The best and worst of times

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:07

Hey everyone, Lee Stevenson here. Glad to be with you. I have the privilege of being a church planner, executive director of church planning with Converge.

This is our unfiltered podcast. Say hi to my co host here.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:18

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

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:23

And today we're just going to have kind of a heart to heart conversation about what are some of the, in our own personal experience of walking through, planning a church, what have been some of the hardest moments, Things that are, you know, just kind of sit with you and are gut wrenching as you're planting. And then what are some of the best things about church planning as well?

So Danny, I have to ask, you want to start with the good or end with the good as we get moving?

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:46

Well, I think that what's unique about it is I think so many of them are, are so closely connected, they're kind of the double edged sword.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:54

Yeah, true.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:55

And so if I just even kind of start off, I think that that's.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:58

A cop out, just kind of playing the middle ground, by the way.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:01

But no, it is. So, so I think of like the, the fear of the unknown is just, it's one of the hardest parts. I mean, you just don't know who's going to show up.

You don't know if you're going to make it to the next Sunday. You don't know if your, you know.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:16

Lease is going to exist five years from now. Exactly.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:18

You don't know anything. And at the same time I think that that's also part of the, the thrill, the excitement where it just, it forces you to trust God.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:29

So yeah, I mean, let's, let's unpack it a little bit more.

So when you talk about the fear, like talk about before you launch, leading up to your grand opening, what were some of the biggest fears that you wrestled with at that point of the game?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:42

I mean it really is a fear is anybody going to show up? I mean you have these relationships, you even have people that say, I'm going to be on the launch team and they sign a covenant.

But then like two weeks later they're like, nah, I'm not going to be part of that anymore. So you know, that doesn't matter what people say or what they sign. You know, people flake out pretty quickly.

So then you begin to wonder, well, man, if we launch this thing, is anyone actually going to go?

And especially as you're casting Vision, as church planners, we tend to be like, and this is what it's going to be like, and hundreds of people and we're going to need so much extra parking, we should just like buy three extra lots. And then in your mind you're like, wait, well what happens if I cast this huge vision and three or four people kind of, you know, trickle in?

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:25

Yeah.

You know, so I mean, I remember like it was yesterday standing out on the sidewalk before our first grand opening and just, and I had like two weeks before, felt like God impressed me, like we need to go to two services on our grand opening. I'm like, nobody does that.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:42

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:42

And I'm standing on the sidewalk like, God, please let somebody show up, please let somebody show up. You know, and there's definitely that, that fear factor of, of what's this going to look like?

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:52

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:52

So for sure, any other, like.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:55

Well, here's the other. I think the other double edged sword, one for me is that there's the lack of resources.

So when you are starting out as a church planner, the reality is you don't, I mean you, you just don't have this huge pool of money or pool of people and a lot of times experience, I mean, you name it, there's just this lack. But at the same time, this is where again, it forces you to depend on God.

And I think that you tend to see God more in those situations than in comparison.

If it was like, I don't know, you won the lottery and you had millions of dollars and just do whatever you want, you probably wouldn't be going, man, that was a total God thing that this person showed up and volunteered to run the cable for our, you know, for our sound system that we scraped together.

So I remember when we were putting the sound system together and I went out to Radio Shack and bought some microphones and gave him to the worship guy and he kind of gave me this look like, what, what is, what is this? You know? Well, I don't know, you know, but God provides the right people and the resources and the finances to do that.

And it's cool to see God work in those.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:00

You started with a microphone?

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:01

Yes.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:01

You know, some, some people don't even have that. No, that, that makes it.

I know for us, like some of the worst parts I feel like of playing one was it's just on the personal level where you just see people leave and you know, both in that, that launch phase and then after the grand opening, sometimes people you've poured yourself into, you've helped lead to Christ, you began to disciple, actually kind of leave and usually not in the best way. And it's painful.

And, you know, and yet you look at it and you kind of grow through it and realize God brings people sometimes to the church for a season and they're blessing in that moment, and then God uses them somewhere else. And we just have to have a bigger picture and understanding of how the kingdom is working. And it's working much.

You know, we're just a small portion of what God's doing in the grand scheme of things, for sure.

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:54

And I think it's difficult when people leave, even when they're leaving on good terms and they have to move and take another job or they're going back to help out their parents or whatever. Whatever it is that, you know, it's. It has nothing to do with you.

But it's still hard to not take it personally, to not have that grief, to sometimes even get a little bit bitter.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:16

And who's going to pick up their giving? Who's going to take their. Their spot when it comes to serving on a Sunday or something of that sort?

For sure, you have all these questions that can easily cause you to spiral. For sure.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:30

Yeah. As far as best parts, one, I mean, the.

And for church planners, I think in general, this is kind of ingrained, but being able to start something from scratch, that you're not working through someone else's mistakes.

I remember the director of church planning that recruited me would always say, like, why would you want to inherit someone's mistakes when you can just create your own? And he would say that kind of tongue in cheek. But there is. There's that part where it's like God.

And this is why I think church planning is so important, is that it allows innovation and creativity, even if it's not that different than the way church is done. You just get a little bit of that opportunity to say, hey, in order to reach people that are far from Christ, I don't have to work against a board.

I don't have to work against tradition. I don't have to worry about hurting someone's feelings because this is the way that they've done it for the last 15 years.

But you just get to go, you know, this is my relationship with God. This is how I feel like we can reach some people who wants to come along and do that, which is.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:35

Good and bad, because, you know, it is. You have the fun of starting something from scratch that doesn't exist there, don't have the baggage.

But at the same time, it takes on your weaknesses as well. And so you have nobody else to blame except the guy is Looking at in the mirror for sure.

A couple of the other things I find hard in the church planning game. One is dealing with the weird people. Like the moment you say, hey, we're a new church.

It's like this magnet that attracts all of the weird people in the community that feel like misfits in all the other churches or whatever that feel like, well, they need me because they don't have anybody. And so they come and they come with their opinions and just suck your time. You know, that's a challenging point.

And here's something too, I found true for me.

I don't know if you found it true for you, but there was a, there was a boredom aspect in that first year of planting, kind of the pre launch phase and even right after the launch where you do everything you can do and then you just have to sit and wait and you have to wait on things to work and for God to do what God does and draw people in.

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:42

No, I actually worked when I was a church plan early, so I just went out and did door to door evangelism when I was bored. But you're not as spiritual as I am.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:51

I put 80 hours in a week and still just.

I had so much energy that, you know, no, there is an element where, you know, you can do what you can do, but you can't force something that's not there yet. And so there is a.

I wrestled with a boredom factor in that early little bit of phase because sometimes too I was getting caught in doing things that honestly I didn't like doing and probably I wasn't really good at, but we didn't have the resources or the people to maybe fill those gaps in that time period too.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:20

Yeah, absolutely.

And I do think that that is the unique thing when you're a church planner and you are your own boss, how to actually kind of chop up your time and what you should be spending time doing and not doing.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:34

And hey, that sounds like another podcast we may have to do. But no, I totally agree.

On the flip side, again, some of the best things, the things I look for and honestly probably led me to do it again, was one is you see the miraculous. You see God provide in crazy ways financially, people, opportunity is so many different things.

Where you're on your knees going, God, we need you to show up. And God shows up. And usually it's maybe even different than what you thought. You go, man, why didn't I think about that in the first place?

And it's fun. It's fun to see God's blessing come in very real and tangible ways when you need it as you're building the church.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:16

I think as a church planner, the church planting phase, part of it is that you do develop some friendships that, I mean, you're just. You're in, like, the crucible together. And to be able to do that together with a group of people is something that's really, really special.

And as the church does grow and mature, you don't get to do some of those same things. I think back to some of those early days where it was like the men's camping trip.

I mean, just vivid memories of guys getting together and sharing their hearts and, and, and praying and dreaming together of what this would look like. And it's just a really, really special time so to enjoy that as well, too.

Because I know a lot of times as church planners, we're always looking ahead and you have this image or goal in your mind where we'll have made it, when and whatever that is, whether it's a building, whether it's a certain number of people, whether it's a certain amount of staff. But don't, don't pass and don't, I don't know, ignore the moment and live in the moment.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:21

Enjoy that.

I think that's a great word because oftentimes the personalities that make good church planters also don't like to celebrate, you know, because it's all. Once you get to where you. It's always, there's the next thing, there's the next thing, and it's easy to lose sight.

And so you do have to remember to slow down and just celebrate those moments of how God has shown up. And part of the miraculous, too, that I think I enjoy so much is just the life change.

You know, the season that I stepped out of local church ministry just did kind of the denominational thing with Converge before we planted it again. The thing I missed the most was being up close to the personal life change stories that were taking place.

You know, you may be baptizing people or you're seeing people baptized and, you know, all the things that have taken place in our life and how God uniquely showed up and why they are where they're at now. And so the life change is part of the miraculous blessing as well. To me, that.

That invigorates me when it comes to the church planning side of things.

Danny Parmelee: 00:11:18

I think a difficult part, and this may depend on people's gifts and desires, but just the relentless nature of Sunday coming every seven days.

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:28

Yeah, some way, the reason it just.

Danny Parmelee: 00:11:30

Keeps coming, keeps on coming. And it's like, man, you just. You give for preaching.

For me, preaching was always one of those blessings and challenges where it's like, man, you just pour so much into it, and you give it, and then it's like. And then you wake up on Monday and you're thinking, and the clock is now ticking for you to be doing the same thing.

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:50

Make another one. Yeah, yeah. You got to carry this into part two now.

Danny Parmelee: 00:11:52

That's why I'm such a big fan of preaching teams. Right?

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:55

So I appreciate it, and there's a lot more that we could say, honestly, when it comes to what's good, what's challenging, what are the hard things.

But we want to just take a moment, kind of share some of the personal insight of kind of what we've experienced on our end, but also walking with others out there, and hopefully you find it encouraging to you as you move forward, because God does show up and does the miraculous and, you know, don't give up. Stay true to the course of what God has called you to do, and he is faithful. Thanks for being with us, y'all, and it's been fun.

Unfiltered podcasts, just real conversations. Until next time. Keep it real.