This week, we are continuing our conversation with church planting networks by chatting with Bryan Laughlin, Acts 29 Network Director of the US North Atlantic. Bryan tells us the story of his church planting endeavor and about Acts29’s commitment to equip church planters and plant new churches.
TranscriptionClint: [00:05] Well, hello; welcome to the Church Planting Podcast. My name is Clint Clifton. This podcast is intended to help church planters and sending churches aspiring to make more disciples through church planting.
Well, today we're going to talk to my good friend Bryan Laughlin. Bryan directs the Atlantic region of the Acts Network, and he serves as the lead pastor of a church he planted in downtown Richmond, Virginia a few years ago, Remnant Church. Bryan’s a fantastic leader and a good buddy, so let's get him on the line.
Bryan: [00:49] Hello Clint, good morning.
Clint: [00:51] Hey man, how are you?
Bryan: [00:53] I’m doing well, how are you?
Clint: [00:55] I’m great. If we can, why don't we just start by telling me about about Remnant; how it got started; how God called you to do that?
Bryan: [01:05] Yeah, yeah, well, it was definitely a process; it wasn't like an overnight revelation or anything like that. I became a Christian in early 20s, got plugged into a Baptist church south side of Richmond, it was thriving, preaching the Gospel, and I was there teaching Sunday school for about seven, seven, eight years, and so started a course where all young men seem to start in the youth group, and was there about three years, and then transitioned to young adults, 18 to 30, and started teaching there. During that time, pastor recommended me going to seminary, so I’d gone up there and was commuting back and forth from Southeastern Seminary Wake Forest. Got married; my wife was down there in the college, and so we got married, and short time -- about six months, we didn’t date that long, and so you know, during that process, kind of the burden for just continuing to share the Gospel continued to grow, and then dialogue with different pastors and planters especially at the local church we were at, whether or not -- just felt like the lord was leading us to plant. We come in several discussions, you know, men like Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll at the time, and JD Grear, folks like that. Talking about church planting felt like a little leading us to do that. Just kind of out of talk with the pastors; they said it seemed like a great fit. We planted in late 2009, so that's kind of the short version, a lot of lot of details in between, but it's been an amazing ride for sure.
Clint: [02:55] So, I was planting in the same state at the same time as you were, and got to watch from afar. Couple things that were, like, unique features from my perspective -- you planted with a really strong sort of staff level team right off the bat. Was that an ideal for you or it just happened that way? Tell us about the guys you planted with.
Bryan: [3:15] Oh yeah, it was definitely an ideal or value, it was something that would believe in team-based planting, you know, you see it modeled in the scriptures, and most of the missionaries who plant churches just kind of went out as pretty well-qualified teams, so we were -- it was definitely a value we held up front, and we're seeking to do for us -- planted with the gentleman by the name of Ryan Kidds, wonderful brother, we were friends for years. When I first got plugged into the Baptist church, we were in a young adult Sunday school together, and he had been Christian for a long time spares for missionaries in France, we kicked off a great relationship, and he we went to -- he went to seminary with me, so he was -- he lived in my house down in Youngsville, North Carolina for most of the week for a few years there, and actually, another gentleman by the name of Doug Ponder, and he -- same situation. He actually grew up in the church I got plugged into, was a liberty university graduate, and then came down to Southeastern with me. Same situation, we're all three kind of staying together this house we had down at Wake Forest, and kind of through that [inaudible] in our hearts for planting and seeing friends, folks in the Richmond area come to know Jesus So out of that we kind of developed a kind of leadership team and developed a core based on that, so it definitely was greatly beneficial, I think, just for a prayer support -- battles against a lot of the loneliness, all of those sorts of things, isolation -- that would -- that was just huge especially in planting, so that was a great benefit. That's definitely an ideal, you know, I’d recommend -- I won't say it’s the only way to do it, but it's definitely some helpful wisdom there.
Clint: [05:16] All right, so really planting in Richmond, you guys are planting in your hometown.
Bryan: [05:20] Yeah, basically, yeah, I mean Richmond where we plant out of was tri-cities area, which is a far outlying suburb of the larger metro area. I went to VCU myself in the heart of Richmond, and lived downtown, actually where our church meets now, for my undergraduate years. So very familiar with the city, and everybody grew up around the metro area, considers Richmond home, so it's an integrated metro complex, if you will, of all the counties and immediate city, so everybody's in and out. So pretty much hometown, yeah.
Clint: [05:55] All right. So you guys did something unique a few years in; you merged with another church, and neither of you, if I understand the situation right, was motivated by growth or health; you guys wanted to be together for mission. It seems like two really healthy, thriving new churches. Tell us about that.
Bryan: [06:22] Yeah, yeah, that was unforeseen for sure. It was definitely a missional move. I met Pastor Jeff -- he had been a church planter in the city for a couple years prior to us hitting the ground, and we've met through the Baptist’s ? network we planted through. And became good friends, actually moved into house -- my wife and I moved into -- our family moved in two blocks from him, so we kicked off a good friendship from the get-go. Leadership, we started doing joint discipleship training for leaders, some joint missions projects for a couple years, and through that, just became great friends He actually went through the Acts 29 Network assessment process, and joined the network as full church planter, and I guess about a couple -- a few months after that, he approached me and said, hey you know, I think we'd actually be better served in our mission of the city if we did it together. And I honestly just laughed it off, because I was thinking yeah, okay. But he was pretty persistent, came back, so we started doing some careful thought about it, discussion, and definitely seemed like a wiser strategic move for the type of church that we were striving to plant in the city, not being very big -- a multicultural… very multi-ethnic, diverse as possible, and so it was just a great, great fit, so we had -- months of planning emerged. I’ll say, oh it was it was just a beautiful fit, it probably took about a year to kind of really get, you know, the wedding of the two families together where it was one big happy family, but it was just wonderful, you know, outside of just normal awkwardness, a little bit of getting to know folks that love Christ, but you're just getting to know them personally. It was definitely a beautiful thing, so yeah, it was -- looking back over four years ago now, so just an extremely positive thing.
Clint: [08:35] Yeah, I think for an outsider looking at -- I think most guys were going, what's really going on over there? You know… everybody you see merging, they're basically, I mean, if you boil it down, it seems like they're doing it because one of the churches is really struggling and one's trying to kind of gobble up the other, but this really genuinely wasn't that, right?
Bryan: [08:59] No, no. Both of the churches were doing real well. We're seeing conversion growth folks coming to meet Christ, and both about the same size dynamics at the time, but there wasn't any type of difficulties or struggles that were going on, it was just a positive kind of bringing together of – there, we could just do more together was kind of a big idea, you know. So that was -- it was kind of, you know, the fit behind the whole thing. And it's just definitely turned out to be that for sure, so.
Clint: [09:35] So, how did you guys work out issues, like leadership, and preaching, and things like that?
Bryan: [09:40] Yeah, yeah, well that's a great question. Humbly, we discussed those carefully. Pastor Josh, and he had two elders at the time, they approached us, and you know, essentially there, there's a -- you know, in any merge there has to be a lead church, if you will. So Remnant was the lead church in the merge, and so we met with their leadership and members and talked through what it would look like, and how the shifts and leadership would come about, and a couple of their elders at the time decided that with the merge into the one new church that they'd be better served not in eldership capacity. And so they -- both of them strong leaders in the churches today, and we stepped out of the role of pastor for a while. Pastor Josh humbly said, he would kind of submit to whatever the larger pastor -- I think at the time we had, goodness, I don't know, four pastors maybe. So we kind of [inaudible] talked about that, and he came alongside, and was doing share preaching and leadership in our -- all of our community life of the church and membership and those sorts of things, so it's been a good fit, but it's always been a team deal, so it's -- that there hasn't been like -- there's always been camaraderie and a lot of decisions naturally flow out; there hasn't been anything, just begrudging, if you will, a little bit.
Clint: [11:20] Right, right. So, also one of the things I remember about that time period was that in the very beginning of Remnant, probably before the merge, you were working quite a lot of [inaudible], and it seems like you're able to do that because of the the team approach that you took in planting. Do you look back at that as a good thing, and how the other church planters thinking about that?
Bryan: [11:45] Yeah, wow. Yeah, you know, I will share our experience, like we -- we worked full time; for the first three years of the church, had three different jobs during that period. I was teaching online as a professor in philosophy at Liberty, and I was working two or three days a week full-time construction work, and then at the time I had this other research consulting job or whatever, and all of the two other guys that planted with me in the leadership capacity, they were all working as well. So I think in that sense, it was very doable because a lot of the kind of a [inaudible] efforts community outreach, sharing the good news with folks was -- the low was [inaudible] so that was -- that enabled us to have heavy amounts of giving and reinvestment into the strategic work of the mission, which is very beneficial. So, our long-term vision all the way from the beginning has been to put down heavy roots in the city; to be a faithful Gospel witness for decades and decades, so in order to do that, we want to lay a strong foundation, invest heavily into putting down some roots, if you will, and so that enabled that. But it's not always easy. So, one of our pastors, he had a Bible degree from Liberty. Beautiful, however just not that hireable outside of waiting tables, which she did, thankfully, but just not making the -- so many ends meet doing those sorts of things. So I had an engineering background, worked the engineer from undergrad, and I was able to pick up work pretty easily, so that -- so we were able to, you know, as far as like, supplementing incomes, and how we allocated towards bringing on pastoral staff, I was actually the -- I think the third pastor to come on pace in our church plan, so I was -- even as the lead guy, I was the third paid just because that's just what benefited the team and what was best, but that's not always doable, so you know, I think from -- I think guys that -- especially your planting, you know being --working in the community in some capacity, even about vocational, so it's just part-time, even if you're able to do a lot of fundraising, it's a great benefit just to get out meet people, do your missiological work, understand where people coming from, all that stuff. And it's easy to do when you're actually working, and you're not just at a coffee shop having to explain, hey, what are you doing here? Well, I’m paid to be a church planter. All right, that is an awkward conversation. Sometimes, it is doable …
Clint: [14:28] It definitely starts you off on the wrong foot. I’ve had that conversation many times.
Bryan: [14:33] Absolutely.
Clint: [14:36] Yeah, you guys also worked your way into a facility situation that was the -- from the outside looks look pretty great. Were you aiming at that, was that a priority? Or were you open to being kind of portable?
Bryan: [14:50] Yeah, well, I’ll say this. For us it was something that we prioritized in the development of the church plant, because it helped us to overcome the perception of transience. So one of the things that we wanted to do was calling people to follow Jesus, and He's Lord and He's that -- their God, and all that He's accomplished for us, then it ought to have a real, rooted, tangible expression in people's lives. One of the ways to kind of demonstrate that was, if you will, and this has been the case throughout church history, as you know, you put down and actually have a church home, a more fixed facility, if you will. So that it can kind of compliment and conveys a little bit more of what the intention is behind the faith, behind what it looks like to follow Christ, those sorts of things So for us, it was something that would prioritize early; they kind of overcame a lot of the maybe misperceptions that some of the -- we don't like early on. We were loading in and out of a box truck for -- so everything's in a trailer, and a box truck; we're loading in and out those things. I mean, church planters do that for years, and that's a beautiful thing; there's nothing wrong with that; in fact, you don't have to get a building. However, for us, it definitely helped with complement the message of calling people to follow Christ, with all of their lives investing in a community, begin to make disciples. A lot of that was up to, are you actually going to show up next week with the box truck, or is this just all going to hold randomly, so…
Clint: [16:45] All right, all right, okay, all right.
Bryan: [16:50] That's not a – not, you know -- I understand this. Tons of the the MO is, most church [inaudible] are rented facilities and schools and all those things, and those are beautiful things, and God grows a church that way, so it's not an either/or; one is bad and one's the other, it's just something we did prioritize for those reasons.
Clint: [17:06] Yeah, yeah, I hear ya, I mean, our church is eleven years old; we're still meeting at an elementary school and --
Bryan: [17:16] I like that.
Clint: [17:17] We went to a permanent facility, and then went back to elementary school because of size dynamics and stuff like that.
Bryan: [17:23] That's good
Clint: [17:26] yeah yeah so yeah as the guy who lives week to week with the frustration about uh, I really really do you know I just recognized us enjoyed guys don't have the fundraising capacity or or…
Bryan: [17:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, in a selfish way, I mean yeah, if we're just being honest -- I like being able to sleep a little later on Sundays. It was nuts [inaudible] setting up chairs and unload for us. You know it gets taxing a little bit, so in a selfish way I wasn't complaining about that.
Clint: [18:00] Yeah, I remember the first couple years of the church, I would -- we relied on set up people, and so I get up early, and go hook up the trailer, drive it up there, set everything up, and I have to bring another shirt, because my shirt will be saturated with sweat, you know.
Bryan: [18:18] Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Clint: [18:21] Not good. It's not good, but we do what we got to do.
Bryan: [18:25] Absolutely.
Clint: [18:25] So, talk to me about Acts 29 a little bit. You're the director of the Acts 29 for the Atlantic regions, is that right?
Bryan: [18:30] Yeah, yeah, I have a privilege of serving as the North Atlantic director. Kind of stepped in that role full-time late in 2015, so fairly recently. Last six months or so, and that's the the North Atlantic network. A. 29 is a global family of church planting churches and networks all across the globe. So the US is broken into five networks, so I has a privilege serving as the director over the North Atlantic, which spans from VA -- from Virginia all the way through Maine, and kind of all your major east coast cities going north. So, it's the largest region as far as population. Definitely the kind of least church to unreach, at this point, more definitely, more staunchly post-Christian, but we've just seen continual growth and planting and it’s been a beautiful thing for sure.
Clint: [19:39] Yeah, so tell the guys that I’m familiar with Acts 29. But what are some of the core ideals Acts 29 holds?
Bryan: [19:48] Yeah, well, Acts 29 is a one-issue network. Folks will hear that often as we are a network of church planting churches, so we associate and network together to assist one another to plant churches as churches through support resourcing, you know theological capital training, all of those sorts of ends. Distinctive lives – there’s kind of three, broad distinctive characteristics, if you will, that we try to strive for theological clarity, I think, is part of our little mission tag, or something like that. Theological clarity, so in more a reformed network, reformed theologically in kind of a broad sense, and so theological clarity is huge for our church plants as far as they're robust players, are robust in their theology, and all of their planting endeavors are infused with solid Gospel theology that permeates how they do everything in their church plan. So theological clarity is a big one. Missionary innovation is kind of the other one, whether -- where scriptures are very clear on what the mission is, and how we should think about God. Those sort of things, but it gives us flexibility to culturally contextualize the message and the mission, because culture is always changing. The ideas, the values, the idols, the very spiritualities of various false religions, all of those sorts of things are always morphing things, so it enables us to be very innovative in our missional approach and how we're reaching people with the good news, and so it's not a static philosophy of ministry, if you will. Now, the third value is cultural engagement. So it's kind of the big three -- cultural engagement just means we don't see ourselves as separatistic, but Christ sent us into the world with the good news and we're striving to put a lot of deed behind the words that we preach, and how we engage culture, love our neighbors, serve them, work for the common good, and constantly tell everyone about Christ, so that's kind of big broad three principles if you will.
Clint: [22:04] So, so, participating Acts 29, you guys have a reputation for a kind of a grueling assessment application process. Tell us a little bit about that. Do you take pride in that or not so much?
Bryan: [22:15] Well, yeah, I don't know if I take pride in being grueling, but if you know -- I know what you're saying -- I will -- it's thorough in the sense of -- and we do take a lot of pride in that because it's a great benefit to the planters and their families, so it's not something that we take lightly, because it's the grace of the planters, and it’s a huge help to seeing the churches planted well, that the men and their families that are planting churches are equipped well for the work, resourced well, have a solid vision, and so it's actually great benefit to all the church planners, it definitely could seem grueling at times as pretty thorough in a lot of ways but it corresponds to the endeavor, the weightiness of assessment corresponds to -- no one, and you know this very well, you know you don’t enter into church planting lightly, and you want to be sober about the endeavor and also we have a lot of blind spots, so one of the things that's a great objective kind of even if you're being sent out from a church that's equipped you well as all sorts of in-house training, you still get some fresh eyes on the situation, and so that you might actually be assessed, and see this is a wise thing, so it's been a very profitable thing over the years -- now there's always been some horror stories, but I haven't heard any of those as of lately so that's that's been encouraging.
Clint: [23:58] Yeah. So do you feel like actually doing a doing a pretty good job in terms of forecasting how well planters are going to do on the front end? And if so, what are those again -- just give me a couple of the things that you're that you're looking for in a planter?
Bryan: [24:20] That's good, yeah I think on the whole as much as you have the capacity to discern well whether or not someone's going to do well I’m planting it in accordance with the scriptures. I think it does a pretty pretty solid job for sure, it helps assess whether or not the planters actually understand the Gospel all they're proficient of scriptures, does their character line up with Christ’s likeness as an example as a pastor as a planter and then are they actually able to teach and preach and evangelize and develop a church community So in that sense you know it's extremely helpful, so we're looking for qualified men who are humble teachable, know the Gospel very well or winsome -- there's, I think it was Larry Osborne years ago, and this isn't bad, I don't think that is -- you want someone who as a leader does is theologically robust understands the the scriptures very well the gospel very well from the scriptures but also is personable, you know are they often they just the you know are they just a loving human being do they do they love people? Did they desire to serve them and is that reflected in their character in their life as an example? Because the church is going to reflect the the pastoral, you know families, especially with lead pastor's family so that's just by definition the church they're going to look like that so are they the type of men they have the the character to persevere? Have they been tested? Have actually done anything? So you know, you typically have -- that's a key component you have a lot of men that despise the church plantin,g and they have read every church planting book they can get their hands on there every amount of credentialing as high as possible but they've never actually planted anything or started anything you know they may have managed some ministries, but as far as actually you know I think the bad business journal bees you know do they have any entrepreneurship, do they have the capacity to start things and see them through? That they have a vision and are they thinking through the strategy to actually not just start a church but actually plant the gospel so that people might come to know Jesus and a new community be formed those who beforehand didn't know him then also all of us that are looking for, for sure.
Clint: [26:50] Yeah, yeah, and one of the things that is notable about Acts 29 compared to compared to other networks is that what other networks really seem to front-load and work with guys that are not yet proven there, if I understand right you guys have to have what you call candidacy or something like that where where you actually go through the process you're … you know you're approved but you guys were benchmarks until you're fully approved, is that right?
Bryan: [27:20] Yeah yeah, you know, post assessment process most guys enter into what we call like you said a candidate phase where they're under guided leadership coaching they have some provisional requirements if you will in regards to seeing folks come to faith and develop a core church of at least 40 committed adult members also you know their conditions for you know for most guys coming through will have conditions to think further on these things and work and normally the candidacy phases somewhere I was you know around about a year, six months to a year for most guys so to help them really as a plant out not just going to give them some objective assessment or whatever not give any hands-on guided coaching and mentoring as they do it, so it's been very helpful for a lot of guys for sure.
Clint: [28:18] Yeah, gotcha gotcha. Well Bryan, been really, really helpful to talk to you before get off the phone I just want to mention one sort of personal anecdote right when I think of Bryan Laughlin that's the thing that I remember most is a conversation we had a long time ago where you told me that that you and your wife sometimes have times where you get together and just repent of your sins to one another in your relationship and and I remembers just getting in the car driving home thinking that's the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, and actually telling my wife about it when I got home and we in that first day we said we should try to -- it was a good helpful thing Bryan really taught you, we should do that and I remember we tried the first time we got into a massive argument.
Bryan: [29:10] Yeah, yeah.
Clint: [29:12] And it was but it was really helpful in since then we've had much more pattern of that so do I remember that right is that is that how...?
Bryan: [29:20] I do yeah definitely. I am passing, but yeah, yeah that's been a bit of blessing within our marriage because there's a lot of the gospel enriches and heals us and a good news for us and we you know especially as you know planters and pastors you know there's all sorts of family stress especially on the marriage and so it's it's been we've seen a lot of fruit bear that as our try to keep a regular regimen of confessing our sins to one another and not in a bad accountability way we're out [inaudible] one another but just lovingly one-up serve one another not going to always get it right how do we how do we you know seek to be more like Christ towards one another that's that's been beautiful and and definitely necessary, because as you know your family your wife that is absolutely a kind of a hedge of protection and a grace of encouragement should be a to a planner when many times, they don't get that that's for mother[inaudible].
Clint: [30:25] Yeah all right man, thank you so much for talking to me, taking time out.
Bryan: [30:30] Okay Clint, thank you, appreciate the opportunity; thank you.
Clint: [30:36] Well, today's program is brought to you in part by the new city network. new city aims to renew and establish gospel centered churches in metro dc you can find out more about new city by visiting their website at newcityplanting.org special thanks also to my guest Bryan Laughlin who wins the award for being the manliest church planter I know and to Bobby Oliveri, who produced on the edited today show if you'd like more information about the church planting podcast you can visit our web site at clintclifton.org go to the website to find additional posts about church planting and notes and links from today’s show.
