Best of 2023: Connecting with Your Community as a New Church Planter

Episode 793

What does it look like to connect with your community? Noah Oldham and Vance Pitman talk with Mark Lee about best practices for engaging your community as a new church planter.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• The best place to start connecting with your community
• How to be seen as a partner, rather than a parasite
• What foreign missions can teach us about being a missionary
• The principle of living your life with your eyes open to God’s activity around you
• How to mentor your core team to reach out to the city

Helpful Resources:

• The Externally Focused Quest
• The Art of Neighboring
• Interested in learning more? Check out our Church Planting Primer
• Are you ready to enroll in our Church Planting Masterclass?

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Sharable Quotes (#NewChurches):

When we begin to be viewed as partners in our communities and cities, we create relational bridges that allow the gospel to walk from our lives into the lives of those we’ve been called to serve. —Vance Pitman

The way we connected with the community was that I just wanted to connect with my street, to just be the pastor of my street. Sometimes we can make it too complicated: Who do I need to reach out to? Where do I need to go? I just started where I lived. —Mark Lee

The greatest church planting class I took in seminary was actually on foreign missions. It taught me about these principles of being a missionary. And one of those principles was finding a person of peace. —Noah Oldham

Find ways you can build relationships with the people in your life. For me, a lot of it had to do with what my kids were doing. The first 13 families I led to Christ, I led to Christ coaching Little League baseball and NFL flag football. —Vance Pitman

Once we have followers, disciples and a core team, how do we mentor them to reach out to the city too? For my core team, I provided a framework: prayers, conversations, table fellowships and invitations. —Mark Lee

When we started, we created what we called the Personal Touch Tip Sheet. It was 40 examples of how you could connect with someone. Like, for example, when somebody moves in on your street, bake some cookies or bread, make a meal, and take it to your neighbor. —Vance Pitman

Keep being faithful and trust the Lord to build His Church. —Noah Oldham

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