h2o church Kent State, Ohio

The church plant has officially begun at Kent State University! h2o church at Kent State University began in August of 2008. Check out the website: h2okent.com

Also, check out the blogs of some of the church leaders:
Jason Slack
Matt McClure
Mark Brewer

Trip Update

Greetings everyone,

I hope your holidays have been enjoyable, relaxing and reflective. It’s hard to believe that the break will be coming to a close shortly, but I’m feeling excited for the upcoming semester. It seems like God will have plenty of opportunities to do big things in my life if I can stay the course and seek His face.

I wanted to give you some brief updates on the recent trips to Kent State and University of Pittsburgh along with a few thoughts I’ve had lately. We will still try to plan a church plant meeting in January to discuss these things further and pray together. Here’s the quick version:

Kent State:
- met with 5 different ministry/church leaders in less than 24 hours (very exhausting but helpful). All ministry leaders were extremely excited about the possibility of a church plant on campus (this is rare for all leaders to agree)
- found out that the need at Kent is considerably greater than we originally thought – no churches on campus, Christian student groups are relatively small, etc.
- also found out that Kent has a “suitcase college” feel – meaning that many of the students live on campus during the week but go home on weekends (this could be a tough quality to overcome as a campus church)
- there is a potential church plant coming to campus from a “mega” church in one of the suburbs

Pittsburgh:
- we got lost in the city several times L
- Matt McClure uses the restroom at an extremely high frequency
- Only one church/student group has a major impact on campus (about 200 students)
- Campus Crusade, Intervarsity, etc. have had very minimal success on this campus
- Given the “downtown” feel of campus, our ministry would most likely need to look much different than ministry at BG
- Several “emerging” churches in the city are doing very well and drawing some students
- Housing is relatively inexpensive
- Finding room reservation space on campus is very difficult

Overall, the trips were beneficial, but inconclusive. I find myself starting to feel some of the weight of this decision. Until now there was always something to look forward to (ie: these trips). But now there seems to be no events scheduled before the decision deadline of March 1st. No foreseeable major factor is before me – it is left to my time with the Lord and any counsel I may receive from my co-leaders. I’m still excited about all that God is and will teach me through this decision-making process, but the weight of the decision is growing. Please continue to pray for me through this. I begin counseling/coaching with Greg VanNada next Friday. I will be driving about 2.5 hours one-way up to East Lansing to begin a series of counseling sessions with Greg. Our goal is not necessarily to talk about church plant issues, but to dig into my own issues relating to my family and my past. My hope is to grow in balance and health from an emotional standpoint as I make a decision on church plant (free from insecurities and other emotional barriers). I’m looking forward to updating you all more in the weeks to come. Until then, here are some things you can do:
1. pray for Lindsay and me as we continue to seek God
2. pray for the Franks as they do the same
3. continue to seek God for yourself – specifically asking Him to reveal your own issues that He will refine in this process and your potential church plant roles
4. fast – a few of us will collectively be fasting every Thursday until March 1st. Consider joining us in this spiritual discipline

I guess that’s all for now. I’ll be sure to update you soon when we pick a good date for January’s meeting. Feel free to email or post a comment on h2ochurchplant.blogspot.com if you have any updates on your own situation.

In Christ,

Jason

The Church Plant Wilderness

"The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.

~Proverbs 14:8

Throughout the past four years of dreaming about this church plant it has always been our goal to be patient, wise and prudent in moving forward. Our hope all along has been to please God and to follow His vision and His dreams for us. Certainly there are temptations to move forward too fast - putting God's timing as a second priority. There are also temptations to move too slow - being held back by distractions or fear. Yet the personalities of our leadership team (and the entire leadership team of h2o) seem to be consistently cautious (in a good way).

This cautious tendency led to the decision last March to delay the church plant from the summer of 2007 to an indefinite time in the future - with a re-evaluation this March to determine the progress of those factors causing a delay: namely the readiness of our team and especially the readiness of Bryan. Over the past month, Bryan and I have had much discussion about the re-evaluation that will occur in March. He has been sharing that his feelings have not changed - in fact, his readiness to plant a church seems to be at a lower level than before. For this reason, he is leaning against being a part of this team. He and I have had some good talks about this, and we are continuing to talk (our talks also include the h2o leadership team). In many ways this has been sad for both of us. We remember the days long ago of sitting in a coffee shop in Bowling Green that doesn't even exist anymore (Court St. Cafe') dreaming about one day starting a church together.

And so now we must decide if (and how) this dream can still go forward potentially without Bryan. We have felt strongly that having two ordained pastors is the ideal formula for church plant leadership. While my own ordination is a little uncertain, it seems like it could happen within the next year (ultimately, this process is in God's hands). So I will be spending the next few months (until March 1) seeking God to see if He would ask me to plant this church as the only ordained pastor. I am looking forward to this process and I take it very seriously. I'm excited to look to God for something so specific. I really think that I will be learning a lot about myself over the next couple of months that will potentially have a lasting impact on the rest of my life. Please pray for me and for my ability to hear from God on this.

In addition, Emily has been sharing lately that she is most likely not going on the church plant. Without Bryan and Emily we will only have two full-time staffers (myself and Matt). This creates a need for the h2o staff team to pray again about joining us and helping to plant a church. We would hope to have at least one or two more staffers join us.

My heart is still for Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh. This campus is still at the top of my list for our destination - it seems to line up best with our original vision. I've been presented with a few other options that I want to be faithful to pray about as well, but at this point those seem to have a lower priority.

I know for many of you this has been a long (and at times difficult) process. Some of you have been on board with this vision since it was first made public. We have taken several trips together and have even dreamed together about what a church composed of "us" would look like. Thanks for your patience and for your desire for God's timing as well. At times, I have viewed this as sort of a "wilderness experience" for many of us - a time of testing and refining. We are giving God a chance to root out our issues (as He has definitely been doing) and teach us lessons that will profit us no matter what happens with this dream. Thanks for sticking with it! I will keep you updated in the months to come. I'll let you know ASAP of the December meeting time. This weblog was originally meant to be a chance to post thoughts and discuss, so please feel free to post comments. I would love to know where you are at with all of this - what God is teaching you and how you are feeling about the newest updates.

In Christ,

Jason

New News

In case everyone hasn't heard your two fearless leaders have some news. Both the Slacks and the Wiles are pregnant! If you want to read more you can check out their blogs. Hope everyone has a great summer!

Slacks- http://www.bgslack.blogspot.com
Wiles- http://www.blwiles.blogspot.com

We hope you are all having a fantabulous week. We wanted to let you know that we’ve slightly modified the time we will be meeting this Sunday. To avoid double-booking with the LT meeting and a fusion planning meeting, we will start hanging out at 5:30 (instead of 5) at the Wiles/Slack apartment complex (It’s OUR complex). Feel free to come and go as you please. Bring a couple of dollars if you’d like to order pizza with us – we’ll just be hanging out, goofing around, and getting to know each other. There is no specific agenda for this "meeting" so if you are coming expecting to hear a sermon or something like that you might be disappointed. Looking forward to hanging out with you guys.

Also two more quick things...
1. don't forget about the invisible children screening this Friday @ 7:00 in the Union Ballroom, our very own Matt McClure and Stephanie Bennre (and maybe some others) have worked really hard on this project and we think it is an awesome thing.

2. I have been reading about a man in Afghanistan who converted to Christianity and is facing a great amount of persecution. I linked an article below, you may want to check it out and pray for him and the thousands of other believers around the world that face persecution on a daily basis.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/28/christian.convert/index.html

Pushing Back

Jason and I wanted all of you to know that we were really encouraged by our time the other day. We felt like the input that was given was very good and we have taken it all to heart. We also wanted you to know that we are even more confident now about the decision to push the date back because of the positive response that almost all of you gave about the decision. Thanks for your understanding and desire to follow God's plan for our church here in Bowling Green and the future church in Pittsburgh (or where ever God leads). If any of you have new thoughts or emotions about the decision or the church plant in general please feel free to get a hold of Jason or myself.

As you can tell we are going to try to keep the blog updated (hopefully once a week or maybe every other week) as was suggested. Also we wanted to take another piece of advice and schedule a time to all hang out together. So Sunday, April 2 from 5-7 we will be hanging out. We will let you know the place later, but try to bring a few bucks and we can all pitch in for some pizza. We are looking forward to hanging out again and just getting to know each other better!

Also if you want to do some reading on church planting Jason found this article that you may enjoy!

Check it out at http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=1061

Starbucks encounters. . .

Thanks to all of you who made the trek through several inches of snow to talk with Bryan, Emily, and me at Starbucks this week at our first official "church plant office hours." We were shocked at how many people took advantage of this time. Great idea, Emily! I really enjoyed hearing more about your decision making process, answering questions, and just getting to know you better. I continue to get excited about the team of people who have expressed interest in helping with this new church idea.

We really hope to do this again in the near future. In the meantime, don't hesitate to call me (or any of us) if you'd like to get together to chat.

Jason

ps. I love the eggnog latte!