Living Acts Church | Tyler, TX

• Brandon Davis
• Feb 18, 2010
• Series: Church Profiles

Planter Profile:

Briefly describe your story of your call to plant a church.

Once upon a time in the living room of a humble couple there sat on them a growing desire for the lost and for the growing number of people in the area in which they lived (Tyler, TX.) Brandon and Lacy had spent enough time in church to know that ministry for them had become a way of life. From the time they met, they were constantly involved in people's lives and always being used to help them see Christ in new and exciting ways. God can truly use anybody. They had met scores of people who either were not being fed doctrinally or were not seeing the true "life" they knew should be in God's people.

After spending lots of hours counseling and discipling from inside and outside the church, Brandon and Lacy started to form a group of friends in their home for intense Bible training and of course...food! As these relationships grew the desire to move on became strong and the need to clarify that passion was evident. So they sought godly counsel and spent many hours in prayer and fasting and the actual planting of "Christ Chapel" came to pass late February of 2006. There was only one problem "How do you plant a church?" At that point it didn't matter and the heart went before the head and the church moved outside the home and into the Wingate Inn (now Holiday Inn Express) in Tyler. With a firm understanding of beliefs and a good idea of where that little group wanted to go, there remained no vision and real knowledge of church planting in general.

The group was able to maintain itself for a while and soon began to seek affiliation with a like-minded network/denomination. A few were pursued but nothing came of it until in the middle of 2008 God gave Brandon a vision for the church and a clear understanding of its mission and things finally made sense. God led us to Acts 29 Network and a new location that same year. What once was lost now was found. The name was changed to Living Acts Church and new doors began to open up that were not there before. Living Acts Church now sits in the middle of Tyler and has seen almost everyone involved have some rather radical life changes. The Gospel works! Love for Christ grew and sin's power is diminishing. The story is not over and continues to this day and we only want to continue to be dependent on the Holy Spirit to keep enabling us to help Christ shine ever so brightly in people's hearts and take his life-changing message to those who have not heard. What is ahead is unknown, but is exciting to think about. The story continues...

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

Our little girl was born with a serious heart condition. She is being managed well presently, but we are constantly in prayer for God to heal her heart.

We also learned to plant through planting (wouldn't advise that) and I also was undertaking a doctorate at the same time. All of these have been trying, but we had to learn the hard way.

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

Meeting after meeting. Mostly word of mouth.

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

Words can't describe the benefits, but we heard about Acts 29 when we were seeking affiliation with Sovereign Grace.

Rick White and those guys at the Village have been awesome. The coaching has been tremendously helpful and we can tell that they all care deeply not only for the plant but for us as a family.

The constant instruction made available and insight and openness from those within the network has been more helpful than I can describe.

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

I would strongly recommend getting involved with you guys first!!! Like I said, I learned how to plant from planting and that was really trying for us. We lacked so much knowledge going into it and I would tell anyone that was going to plant to seek the counsel from godly men who can assess them and give them the clarity they need before leaping out there.

How do you pastor your family?

I love my family so much. It has been difficult to not let them get overshadowed in light of the ministry. My first priority is to see the Gospel bearing fruit in them. We pray and discuss Christ pretty much all the time. My wife gets to see me with others and is not isolated from the ministry at all. She lives it out with me. My little girl (while too young to catch it all) is going to be brought up in the home of parent's who love Jesus and others. My wife and I are discussing Christ and life constantly, but when Haven is old enough, we strongly believe in family worship and times set aside for worship together. Everything we do as a family is centered around the Gospel.

How can we pray for you?

All I can really think of is just continue to lift up our little girl and her healing as well as pray for us as we are presently training leaders and doing ministerial interviews, trying not to be overwhelmed by our sudden growth as a church.

Church Profile: Living Acts Church
Launch Date: September, 2009
Location: Tyler, TX 

Mission, Vision, Values of Church

Mission Statement - Exalting the Sovereignty, Sufficiency & Supremacy of God in all things for all people.

Vision - OUR VISION (P.U.L.S.E.):

P - Our strongest calling as a church in the Tyler area is to be Christ to those around us. We cannot emphasis our mission and goals in any other way than to say that we are called to be the "presence" or aroma of Christ to those around us. Our main goal as leaders is to disciple and send out. We place one of our highest emphases on our missional/incarnational role as a church. - 2 Corinthians 2:15

U - We strive for unity in the Spirit. This is based from Jesus' prayer in John 17. He laid a large emphasis on this outcome. We must do the same. Though we have no intention in watering our message down or expensing truth for unity, we must strive for unity in truth and to that end we labor. - John 17:22

L - We are also laity-driven. The one man show is long over. We have a plural-elder led church that strives to help those members in the body grow and mature so that the "work of the ministry" is being truly done by those in the seats (so to speak). - Ephesians 4:12

S - "S" stands for spiritual. We are "spiritual" people. We must live as we are. Spiritual formation is also an essential key to our goals. Our church aims to build all up in Christ to the highest stature (Colossians 1:28; 2 Corinthians 5:16,17; 1 Corinthians 2:15).

E - We are empowered evangelicals. We will not just stay in our safe little church building. We must leave and invade the culture with the gospel of Christ. We plan on doing all we can - through the Spirit - to accomplish this.

Values -

1. Spiritual Intimacy - As a church we will always place the highest importance on an ever-increasing level of intimacy with our Lord Jesus. Spiritual formation through the disciplines are essential for discipleship.

2. Word-Centered - We love the truth. We live the truth. We teach the truth.

3. Social Servitude - It is always our aim to not just "exist" but to serve and be a loving hand to all of those that we encounter. Our first act of duty as a church is to live sacrificially for God's glory.

4. Holiness - We live in the world but are not of the world. Although we understand the importance of "being all things" (1 Cor. 9:22) to men, we also understand the importance of personal and communal sanctity.

5. The Spirit-filled Life - All of life requires us to seek constantly to live by the Spirit and to earnestly desire all that he has for us to equip us for his Name's sake.

6. Missional/Incarnational Living - We call this "the presence". We believe by being transformed by the Gospel as a cultural community we can then transform community by influence. Missional Mandate

7. Life Together (Gospel Unity) - We strive to build a love for the family and a community where we can all be edified and cared for by one another and perform the greatest evangelistic action of the church - "love for one another".

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

We stress very highly a Gospel-centered community.

What that looks like is people are able to come from numerous backgrounds and learn Christ together without any discrimination in background. All are invited to the Cross and are able to connect with one another "spiritually". We stress this in our values. We want people to see themselves first in a proper light and then learn to see others in a biblical way as well. For us this has meant that "churched" people are seeing others and building relationships not based on cultural traditions only but mainly in light of the Cross.

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

Wow. How do I narrow this down? It is not a figure of speech at all to say that almost everyone involved in our church has had radical grace demonstrated in their lives. Too much to mention. Everything from conversion to major paradigm shifts. You name it.

As far as I am concerned, I am being more and more humbled everyday. I have to admit I started out very cocky and little by little God is showing me just how much this is his work and not mine. I can honestly say he has overwhelmed me with his patience, love and mercy.