Overcoming obstacles in planting

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:07

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

I have the joy of being the executive director of church planning with Converge, a local church planter.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:15

I'm Danny Parmelin. I oversee church planting for Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:19

And we've got a special episode today with our guest Don Williman, church planter from the Northeast. I'll let you dawn just say hi to everyone and tell us a little bit of your story.

Don Willeman: 00:00:29

Yeah, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, guys.

So my name's Don and I'm a church planter in New England, northern New England, right on the border of Vermont, New Hampshire, in a place called Hanover, New Hampshire. I've been there for 20 years. The claim to fame of the area is that's where Dartmouth College is. So it's kind of a unique place.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:46

Oh, definitely.

Don Willeman: 00:00:47

Small Ivy League town.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:49

Yeah, yeah. Now you guys planted 20 years ago, got into it heart for the Northeast. And like any planter, you know you're full of passion, full of vigor.

Know you're going to run into some bumps here and there, but it's all going to work out and you don't really know what you know until you face it.

You guys have faced some really unique challenges when it comes to building space, the connection with the town and to the point where I, you know, when you shared your story, like it's just downright persecution in some unique ways where. And so I'd love for you to just kind of share a little bit what's going on and when did it start and we'll kind of lead in from there.

Don Willeman: 00:01:33

Yeah, yeah. I mean there's some peculiarities to the town in which we live. It's a small town, but it's a high powered sort of town.

As a matter of fact, the people who live there say this is Manhattan clientele with small town politics. That's basically what it is. And so in its New England, so there is a general anti development sort of posture. So so.

And it's not a very churched area. You know, in other words, there's not a lot of gospel believing Christians relative to maybe other parts of the country or even the world.

But yet nonetheless, I think the most exciting thing is that God has blessed us. He's given us an open door in that place.

We've seen a congregation of 400 people grow up in a place where people said it was impossible to plant a church. From there we've planted two other churches, one in Vermont, one 135 minutes away in New London, New Hampshire. And so God's blessed.

But in the midst of that, we always thought that we were going to be able to get a building right there in Hanover, right there in town. And so the last 20 years we've been trying to do that and we've had multiple attempts. We've looked at probably well over two dozen properties.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:44

Don, where did you start? Where did you start meeting?

Don Willeman: 00:02:48

Oh, yeah, so yeah, we meet at the Hanover High School, which is an amazing thing in and of itself. I mean, I thought there's no way this secular Ivy League town is going to let us use their school. And quite honestly, there's been a wide open door.

I mean, the laws are pretty clear on this sort of stuff, but they've had a wide open door and they've been very welcoming.

I mean, there's people in the community who want us to be there, maybe in some people in the school, but the administration's been very open to us being there and we've been there for 20 years. So with just a wide open opportunity to be able to preach the gospel. So we're very grateful for that.

And we see this as God's sovereign care for us in the midst of it. But nonetheless, as it's related to us trying to get a permanent space in the town, that's where it's been a problem. And you know the situation.

I don't know how much you want me to go into explaining here, but the situation basically is that the town in which we live, as this is true, many towns the zoning laws were written, know, 50, 60 years ago when people welcomed churches into their neighborhoods. And so the town privileges the town, zoning laws privileges churches being in neighborhoods. That's the way things are written.

But nowadays when you go to go build a church into these sort of places, you get a lot of nimby, a lot of not in my backyard sort of a thing. But you're bound by these laws that were written 50, 60 years ago that assume that people would welcome the church into the neighborhood.

And so as we've tried to get approval for a church initially, actually very interestingly, we knew that this NIMBY thing was going to be an issue. So we initially tried to go and plant or build a church building in a commercial district.

And the town, this was 12 years ago, said, you're not allowed to do that. Our zoning laws say it has to be in a neighborhood, has to be in a residential neighborhood.

We said, well, don't you think people are going to be upset about that if we try to build A church in a neighborhood nowadays say no. That's what the laws say.

So in the last three years, within the last three years, we've been before the zoning board trying to do what they told us to do. And that is we got a nine acre parcel of land, which is a beautiful piece of land. One mile. You did buy that, but we ended up buying.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:10

What year, what year did you buy?

Don Willeman: 00:05:13

,: 2017

So we definitely started looking at it three years ago, and I think we purchased it about six months after that.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:25

Okay.

Don Willeman: 00:05:25

Yeah. So anyway, we were hoping that everything was going to be good, and we've just had roadblock.

We've been before the zoning board for the last two and a half years and we still don't have resolution. I could go into more details, but maybe you want to ask other questions at that point.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:47

That's helpful. The first thing, I'd love to just get your perspective on. I mean, you've been doing portable church in a school for 20 years.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:54

Did you have to set up chairs?

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:56

I mean, that in itself is remarkable.

How have you kept the team motivated and engaged, staying on mission, you know, because I know for a lot of guys out there that are planting, like, they may get in two years and be like, I can't do it anymore.

Danny Parmelee: 00:06:10

I can't do it.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:11

And So, I mean, 20 years is. Is you. You've earned the right to speak into this. So share, share some of your insights.

Don Willeman: 00:06:17

Lee, I so appreciate that. I mean, I appreciate you acknowledging that because that's not an easy thing.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:23

Not at all.

Don Willeman: 00:06:24

I mean, literally, we have been unloading and loading a trailer for a thousand Sundays. A thousand Sundays. And we've got a 3, 400 person church. So it's a lot. It's a lot to do.

So first of all, I have an amazing wife who has been a key player in the midst of this and helping to create a culture of service and ownership and these sorts of things, which has been absolutely blessing, absolutely critical. Anybody in the church would say, yeah, she's amazing. So there's that. But, you know, I think we have amazing people.

And, you know, the vision has always been. It's never been about the building. We've always said from the beginning we want to have a building.

We think that's a good tool for the permanence of the gospel, the visible presence of the gospel in this community. But it's never been about the building.

At the end of the day, it's about the people and it's about reaching the people of this community and caring for these people in this community. And so we've always, I mean, Romans 15 said about how Christ did not please himself. And so we're not going to please ourselves.

We're going to please others and we're going to serve others. And that means most immediately serving those within the body of Christ.

And if that requires setting up chairs, setting up nursery, you know, setting up. We literally have to set up our entire sound equipment every week. They won't allow us to use the sound equipment. Understandable, that's fine.

But we have to set up. So it's quite a production. But.

But if that's what it takes for our church to be served and for the community to be served with the gospel, our people are gonna do it.

And that's the culture that we've created and we've maintained that by the grace of God, by keeping that gospel out at the center, that Christ gave himself for us. So how can we not give ourself for others? That's the bottom line.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:12

Don, I have a question.

How do you lead your church through this to not create a us, them mentality like, oh, the city, the other people, they're bad the church, and yet at the. Not be taken advantage of or just not move forward with what you feel is God leading you and the body of believers to establish a building Again.

Don Willeman: 00:08:34

Danny, is a great, great question. Because honestly, for myself as a pastor and as a church planning pastor, meaning I came into this community to care for and reach the people.

Last thing we want to do is to create an antagonistic relationship to anyone in the town that. And so we obviously don't want to do that. So. So I think it's been very.

We've had to be very careful about what we do in the way we speak about what's going on. And so, I mean, we've tended to not think of this in terms of persecution.

With all due respect, you know, we've just said, hey, this is the cost of doing business in this community. If we want to belong to this community. This is not.

It's maybe hard for people in other parts of the country to understand this is not an unusual way of operating the stuff that we're facing. Many other entities within our town have had to face it.

Now, for me, it's a little bit of shock to the system that a church would have to go through so much work to get this. And even still, we don't know we're gonna get this sort of approval that we think rightfully we should be able to get.

So we've tried not to place it in that sort of a thing. That's an antagonism against the town in any way, or even the people in town. We have particular residents of the town who are.

Are very much against us.

And actually, honestly, even in the newspapers and stuff, saying some very negative things about us, we have chosen not to respond to those things publicly. You know, we've not. In other words, we're not.

We're not going to write back the letters, the editor, to turn this into some sort of social media war, that sort of a thing. But we're going to serve, you know, so we do service days, we do these sorts of things. And knowing that, I mean, look what Jesus faced.

I mean, Jesus, to the very people he was giving his life for, was spit upon, his beard was plucked out, he was whipped. You know, like, again, we're not facing anything like that, you know, in this situation. It's not fun. It's frustrating, I'll admit.

But, like, when you put it in terms of the cosmic picture of Christ, it's nothing. It's really nothing. And so that's what we've done.

At the same time, I did a series of sermons a year ago, or almost a year ago now, where we looked at Acts 16, where Paul, in the book of Acts, in Acts 16, when he's in Philippi, on the one hand, he totally yields his rights. When he's in the prison and the prison doors open, he has every freedom to run out and say, I'm going to get out of town, right?

And he doesn't do that because he knows that if he does that, the Roman jailer is going to lose his life and not know Christ. So he lays down his life, he stays there at the risk of his own life and sees the Roman jailer come to faith in Christ.

So he yields his political rights at that point or his freedom.

And then he turns right around in the next, the very next scene, where he begins demanding his rights before the authorities of town for the way that he has been treated. What is, is the connector between those two things, my friends. Look, the thing that connects both of those is the gospel.

He yielded his rights for the gospel, and then he demanded his rights for the gospel so that this fledgling church would have political status in this town. And so that's the careful thing that we're trying to thread and navigate as we go through this context.

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:00

What words? I appreciate you sharing that, Don.

What words would you say to encourage a young planter that's facing some of those challenges, whether or not it's being portable for a long time or just wrestling with the town's acceptance of them.

Don Willeman: 00:12:15

Yeah.

Danny Parmelee: 00:12:16

Or school district or whatever. There's those.

Don Willeman: 00:12:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's wrestling with that? I mean, I just, again, I want to take a big step back and say, make sure you're seeing this through the big picture.

You know, make sure you're seeing, like, we may not. I don't know what you. I would say to that person. I don't know what you think is success in your context. You know, what would be a win.

If it's just getting what you want, when you want it, as it relates to a building or approvals or the fundraising, whatever it might be, then you're going to be riding a roller coaster of happiness and unhappiness. And I get that. I struggle. I struggle to not focus, you know, have my focus to be on those things. But when you take a big step back.

No, my goal here is to give my life for the sake of the gospel. That's the bottom line category. And then you start building from there. So what is it going to take for me to do that?

Okay, I'm going to have to motivate my people again for another season. I'm going to have to cast that vision once again as to why this is valuable.

I'm going to have to watch a family leave the church who just feels like they can't take living in this sort of out of a suitcase environment, you know, and say, okay, I mean, I'm going to have to live with that for the sake of the gospel. And while at the same time encouraging them not to do that. You know, fortunately, we've not had a lot of that, but it's just going to take work.

And we're here, you know, we're the church vigilant. We're not the church at rest right now. We're the church vigilant. In other words, we're in warfare.

Not against people, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. And how did Jesus defeat those principalities and powers? He gave his life. He gave his life away, you know, and that's how. What we're trying to do.

So I don't know if that makes any sense.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:24

No, I think that's a great word. And Don, I appreciate you sharing your heart and sharing the story that God has been writing there in New Hampshire and really beyond.

And I think it resonates with a lot of planters from around the country and being encouragement, but also the right challenge to where they're at and how they lead as well. So thanks so much for your time and thank you all for tuning in. This has been the unfiltered podcast. Until next time, keep it real.