Generations | Norcross, GA

• John Rowell
• Oct 7, 2010
• Series: Church Profiles
• Categories: Church Planting Articles, Latest News

Briefly describe your story of your call to plant a church 

I had been a church planter in Atlanta before having started Northside Community Church (an EFCA church) in 1984. I pastored Northside for twenty years and left the senior pastor role to lead our mission ministry. I eventually became the executive pastor at the Atlanta Vineyard. My youngest son, James (29), was working with me on the staff of the Atlanta Vineyard where he served as the youth pastor. This is a congregation with a rich church planting history. When the Vineyard trustees asked me to consider leading a new church plant, I felt God's calling to pioneer a new work again here in the Atlanta area. When James decided God would have him join in the effort, we were all the more certain of God's clear direction. So I am the lead pastor at Generations but we share the pastoral duties, including the preaching ministry. James is half my age so we are drawing from a wide age spectrum as the church grows.

How did you build up your core? What advice would you give to guys in the core-stage? 

We had about thirty folks from the Atlanta Vineyard join us and we drew on relationships established in the community over our 30 years of history here in metro Atlanta. We have been blessed by referrals form others in the city who know our family well and we have aimed at a missional focus in the city of Norcross.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in planting your church (and/or currently facing)? 

Finding the finances to support two full time pastors has been a challenge. The Atlanta Vineyard actually funded my salary for the first eight months we met so we have almost broken even for that period. I lead a mission that has provided a general fund allowance for us to draw on as needed. But God has been good and so far as we are making ends meet!

We have also been challenged in helping long-time Christians adopt a missional mindset. This has been a big paradigm shift for many to make and we find it is very easy for people to slip into old habits of compartmentalizing their church involvement from other aspects of their life. The attractional mindset is deeply ingrained in the southern culture here and consumer Christianity is the norm which makes incarnational approaches to ministry a challenge.

How did you become involved with Acts 29? What have been the biggest benefits of being in the network? 

Actually my son, James, introduced me to Acts 29. I was obviously the more experienced church planter between the two of us so I took the lead pastor role. We don't, however, distinguish our roles in terms of "senior verses associate" pastor titles. When asked about that, we simply say we are father and son and we are not confused about which of us is oldest and more experienced. I have also made it clear that, as the Lord leads, I must decrease and James must increase so that the church will have appropriate leadership as I grow older.

This leads easily into sharing one of the greatest blessings that we have received form our association with Acts 29. In every conference we have attended over the past year, emphasis has been consistently given to the priority we should maintain for keeping our marriages in a healthy place. During our assessment, the only condition placed on Ginger and me as candidates for the network was that I develop a protocol for how Ginger and I would interact with James and Betsy so that our family relationships would be adequately protected as James and I share pastoral ministry together. This high value for family relationships is characteristic of the Acts 29 Network and that priority was only magnified appropriately in our case as we also have father/son and mother/daughter relationships in the mix of ministry demands. We also greatly appreciate the doctrinal clarity that the Network offers to us and those who have joined us in this church plant!

What advice do you have for men who are wrestling with the decision to plant? 

I have greatly appreciated having my son to share this journey with. I have done this alone before (obviously with the help of other lay leaders). But actually sharing the responsibility for ministry in a pioneering work with someone else who has as much at risk as I do has been a great encouragement. So, I'd urge more partnerships in church planting - though I know that makes funding harder! My present experience only verifies the Scriptural perspective that declares "that two are better than one!"

How do you pastor your family? 

Ginger and I have been married for over 39 years. We regularly pray together, host a home group, and minister in counseling settings and by sharing the hospitality of our home. The demands of ministry have required us to develop certain rhythms of communication that keep us attuned at a heart level and aware at a practical level of the demands we each face week to week. With our son and daughter-in-law, we have a formal weekly meeting to maintain short accounts regarding any frustrations we may feel with the demands of our shared ministry, any unresolved issues we may have with each other, and any heart issues we need help with. After eight months of working together at Generations, we are all pleased with our level of contact, communication and mutual support we offer one another. We have complied with our assessment condition to develop a fairly detailed protocol for protecting our relationships in the midst of the demands of church planting ministry.

Outside of the Bible, what is the most helpful book you have read for church planting?

I was trained early on in the Chruch Growth movement. So I still value Peter Wagners books, Your Church Can Be Healthy and Your Church Can Grow. More currently, I appreciate Stetzer's book, Planting Missional Churches.

How can we pray for you? 

Please pray for God to bless our efforts to reach unchurced and unevangelized people in Norcross, for James and me to be effective in training leaders who will soon become the first elders at Generations and for our October outreach in Haiti.

Church Profile: Generations
Launch Date: January 2011
Location: Norcross, GA

Mission, Vision, Values of Church 

Generations is a missional church that exists to make disciples in all generations by teaching every one we can:

• to love God enough to obey him
• to love people enough to serve them
• to know Jesus enough to follow Him
• to trust the Father enough to risk everything to advance His kingdom
• to trust the Holy Spirit enough to let Him use us for His Glory.

What is your philosophy of community in your church and what does that look like practically in your church? Of evangelism? 

We are vitally committed to community dynamics that encourage deep personal relationships and a high level of vulnerability and accountability. Our deepest relationships are developed in small groups. For us, this also dictates that we make time in our Sunday morning worship setting each week for God to speak "to the body through the body." The contributions that come in that setting can be prophetic utterance, prayers, exhortations, or even short teachings ( see I Corinthians 14:26). We also try to make an element of our preaching "participatory" at some level, mixing in personal testimonies and practical examples of the truths we are communicating when we can.

As for evangelism, we are endeavoring to create a missional culture so that our members are seeking to incarnate the gospel where they live and work. As a corporate expression of evangelism, we have had outdoor services in a local park, we support local city wide events as a ready made service group that civic planners can rely on (for managing traffic flow, providing refreshments, and filling in wherever volunteers are needed.) This creates frequent opportunities to interact with others in the business and residential communities that surround us. Our offices are in the downtown historic district of Norcross so we are more "present" in the center of civic life than are other churches which are located in more peripheral areas of the city. We also have folks that participate in weekly Karaoke sessions at a local coffee shop, in play writing classes, art clubs and a local theater group. These are some of our corporate missional contexts unique to the historic city center we are part of.

What are some examples of God's grace that you have seen in your life and/or the life of your church? 

In the past I had the blessing of leading a mission effort in Bosnia before, during and after the war that lasted form 1992-1996. Seeing churches planted, a bible school established, a drug rehab center started, several generations of pastoral leaders produced and a denomination well established was an amazing experience that spanned twenty years of ministry. In our current effort, being commissioned by the Atlanta Vineyard and funded for eight full months to start a church that will not be a Vineyard Movement congregation was an amazing grace! To have the joy late in my career of pastoring in a church plant with one of my four sons is icing on the cake and a great grace from God!