Flannel and Beards

Episode 5.0 Notes: The First 30 Days of Churchplanting

Do nothing.

Take time to come to terms with the reality of the change.

When you do nothing, actually a lot more gets done.

Sometimes doing nothing helps you gain perspective.

Help your spouse.

The unsung heroes of Churchplanting are our families.

Take the time to help your family adapt to their new surroundings.

Take time to help unpack the boxes.

Our families are effected by their environment and surroundings.

Take your family with you as you have meetings and get training.

Your first 30 days lays a foundation for the rest of your churchplant.

Befriend other churches.

We can learn a lot about the neighborhood from other churches.

Sit back and worship with your family — enjoy the time before you start services.

Find queso.

Adopt the culture of your city, but don’t pretend to be something that you’re not.

Hold on to traditions that comfort you and remind you where you came from.

Be who you are and be honest about where you are from. Be you.

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Twitter and Instagram @beardsflannel

Email us at [email protected]

Episode 4.0 Notes: Books to Read in 2019 (and Gnomes)

As a churchplanter you need to be very intentional about your life.

“A pastor must exemplify a livable Christianity.” -Eugene Peterson

How do live out being missional everyday?

Churchplanting has shown me how reliant we must be on prayer.

Sitting in praying feel like wasted time to a driven churchplanter, but is essential to church planting.

We need to pray like a child.

As church planters we all know we need to pray, but most of us struggle to actually pray.

The way you need to lead can fluctuate rapidly in churchplanting.

We need to make disciples who makes disciples who makes disciples if we want to plant churches that plant churches.

If we build another consumer Christian church we’re not going to change North America.

Pastors see people today as a platform to exalt themselves, rather than as a people to lay down your life for.

Referenced Books/Resources

Alex’s Picks

Surprise the World by Michael Frost

Sticky Teams by Larry Osborne

Quiet by Susan Cain

The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani

The Pastor by Eugene Peterson

Bonus pick: The Light Princess by George MacDonald

Eric’s Picks

A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller

Kingdom First by Jeff Christopherson

The Kingdom Unleashed by Jerry Trousdale and Glenn Sunshine

Start With Why by Simon Sinek

https://youtu.be/u4ZoJKF_VuA (view the TED Talk here)

The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll (Special thanks to Carson Rogers for the suggestion!)

Bonus pick: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Twitter and Instagram @beardsflannel

Email us at [email protected]

Episode 4.0 Notes: Books to Read in 2019 (and Gnomes)

As a churchplanter you need to be very intentional about your life.

“A pastor must exemplify a livable Christianity.” -Eugene Peterson

How do live out being missional everyday?

Churchplanting has shown me how reliant we must be on prayer.

Sitting in praying feel like wasted time to a driven churchplanter, but is essential to church planting.

We need to pray like a child.

As church planters we all know we need to pray, but most of us struggle to actually pray.

The way you need to lead can fluctuate rapidly in churchplanting.

We need to make disciples who makes disciples who makes disciples if we want to plant churches that plant churches.

If we build another consumer Christian church we’re not going to change North America.

Pastors see people today as a platform to exalt themselves, rather than as a people to lay down your life for.

Referenced Books/Resources

Alex’s Picks

Surprise the World by Michael Frost

Sticky Teams by Larry Osborne

Quiet by Susan Cain

The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani

The Pastor by Eugene Peterson

Bonus pick: The Light Princess by George MacDonald

Eric’s Picks

A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller

Kingdom First by Jeff Christopherson

The Kingdom Unleashed by Jerry Trousdale and Glenn Sunshine

Start With Why by Simon Sinek

https://youtu.be/u4ZoJKF_VuA (view the TED Talk here)

The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll (Special thanks to Carson Rogers for the suggestion!)

Bonus pick: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Twitter and Instagram @beardsflannel

Email us at [email protected]

Episode 3.0 Notes: Understanding Your Community

Capture the “wow” of your new city.

If you don’t love your city, you’re not going to love the people of your city.

If you despise the people you will never change the place.

Be consistent in places.

Observe people.

If you faithfully look, you will find social fault lines you can address as a follower of Christ.

Be people who listen.

Try to put yourself in a position to spend time with the people in your city.

People love to help people. Let people know you don’t know.

How do I begin implementing what I have learned about the community? How can I begin to use it to serve people and grow the church?

“Choose a place to plant where you love to be, with people you love to be around.” -Mark Batterson

Many times, as churchplanters we want to be the martyr.

Know the place and the people so you can reason with the people for Jesus.

The longer we are in a place, the more people trust us.

Find out who your community gate keepers are.

If your church was to close today would your community notice and miss you?

We often go to a new place with assumptions based on where we came from.

Once you lose trust it is twice as hard to get it back.

Jesus always met people where they were.

Referenced Books/Resources

Exegeting your community questionnaire by Barry Whitworth

Learning your new city checklist by Eric McMahon

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Email us at [email protected]

Episode 3.0 Notes: Understanding Your Community

Capture the “wow” of your new city.

If you don’t love your city, you’re not going to love the people of your city.

If you despise the people you will never change the place.

Be consistent in places.

Observe people.

If you faithfully look, you will find social fault lines you can address as a follower of Christ.

Be people who listen.

Try to put yourself in a position to spend time with the people in your city.

People love to help people. Let people know you don’t know.

How do I begin implementing what I have learned about the community? How can I begin to use it to serve people and grow the church?

“Choose a place to plant where you love to be, with people you love to be around.” -Mark Batterson

Many times, as churchplanters we want to be the martyr.

Know the place and the people so you can reason with the people for Jesus.

The longer we are in a place, the more people trust us.

Find out who your community gate keepers are.

If your church was to close today would your community notice and miss you?

We often go to a new place with assumptions based on where we came from.

Once you lose trust it is twice as hard to get it back.

Jesus always met people where they were.

Referenced Books/Resources

Exegeting your community questionnaire by Barry Whitworth

Learning your new city checklist by Eric McMahon

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Email us at [email protected]

Episode 2.0 Notes: Interview with Aaron Harvie

https://www.highview.org/staff/aaron-harvie

Churchplanting has become the new normal.

The team aspect in churchplanting has been a welcome change.

Churchplanting has become celebrated, which is a huge change from a few years ago.

Emotional, spiritual and physical health are all connected.

Allow time for you and your family to fall in love with the city where you’re planting. Enjoy the city in which you live.

What brings you life? How can you do that in your city?

Stop laying hands on the wrong people. I was so desperate for leaders, I overlooked a lot of red flags.

I compromised on waiting for the right person.

Instead of how to gather a crowd, I would focus on how we are making people passionate followers of Jesus.

I was always looking for the silver bullet. There is no silver bullet.

God grows a church out of the mundane, not out of the over the top miraculous.

You have to stop looking at man, and start looking at God.

Do the small things like they are big things.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

“[God] never sends the same wave twice.” -C.S. Lewis

The number one lie church planter’s believe is that numbers are your identity.

I thought my family would fall in love with the city as fast as I did. I had to be patient with them.

We think it would be easier to plant somewhere else. It’s hard to plant everywhere.

Thinking it is easier somewhere else distracts us from our calling to this place.

Being the founding pastor of a church gives you a level of authority that you will never have in another church.

In an established church, you are not the pastor, you are the next pastor. Whether you like it or not, there is a comparison.

In a church plant, you can stay laser focused on one thing. In an established church there are so many competing ideas.

Churchplanting taught me the power of a clear vision.

God has called you to focus on His presence over your ability.

There are lessons I learned on the field that I never would have learned if I took a more comfortable path in an established church.

There are things God will not reveal to you unless you take a step of faith.

God is more interested in what He is going to do in you than He is about what He’s going to do through you.

Referenced Books/Resources

Bob Logan’s The Churchplanter’s Toolkit

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Email us at [email protected]

Episode 2.0 Notes: Interview with Aaron Harvie

https://www.highview.org/staff/aaron-harvie

Churchplanting has become the new normal.

The team aspect in churchplanting has been a welcome change.

Churchplanting has become celebrated, which is a huge change from a few years ago.

Emotional, spiritual and physical health are all connected.

Allow time for you and your family to fall in love with the city where you’re planting. Enjoy the city in which you live.

What brings you life? How can you do that in your city?

Stop laying hands on the wrong people. I was so desperate for leaders, I overlooked a lot of red flags.

I compromised on waiting for the right person.

Instead of how to gather a crowd, I would focus on how we are making people passionate followers of Jesus.

I was always looking for the silver bullet. There is no silver bullet.

God grows a church out of the mundane, not out of the over the top miraculous.

You have to stop looking at man, and start looking at God.

Do the small things like they are big things.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

“[God] never sends the same wave twice.” -C.S. Lewis

The number one lie church planter’s believe is that numbers are your identity.

I thought my family would fall in love with the city as fast as I did. I had to be patient with them.

We think it would be easier to plant somewhere else. It’s hard to plant everywhere.

Thinking it is easier somewhere else distracts us from our calling to this place.

Being the founding pastor of a church gives you a level of authority that you will never have in another church.

In an established church, you are not the pastor, you are the next pastor. Whether you like it or not, there is a comparison.

In a church plant, you can stay laser focused on one thing. In an established church there are so many competing ideas.

Churchplanting taught me the power of a clear vision.

God has called you to focus on His presence over your ability.

There are lessons I learned on the field that I never would have learned if I took a more comfortable path in an established church.

There are things God will not reveal to you unless you take a step of faith.

God is more interested in what He is going to do in you than He is about what He’s going to do through you.

Referenced Books/Resources

Bob Logan’s The Churchplanter’s Toolkit

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Email us at [email protected]

Episode 1.0 Notes: What Makes a Churchplant Successful

Our definition of success has changed from when we started planting to where we are now.

Every church plant, churchplanter, and context is unique. The ending “success” of your story is always going to look different.

Having a definition of success that applies to everyone is an attempt at manufacturing success when church planting is very organic.

You have to look at numbers, it’s a reality of churchplanting.

We have to go to the Bible and find what is God’s heart for success rather than what does your denomination or network define as success.

There is a difference between being successful and being sustainable. When we start we often use those two terms interchanegably.

My church plant can be successful even if it has a short-term life.

“Find joy in obedience not results.” -Matt Tipton

We try to do the Holy Spirit’s job for Him.

I try to do what God has promised to do, and ask God to do what He’s asked me to do.

A church plant is successful if it has created disciples.

We’re here to make disciples who make disciples.

As visionary as you may be you cannot see the endgame. Success can’t be measured in what we can see in two years or five years.

God works over generations rather than lifetimes. My arrogance says I want God to work in my lifetime so the success can be linked to me.

“We overestimate what we can do in a year, and underestimate what God can do in ten years.” -Mark Batterson

We want to be the magical missing piece that brings success to our city or community.

Success is being a part of what God is doing, not getting the applause for what He is doing.

Success is when God gets the glory.

So much of our identity gets wrapped up in success. We set ourselves up for an identity crisis.

Maybe you wouldn’t experience God like you could if He didn’t bring you through failure.

We have such a narrow view of success we don’t have room for God to bring us through a death and resurrection and do something new.

“We must lay down the burden of success, and begin to think of success as the present kingdom of God in my life.” -Dallas Willard

Nothing robs joy like comparison.

Let God be unique with us and our church plant and give us unique success.

“If you can rock fifty people really well. Rock fifty people over and over again.” -Sean Sears

There are ways of doing church that no one has thought about yet.

What you see as failure may be the beginning of a brand new type of success.

Referenced Books/Resources

Center Church by Timothy Keller (incorrectly called City Church in the podcast)

Acts 29 a church planting network founded by Matt Chandler

New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Email us at [email protected]

Episode 1.0 Notes: What Makes a Churchplant Successful

Our definition of success has changed from when we started planting to where we are now.

Every church plant, churchplanter, and context is unique. The ending “success” of your story is always going to look different.

Having a definition of success that applies to everyone is an attempt at manufacturing success when church planting is very organic.

You have to look at numbers, it’s a reality of churchplanting.

We have to go to the Bible and find what is God’s heart for success rather than what does your denomination or network define as success.

There is a difference between being successful and being sustainable. When we start we often use those two terms interchanegably.

My church plant can be successful even if it has a short-term life.

“Find joy in obedience not results.” -Matt Tipton

We try to do the Holy Spirit’s job for Him.

I try to do what God has promised to do, and ask God to do what He’s asked me to do.

A church plant is successful if it has created disciples.

We’re here to make disciples who make disciples.

As visionary as you may be you cannot see the endgame. Success can’t be measured in what we can see in two years or five years.

God works over generations rather than lifetimes. My arrogance says I want God to work in my lifetime so the success can be linked to me.

“We overestimate what we can do in a year, and underestimate what God can do in ten years.” -Mark Batterson

We want to be the magical missing piece that brings success to our city or community.

Success is being a part of what God is doing, not getting the applause for what He is doing.

Success is when God gets the glory.

So much of our identity gets wrapped up in success. We set ourselves up for an identity crisis.

Maybe you wouldn’t experience God like you could if He didn’t bring you through failure.

We have such a narrow view of success we don’t have room for God to bring us through a death and resurrection and do something new.

“We must lay down the burden of success, and begin to think of success as the present kingdom of God in my life.” -Dallas Willard

Nothing robs joy like comparison.

Let God be unique with us and our church plant and give us unique success.

“If you can rock fifty people really well. Rock fifty people over and over again.” -Sean Sears

There are ways of doing church that no one has thought about yet.

What you see as failure may be the beginning of a brand new type of success.

Referenced Books/Resources

Center Church by Timothy Keller (incorrectly called City Church in the podcast)

Acts 29 a church planting network founded by Matt Chandler

New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp

Tweet about us! Use the hashtag #flannel&beards

Email us at [email protected]

Two church planters in Philadelphia start a podcast about what they've learned about Jesus, starting churches and being modern day disciples. The new podcast kicks off in January 2019! Subscribe to the feed on iTunes so you never miss an insane episode.