A farmer planted parallel lines of stone fruit trees, inviting walkers and workers down a new road.
The trees on the left represent a kind of vision for church planting that the Lord planted in many others, increasingly in me, that came to be shared by the Pasadena URC family. Inspired by former and current URCNA church-planters and pastors, and other ‘missional’ thinkers in our classis and beyond, it is a vision for planting churches not only with Reformed-and-relocating people, and with Christians-becoming-Reformed people, but with people who, to date, do not regularly attend any church. Obviously unchurched or anti-church people have long been an increasing demographic in the Southwest United States. They need rescue. And more, this kind of church planting values the URCNA and recognizes that if we want to survive (let alone thrive) as a federation, we need more outsiders. We ought to ask the Lord to help us bring our fulsome confessional life and worship to completely uninitiated people. This kind of church planting is not dependent on a core group already in place, but it identifies a good target population and area into which we may parachute. Our established churches can and do seek their completely broken, idolatrous and lost neighbors, and should be reinvigorated in that vital work alongside everything else they are doing. Yet seeking completely lost people through grassroots church-planting has some advantages. For one thing, established churches necessarily focus on much pastoral work and institutional maintenance. For another thing, sometimes it is easier for outsiders to stick around longer if they don’t feel like they are trying to break into a tight, established, cross-generational club (it takes time for some people to appreciate, honor, and try to emulate such churches).
The trees on the right represent three households the Lord had planted through the years in the city of Ventura. These households love the Reformed doctrine, worship, and life of the URCNA. The younger family: high-profile Ventura public school teachers, who know everyone in the city through their work and through their own kids’ activities. The middle-aged couple: the man, vibrant and well-spoken, whose powerful Christian testimony is interwoven with his becoming wheelchair-bound; his wife, a teacher in the Oxnard public schools. The elderly couple: born into Christian families in Iraq, later starting their own family in Germany, later again, in the United States, having learned the Reformed faith from their young adult children. These households’ spiritual journeys vary widely but they all have roots in Pasadena URC. Their desire to see one of our congregations established on the Oxnard Plain (population ~ 400,000) has persisted, grown and coalesced. At a time in life and ministry for the Kaloostians that made this opportunity compelling, I was called and sent in April 2021 by Pasadena URC into Ventura and tasked to lead these three families in a slow and steady project, asking the Lord to use us to establish a URCNA church here. Ten months in, I would introduce the project to the churches and update its status.
My wife Lena, 6thgrader son John and I had to get here, get somewhat settled, and start meeting with the group in our new identity as the core group for this project. What can I tell you, it was a whirlwind, though we can say in the past couple weeks we have started to feel more and more like we are ‘home.’ I started driving John out here for Little League before we moved so we could start meeting some people and ease his transition. We stayed with Lena’s parents for the first three months and then were in a rental for a few more; we are settling now into a home on the more inland, east side of town, working to create (adapting a phrase used by URCNA Missions Coordinator Rich Bout to describe his home when he was church-planting in Tepic, Mexico) ‘Grand Central Station Ventura East.’ It doesn’t have the scale of Grand Central Station, but we hope it approximates the foot traffic. This would suit our marriage team ministry strategy–Lena creating a comfortable, welcoming, festive environment– and me trying to talk with people, comforting and challenging them with the Scriptures, wherever they are with God. Lena and I have been grateful to receive generous, prayerful and loving support from every corner as we experienced the weight of this life and ministry change.
Our little core group has been great, both in our initial Sunday gatherings, and also as we spend time together socializing and trying to shape and meld as a project team. One thing that stood out to me about our early time together, is that initially I really had to work to be clear with the group about the plan the Pasadena consistory sent with me. Obviously the group (and I would include Lena and John as part of the group in this sense) hadn’t devoted years of their own lives thinking and praying and writing notes and plans, going through interviews and meetings for this kind of a church plant. So it’s not surprising that everyone wasn’t automatically in the same place as I am just because we are here now together. We are working on how we can incorporate everyone’s perspectives, gifts and desires (including those of the kids) to reach out to the lost. There’s also the adventure of the whole “here is the plan on paper but then you get on the ground and you better adjust the plan” dynamic at work.
Let me speak to our primary outreach and growth strategy, and how that is going. Among other ideas and ways, there are two “keys.” One is, in my life and our lives as the core group, we cultivate our identity as ‘missionaries’ in the sense that we do the common activities of life together and then prayerfully, deliberately incorporate unchurched people into those activities. Over time relationships grow and trust is built and spiritual conversations ensue. It sounds simple but I’m not sure that it is a common default way for some of us to think and live as Reformed people- in a meaningfully invested way alongside unbelievers- it’s probably easier and more natural to fully Christianize our calendars, or to advertise or talk to strangers. Or there could be the corresponding problem which would be to live meaningfully among unbelievers but not pray for them faithfully and never come to the point where we talk to them about Jesus. Key two is, we have the specific goal to funnel everyone with whom we can gain a good hearing, into occasional, then regular personal or small group spiritual conversation and catechism with me. This is the private means of grace by the pastor evangelist, taking the customized preaching to the people, before and alongside them attending to the public preaching.
There has been some of that, so far, through previous contacts in the area. Yet early on (on advice of some locals) I had spent more time meeting with some of the pastors in the area, the like-minded guys and the not-so-like-minded guys, getting my bearings. The three other NAPARC pastors in the broader area have been wonderful. But please pray for those locals with whom I am already meeting, and for whom we are praying. There are some amazing spiritual stories and challenges, opportunities for ministry. What has been also very encouraging is we have grown a bit, somewhat ‘ahead of schedule’ in my mind. One local young family we are catechizing, the man is a former broad-evangelical ‘worship pastor’, who sought us out. Another local couple, the woman yet has membership in a CRC from years ago. A third family is driving up weekly from mother church to spur us on. So this has given us a nice morale boost.
It had felt like a momentous accomplishment (or at least a big relief) to “put our basic face on.” Everything had to be done: from deciding on a name, to getting a logo designed, to establishing our rudimentary electronic presence, to getting some information/outreach cards and Three Forms of Unity booklets printed. For example, I envisioned a certain kind of website, and the volunteer designer from Grace URC Torrance (thanks Ray!) patiently took the time to hear me pour out my heart about it, and then he created it and revised it a thousand times as I obsessively rethought it and wrote and rewrote copy for it. The result is: www.venturareformed.org. I am really happy with it. Whether in time the ideas will actually serve us in the way I hope they do, who knows, but Ray hit a home run in terms of getting what was in my heart and mind actually on the screen. The site will evolve. The social media is also “up,” and I am trying to start to use it efficiently, regularly, with clear goals, and having others in our group help with all that. I think it will widen our local net and introduce us to people here over time.
We began public Sunday meetings in September last year- not worship services- teaching, singing, prayer, interest meetings- and worked on things like arranging the pianist and guitarist for those first meetings, and ordering the lawn signs, etc. I can report that the Lord had brought us in the late summer 2021 into a great relationship with an old historic ‘Missouri Synod’ Lutheran church in town- they rent us their building for our meetings and at the same time they had welcomed us to worship with them weekly until we start our own services. What tremendous blessing and answer to prayer. They are great encouragers and have become friends. They pray for us in their own services, these dear saints.
Most exciting to us is that the elders in Pasadena have given us the go-ahead to begin public worship services in March! Most of our physical and procedural infrastructure is now in place for that, the main task between now and then is continuing to solidify the attending elder schedule. What an exciting time, may the Lord be praised!
I usually get asked about the time horizons for the project and about its funding. It is not an exact science however I think it is important to have milestones and goals and cutoffs, and we have discussed these things in Pasadena as part of the plan, before the call. I think we will know two and half years in whether this is a project the Lord has blessed with a path to be an organized congregation. I would love to see it be organized within five years but it should only take half that long to know whether it continues to be worth any kingdom investment beyond three years. I must say I have been amazed at some of the aggressive financial investments into church planting staffs and projects and teams by some of these broader evangelical churches in the area, as the pastors have recounted their history to me. As for us, thus far, through the generous commitments of our core group, and of our mother church, and some other churches and individuals who have supported us, we are very encouraged by the resources the Lord has provided for our modest goals. He is taking care of us. We are and will be seeking at appropriate times to add to our support base from our classis and broader churches. Ten or twelve years ago I was speaking with a URCNA church planter on the East Coast who told me “Adam, in our experience here, literally everything good and lasting in our church life can be traced to the Lord answering specific, regular prayers. Everything!” That always stuck with me, and as I have grown, I have learned to believe that more and live that more. How could it not be true? Will God share his glory with someone else? We have seen God answer prayers already- in people’s lives, in making project things happen. We know that God does not promise us anything here other than, as he leads us to be faithful and prayerful and working, he will do what is best for us and for his people and what is most glorifying to him. But that is an inspiring promise. We are asking him to build a local URCNA church here (churches, eventually!) that would honor him, but truly, it is in his hands, and so we work excitedly for that. Please continue to pray for us.