're in industry, they're in politics.

Danny Parmelee: 00:16:22

I meant theological education. So guys going, oh, you know what, I'm, I'm a cop, I've been a cop. I can't be a pastor. There's no way. Theologically trained.

I'm not theologically trained, therefore just forget it. That's just a dumb idea.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:16:36

Yeah, I was going, I was finishing my seminary as I was in Panama. And so I think if you have this, hey, I'm going to accomplish this. I am a firm believer you need theological training.

But there's so many programs out there that quite frankly it's practical experience where you can actually still work, take some classes, work in a local church and gain that experience.

Danny Parmelee: 00:17:00

But you started your church planning process far before you completed theological.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:17:06

Absolutely, I did.

Lee Stephenson: 00:17:07

And you had people speaking in your life and coaching and mentoring you through.

Glenn Herschberger: 00:17:11

Some of that too. Absolutely. When I got the call, you know, I was leading a chaplaincy in Fond Lake police department and I had 32 clergy from all different flavors.

And so I started asking them, hey, what's my next step? And so most of them said, well, you need seminary. And so I'm like, okay.

So then that fall I enrolled and I was starting taking part time classes because I was working full time.

Lee Stephenson: 00:17:32

Great guys. It's been unfiltered. It's been a pleasure, Glenn.

I appreciate you taking time, sharing parts of your story and both on the home front, but also on the international front. And just, you know, I want to put a word of wisdom out there to those that are listening.

It's like if you're sensing God's calling you to do something. Be obedient. You know, walk by faith, not by fear. And God may write a really unique story as a result.

Danny Parmelee: 00:18:00

This has been the unfiltered podcast, so keep it real.