Easter Sunday at my first appointment: Trinity UMC, Defiance, OH. This was a combined worship service for our traditional and contemporary service.

Becoming a Pastor

While serving as a youth pastor at a small United Methodist Church, I watched two pastors come and go in five years. I started with a wonderfully charming and fun guy who thought more highly of me than was warranted. He gave me more permission than was good for my ego as a young twenty-something, but it allowed me to make many mistakes and thus learn valuable lessons. The second pastor was older, and our church was just a stepping stone to retirement. I met him a few times and listened to his sermons, but I don’t remember him doing much. He was a warm support to my work, and I’m thankful for that. With his retirement on the horizon, the church began wondering who might get appointed to the church next. 

During this time, I had my church enlightenment—when I realized that the church could be more than Sunday mornings. I had a vision that a properly understood church could present the best of both worlds: a community that extends its ministry beyond the walls of the congregation, a church that gathered in a building but did ministry in the streets. 

During this season, I chatted with a parent of one of my youth. We discussed who might be appointed as our next pastor while walking through the sanctuary after church on a Sunday. In the most off-the-cuff, casual way, this parent said, “What if you were our next pastor?”

She didn’t mean anything by it, but the spark lit that dry tinder forming in my soul. 

A week later, I sat down with my dad, a United Methodist Pastor. I told him I was thinking about putting my name in for the next pastor at my church. To be clear, I was their part-time youth pastor without any clergy credentials. I had not begun the process for credentials. I wasn’t even aware there was a process! My dad quickly reminded me of this, and being the ever-practical and logical man, he told me, “That’s not how it works. Your church is a full-time appointment, and they must give it to someone who needs a full-time appointment.” 

I would later learn how true this was. Our system guarantees full-time appointments to ordained elders, and my church, where I served as a youth pastor—and where my membership now sits—was one such church. Our church was important in a world of declining churches that can no longer afford full-time elders. It would be illogical to think I would become their pastor. That’s not how it works. 

Yet, regardless of the logic, I somehow knew it would happen. 

Like many church planters, I tried to wish it into existence.

A month later, I was at a district event when a leadership team member introduced me to our Superintendent, Steve Bennett. Steve invited me to get coffee. He believed our little church had potential, and since I was the only other ministry staff person at the time, he wanted my thoughts on what we should consider in a pastor. We sat down a week later, for coffee at the local cafe. I talked about the church, and I told him my story and what I thought the church could be doing. 

As it turns out, I had a lot of ideas. 

He listened. 

Then, I did something no one expected (although I learned later that Steve had hoped the conversation would go that way). I said, “I know this isn’t how it works, and you have to give this appointment to someone who needs a full-time appointment. I’m not licensed or ordained, but I’d be very interested in this position if it were available.”

This was my first lesson in church planting. Jesus summarizes it well: “You have not, because you ask not.” Indeed, asking for things will not always get you what you want, but I have found that asking for things gets you what you want at a much higher rate than not asking for them. A church planter has to put themselves out there. 

Two months later, I was appointed as the Lead Pastor at my church. I wasn’t credentialed, hadn’t gone to seminary, and had no previous church leadership experience. 

I had a lot to learn, but one of the benefits of naiveté is that you don’t know what you can’t do. New ideas are born from such naiveté. 

For the next three years, I experimented with new ideas. We launched a new contemporary service. It was small, and I struggled to see it as a success. Now that I live in a post-COVID-19 world, where fresh expressions are more common, I’d say it was far more successful than I realized, with around 40 to 50 in attendance. We also launched a neighborhood initiative and monthly community dinner, hired a children’s director, and walked the streets meeting our neighbors.

In the end, the excitement in measurable attendance goals didn’t match the culture of our traditional church. Immense insecurity on my part and unhealthy small-church dynamics wore me down. There was deep tension in the church between the new people and the legacy families. There were competing ideals and values, giving me pastoral whiplash. The new church members were there for the vision, mission, and community. The legacy members would get glimpses of this but still held onto past iterations of what it meant to be church. The leaders were committed to God's calling, but I started to sense a different calling. 

I knew I needed a break and to learn more. Through it all, one thing became clear: I wanted to plant a church. I longed to start something new. My wife, Allyssa, and I started dreaming of a new church. I read books on church plants. I watched videos. It was like I had been bitten by some church-planting bug—I felt like I HAD to plant a church. 

I had one problem. I wasn’t worried about funding—I figured I could always do what we used to call “tent-making” ministry and be bi-vocational, or I could do fundraising. I believed, innocently, that God provided. (It turns out this has remained true.)

I was mostly worried about planting a healthy church, and my experience of United Methodist churches had been mostly small, traditional, legacy congregations with toxic family-like cultures that catered to the most dysfunctional patriarch or matriarch. 

I had not experienced healthy churches, and I feared if I planted a church now, I’d just multiply something unhealthy. It’s like lima beans. Growing up, I hated lima beans—I’m sure they are great—but I hated them. So, if I were planting a garden, the last thing I would want to plant would be lima beans. Generally, it’s wise not to plant something you don’t want to eat. This was the second great lesson I learned in church planting. Or, as Jesus said, “You harvest what you plant.” You can’t plant lima beans and hope that your preaching and leadership will be able to convince them to be strawberries. It doesn't work that way. What you start with is what you will end with, more often than not. 

I knew I needed to catch a "strawberry" vision for the church. In the end, my wife introduced me to Paul Risler. She had interned at Central Avenue United Methodist Church in Athens, OH, back in undergrad and told me it was young, healthy, and reaching new people. 

I got to know Paul, chatting mostly online. At one point, I messaged him about church planting. He was, at the time, looking for a new associate. He wasn’t interested in planting a church, and I wasn’t interested in being an associate. Still, I’ve learned in church planting that you must put yourself out there and help people see how competing ideas can co-exist. This takes initiative, creativity, and out-of-box thinking. This is an important skill for starting things. I asked him if he would be open to someone being an associate for a season, to learn the way of life at that church, and then be sent out to plant a similar church. 

I was looking for more than a church to learn from. I was looking for a church to help me launch one. 

I messaged Paul on Facebook back then but saved the conversation in a folder called “for posterity’s sake.” 

I asked, “How many people living in Columbus, Cincinnati, or Dayton who once attended Central would be excited and supportive if Central planted a church there?”

Remember: You have not because you asked not to. 

I went on to try and convince him, and in classic Paul fashion, he was encouraging but said this. “Let's talk about this in a couple of weeks. Right now, I have too much on my plate to give it serious brain power... But I'll pray and start thinking. A network of Central church plants. Hummm…”

The seed had been planted. 

I ended the conversation with one last pitch, playing off the idea of a church in Columbus, Ohio, a city centrally located in our state: “I want the first church plant to be called Central City Church.”

I sent that on August 28th, 2013. 

Four years later, my wife and I moved to Columbus and launched Central City Church in Columbus, Ohio.

Reflection Questions

1.     What experiences or encounters have shaped your calling or sense of purpose?

2.     How do you view the church's role in gathering and serving the community?

3.     Have you ever felt strongly convinced that something others told you was unlikely or impossible? How did you respond?