Church Planting
San Diego For Life
Blog | Pastor Duane Smets
This past month my wife and I bought a house here in San Diego. Now that we’ve been in our new house for a couple weeks I’ve had some time to reflect on the whole experience and the significance of owning, it’s connection to being a pastor of a church, and living our lives here in this city.
Most purchase houses because, though there is some level of debate about it, the majority consensus is that it’s a much better use of one’s money from a financial perspective. From a theological perspective, many would say it’s being a better steward of the money God has given one to use wisely for his glory. While there may be some truth there and certainly a part of me that resonates with those sentiments since I’ve been renting for the last 11 years of my life, the truth is the economical benefits of owning are secondary to me.
The primary benefit in my mind is missional and pastoral. I moved to San Diego in 1996 to go to college, in the year 2000 took a few years break to do grad work in LA and then moved back in 2005 to plant The Resolved Church. As I have studied San Diego and experienced first hand some of the challenges the city faces, one of the primary obstacles to the health and the growth of the city is the very transient nature of the city.
San Diego belongs to an elite club of cities who exchange people on a yearly basis resulting in a high number transplants who are always either moving in or moving out. The number of native San Diegans who were born and raised here are relatively few. Whether it’s college, military, business venture, or extended vacation and/or recuperation…people tend to be here for a little while and then move on. This creates all kinds of challenges for a city who needs people to invest in it long term because they love and care for the city and its future well being.
Blood & Jail: The Church Planting Philosophy of Acts
By Pastor Duane Smets
We’ve got a whole book in our Bible titled, “Acts” which is really short for action and in the Bible is short for the “Acts of the Apostles.” Basically, it’s a book which outlines the life and times of the early church.
In the story of Jesus, we have him beginning his official public ministry when he is about 30 years old. For three years he travels around teaching, preaching, healing and spreading the good news that he is here and the kingdom of God has been now initiated through him. A big part of his goal during those three years was to train 12 dudes to lead his church that he would start through them after he died on the cross and rose again.
Acts is an exciting book. All kinds of stuff is going on. The church gets started off with a bang, several thousand people becoming Christians right away. Then things start to heap up and some Christians pay the price for it and are stoned to death. Others are thrown into prison. But there are earthquakes and angels and shipwrecks and healings and exorcisms and public debates all kinds of crazy stuff happening… which all ironically result in furthering the spread of the church as more and more people become Christians.
The thesis of the book of Acts is in Acts 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” The overriding theme in Acts is simply that God by His Spirit is at work making this thing happen, enabling the church to be his witnesses.
I remember almost exactly five years ago now when we first started this church and I had some of my pastor friends ask me what our plan was for starting the church, how we were going to do it? What would be our church planting philosophy or strategy?
The Book of Nehemiah
Building God’s Church In The City – This series covers the entire book of Nehemiah. These sermons look at the vision God gives and then the heart, prayer, work, difficulties, determination, and grace of God it takes to see that vision through. In total there are 13 sermons preached from January to May of 2009 at The Resolved Church, San Diego, CA.
Audio & Manuscripts Below
Listen Read Nehemiah 1 – Getting God’s Vision for a City
Listen Read Nehemiah 2 – Moving Forward with God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 3 – Putting God’s Vision into Practice
Listen Read Nehemiah 4 – Facing Challenges to God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 5 – The Community Life of God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 6 – Personal Persistence with God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 7 – Completing the Groundwork of God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 8 – The Centrality of God’s Book in God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 9 – The History of God’s Vision in a Prayer
Listen Read Nehemiah 10 – Looking to the Future Fulfillment of God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 11 – The Urban and Missional Living of God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 12 – Dedicating our Work to God and God’s Vision
Listen Read Nehemiah 13 – Continuing in the Mission of God’s Vision
Acts 29 – The Story Continues…
This is a special sermon about Acts 29, the church planting network that The Resolved Church is a part of. It is a topical sermon on the missional theme of Acts 1:8 & 28:28-31 which call for the continual mission of Jesus church in planting churches. This sermon looks at the history of The Resolved Church, the Acts 29 Network Vision, Values and Doctrine, and how The Resolved Church intends to plant churches and fullfill the Acts 29 mission. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on June 28th, 2009 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
We Are Missionaries
This is a special sermon on the vision and mission of The Resolved Church from Pastor Duane Smets. It goes through our core values as a church with John 20:21 as the guide. This sermon was originally preached May 10th, 2009 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
Church Planting Success
In my final study of the book of Nehemiah I came across a paragraph from theologian J.I. Packer’s book on Nehemiah on church growth. There are a lot of ideas and practices at work in the landscape of churches across the US and beyond. With mature spiritual insight and keen cultural perceptivity Packer speaks into what makes a church plant a success.
I have found that churches, pastors, seminaries, and parachurch agencies throughout North America are mostly playing the numbers game – that is, defining success in terms of numbers of heads counted or added to those that were there before. Church-growth theorists, evangelists, pastors, missionaries, news reporters, and others all speak as if (1) numerical increase is what matters most; (2) numerical increase will surely come if our techniques and procedures are right; (3) numerical increase validates ministries as nothing else does; (4) numerical increase must be everyone’s main goal. I detect four unhappy consequences of this.
First, big and growing churches are viewed as far more significant than others. Second, parachurch specialists who pull in large numbers are venerated, while hard-working pastors are treated as near-nonentities. Third, lively laymen and clergy too are constantly being creamed off from the churches to run parachurch ministries, in which, just because they specialize on a relatively narrow front, quicker and more striking results can be expected. Fourth, many ministers of not-so-bouncy temperament and not-so-flashy gifts return to secular employment in disillusionment and bitterness, concluding that the pastoral life of steady service is a game not worth playing.
In all of this I seem to see a great deal of unmortified pride, either massaged, indulged, and gratified, or wounded, nursed, and mollycoddled. Where quantifiable success is god, pride always grows strong and spreads through the soul as cancer sometimes gallops through the body. Shrinking spiritual stature and growing moral weakness thence result, and in pastoral leaders, especially those who have become sure they are succeeding, the various forms of abuse and exploitation that follow can be horrific.
Orienting all Christian action to visible success as its goal, a move which to many moderns seems supremely sensible and businesslike, is thus more a weakness in the church than its strength; it is a seedbed both of unspiritual vainglory for the self-rated succeeders and of unspiritual despair for the self-rated failures, and a source of shallowness and superficiality all round.
The way of health and humility is for us to admit to ourselves that in the final analysis we do not and cannot know the measure of our success the way God sees it. Wisdom says: leave success ratings to God, and live your Christianity as a religion of faithfulness rather than an idolatry of achievement.
Packer says it was studying the book and life of Nehemiah which helped him see and learn these principles. Nehemiah ends his book of memoirs with the phrase, “Remember me, O my God, for good (Neh 13:31).” May we be aware of the motives of our heart that would find satisfaction in others seeing us as good for what we have accomplished numerically. May God help us not to define success in terms of numbers. May we count success as looking to and trusting Jesus. The numbers are his job to do what he wants with them for whatever way will bring him the most glory.
- Pastor Duane
The Resolved Church is a Church Plant (3 Parts)
A three part sermon series addressing the story of The Resolved Church, what it means to be a church plant, how a church plant happens and what the vision and goal of The Resolved Church is. These sermons were originally preached in July of 2007 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
Audio & Manuscripts
Listen Read A Man, A Mission and a Calling – selected texts
Listen Read The Resolved Church Must Die – Mark 8:34-38
Listen Read The Resolved Church Must Live – Mark 8:35
The Risen Mission
An exegetical treatment of Acts 1:1-12, addressing the theme of Jesus’ resurrection, the mission of His church and The Resolved Church plant in San Diego. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on April 8th of 2007 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
