We spent the day getting ready at the MATCH School (1001 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA). Pictures will be forthcoming.
I'm really excited! Our preview service will be at 11AM at the MATCH school. Afterwards we will be going to Victoria Seafood Restaurant for a celebration. If you are in Boston, I hope to see you there! If you are not, please pray for us! 
I can’t believe it’s been one month since we left Philadelphia and moved to Boston! It took a week or so for us to get accustomed to the new surroundings, but we’ve settled in well and are excited to become full-fledged Bostonians!
To summarize the first few weeks, I can only say, God has been gracious! We have slowly but surely been getting in contact with different brothers and sisters who are expressing interest in being part of the church plant. We spent the first two weeks looking for potential places of worship, and God has been good to provide! We prayed for a place near Boston University, that could seat 100 people, and was affordable. We also prayed that this place would have storage and parking, but that would have been a bonus. But God brought us to a place that has all of the above! We are still working out the contract, but it looks like we will be worshiping at the Match Charter School (1001 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA), which is right on Boston University’s campus, surrounded by BU residential apartments.
In addition, Symphony Church will soon be joined by its first seminary intern. Cami King will be attending Gordon Conwell seminary beginning in the Fall, and serving at Symphony.
It’s been a busy and exciting month. In the last few weeks, we also:
• Started Experiencing God as a team
• Got Symphony Church incorporated with the State of Massachusetts
• Opened a Symphony Church bank account
• Began surveying at Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern University, MIT and Harvard
• Purchased our worship equipment
• Began Sunday Services at my house.
Our first preview worship service begins July 18th , and we have a great deal to get ready! Please pray for us! We are going to spend next week evangelizing, flyering and surveying, and trying to get as many personal contacts as possible before the July 18th preview service.
I am so thankful for your prayers and financial support. We can’t do this without you! We are looking forward to seing the teams from GCC soon, and hope that you will count down to our September 5th Launch with us!
In my last post on this series, I talked about the demographic need for more churches in this country. Why plant/launch a new church? Well, quite simply we need more churches in this country. There are not enough existing churches for everyone to attend in the United States. Currently, there is only one church for every thousand or so people in this country. Not every church can become a thousand member church. Nor would they want to be. So the answer to this problem is simple: we need more churches.
But this is not the best reason to plant new churches. An even better reason is this. As C. Peter Wagner (the famous missiologist) writes:
Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic method under heaven.
He's not the only one saying this. Tim Keller (you could just skip this whole blog series and just listen to what he has to say), John Piper, Mark Driscoll (including the Acts 29 movement and The Gospel Coalition), Henry Blackaby, etc, agree that church planting is the most effective evangelistic method under heaven.
In other words, existing churches are NOT the best way to reach the 227 million unchurched people out there. New churches are. Dave Earley has compiled some astonishing statistics about this:
Why would this be?
I think there are three reasons this would be so:
If we are serious about bringing the gospel message to the unchurched, then we need to plant new churches.
But as good a reason as this is to plant new churches, I'll talk about an even better reason to plant churches in my next post.
Well, we announced it today at church. The new church will be called Symphony Church of Boston. We have brand spanking new website (Symphony Church) and various social media platforms planned.
Here is the video that Karen Wong made. I thought she did a fantastic job. I could have done my part better though.
On an unrelated note, my respect for pastors who are able to blog daily (especially, my old professor at Fuller, Mark Roberts) continues to rise with every day that I have not blogged!
I believe there are a number of great reasons to church plant. In the coming days, I will try to go through some of them.
The first reason is a demographic one. Quite simply, there are a lot of people out there who don't go to a church at all. Here are some statistics from Gallup:
Percentage of Americans who are protestant: 56%1
Percentage of Protestants who go to church: 45%2
Population of the United States: 307 million (source: Google Public Data)
So if my math is right: there are 227 million people who do not attend a protestant church (we're not even talking about a gospel centered evangelical church here) on a regular basis. That is a lot of people!
But you may say, well, how does adding a church help with that? Aren't there a lot of churches already? Doesn't this just mean that churches need to do a better job? Well, yes. They could do a better job, my church included. But here's the thing: There aren't enough churches. Let me say that again. There are not enough churches.
Why do I say that? Every year, approximately 3500 to 4000 churches close their doors forever. This decade has seen a surge in church planting, as churches have become aware of the vast need, but prior to this decade, only 1500 or so new churches were planted each year. Along with population growth, this means that there are 60% fewer churches per 10,000 people in America than there were in 1920.
1920 - 27 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
1950 - 17 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
1996 - 11 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.3
If there are 10-11 churches per 10,000 Americans, that means that we need many more existing churches to become mega churches. Is that realistic? Or perhaps we just need many more churches.
As compelling as this demographic data is for me, there's an even better reason to plant new churches. I'll address that with my next post.
(to be continued)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
3 - Tom Clegg and Tim Bird, Lost in America (Loveland CA: Group Publishing, 2001), 30
Let me just start by saying that I have been impressed with my husband's ability to begin his own autobiographical novel. He has written his 11 part introduction with such skill that his cliffhangers have left me wanting more (even though I already know his story!). I am not a natural writer, so my introduction will begin and end with this first blog.
I guess I will start by saying that basically I'm a So. Cal girl...lived my whole life in 70 degree weather and was always at most 30 minutes from the beach. I grew up in a Christian family, always going to Sunday School and then later youth group. Growing up, I was a pretty introverted & shy person. I felt awkward around a lot of people. Little did I know, but God had plans for me! Plans to turn me upside down and break me out of that set notion I had about myself. Plans to put me in a position where I would constantly have to reach out, interact, and have relationship with people...a LOT of people! But I'll save that story for another blog.
To introduce myself, let me list some of my favorite things(not in any particular order):
1. My boys, Caleb & Micah. To Caleb (4 yrs old), right now everything is a contest, including who can finish dinner first, race to the top of the stairs, put away the toys first (I personally like this one)....you get the idea. He also loves to tell "knock-knock" jokes that don't always make sense, but cracks himself up hysterically every time. He has a voice of an announcer. When he's telling me about his day, his voice gets dramatically louder & quieter, sounding much like a sports announcer giving a play-by-play. Micah (15 mos) loves following his older brother around, climbing everything fearlessly, laughing hysterically with Caleb and doing a funny little, one-leg-bouncing dance whenever he hears music.
2. My husband, who is loving, goofy, and very patient with me.
3. Teaching math to high school students.
4. Food (I really like fried foods), cooking, & menu planning.
5. Organizing, planning, & making lists (as you can see).
6. Worshiping God
7. The Church & it's people. In particular Grace Covenant Church & Church of Southland, where we have been serving for the last 8+ years. And now, our new church plant in Boston!
8. Last but not least, my Lord.
So my blogs will probably be based on some of these things....talk to you again soon.
When people hear of the plans for the church plant in Boston, generally they fall into two camps. The first group is excited and supportive of the news of a church plant. This group comprises the vast majority of the people I’ve heard from. Granted, this may be because the people who know me are supportive of what they see God doing in my life, rather than because they have a view one way or another about church planting.
But through the grape-vine, I’ve come to realize that there are some Christians who don’t think church planting is necessary. It seems like objections to church planting come in four forms:
Over the next week or so, I’m going to try to address these objections, as well as present a positive case for church planting. I will be answering three main questions:
I am still working on my next impending series, but for now here are some pictures to spice up my otherwise plain blog!
a picture of the family: (left to right) Caleb, Sunny, Micah and Barry
Me and my Nikon D60. I'm not much of a photographer though.
Micah and Caleb sporting their shaggy winter hairdos
Happy Easter!
Just an announcement: starting tomorrow I'll begin blogging my thoughts on why I believe Boston needs another church plant.
See you then!
