Renovation Church | Atlanta, GA

• Leonce Crump II
• Mar 15, 2010
• Series: Church Profiles
• Categories: Church Planting Articles

Briefly describe your story of your call to plant a church 

Originally from Louisiana, I have a taste for great food and warm weather, but attending the University of Oklahoma ultimately took me away from both. It was at the University of Oklahoma that I received a B.S. in political science with a minor in ethics. Though I knew I was called to ministry, I’d set myself on a path to go to law school and one day run for public office. 

After 20 months in college of pure rebellion against God, I began to accept my role in God’s story, and actually took my first vocational ministry role as a college/young adult pastor at a new church plant. After graduation I tried out for the Olympic wrestling team, and then spent two years in the NFL, and another as the director of wrestling operations/coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

During my time as a coach I earned an M.S. in pre-law/criminal justice, and accepted my second vocational ministry role, again as a college and young adult pastor. By God’s grace I built this ministry up from one, who came to our first gathering, to nearly 70, in a church of only 300. It was here in Chattanooga that I would meet my beautiful wife Breanna, who has trusted and followed me from the very beginning. Breanna is a voice and piano teacher and an incredible worship leader. We would next move just outside of Knoxville, TN and I would spend the next nearly two years, by God’s grace, building another college and young adult ministry that, by God’s hand, grew from four to over 100 in a matter of eight months.

After nearly seven years of vocational/bi-vocational ministry I felt God’s strong call to plant a church. Atlanta was actually our last choice, but during the visit to Atlanta I felt a real and tangible burden for this city, I knew then that this was home…this would be where we would give our lives for the cause of the gospel.

A few weeks after our visit we packed up and moved to Atlanta, with no jobs, no prospects, and no real contacts, just a vision, and a call. In February of this year we became members of the Acts 29 Church Planting network, and shortly after began talking to Perimeter Church about partnership in seeing this God sized vision made a reality. In May 2010 we will complete our one-year Church Planting residency with Perimeter, which will serve as our sending church. For over a year now we have lived among and loved our neighbor’s in Grant Park, had meals with them, and invited them to be a part of our lives.

Breanna and I love our city, and our neighbors, and hope that we are creating culture in a way that our two beautiful daughters, Eden (born October 2007) and Eva (born November 2009), will one day be able to enjoy the fruit of our labor through God’s wonderful grace.

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

We came to Atlanta to live as missionaries before ever talking about planting a church. This is partly due to the changing climate of American evangelicalism. Soon over are the days when you can just start inviting people to be on your team. Here we have had to find the peace makers, and interested non-Christians and build credibility over time. We came to plant the gospel and Jesus, and now are seeing the church grow out of that investment. Go to a city, like you would any other in the world. Learn the language, the culture, the chief idols, and pray that God would send peace makers to you as go out in His name to bring the Kingdom. The principle of incarnation has been very important to me...that like Jesus, we would make our tent among the people of downtown and live our lives before them, full of grace and truth. We live out the implications of the gospel, share the gospel, and share our very lives. This is how we have built and are building our team.

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

Our biggest challenge has been leadership and commitment. We have gathered primarily non or new Followers, and so their commitment level is low, though their interest is high. So they show great enthusiasm, until something more interesting to them comes up, and then for some, we may not see them for weeks at a time. The other big challenge has been lack of interested Christians, who want to do more than just hide out in a worship gathering. So recruiting Christians to help to lead has been especially difficult. They don't want to do the hard work, many of them have asked me to contact them "when we become a church." It is unlikely I will ever contact any of them, because who wants them if all they want is good preaching and good programming to serve their needs. This is a call to come and die, not come and be entertained.

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

I became involved with A29 first by listening to Driscoll preach. When we began investigating who we would align ourselves with to plant this church, A29 quickly rose to the top as there was major intersection in all area's of ministry philosophy. The greatest benefit has been the relationships and resourcing. Though some of my brothers live far from Atlanta, they are just that, brothers, and that is exactly how I feel we interact. The resourcing piece is also amazing. There is years of knowledge and practice in this network, an chances are if I am facing it, making a decision about it, or torn about it, someone else has been too, and they are quick to give great and Godly answers to some difficult issues.

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

If you can do anything else, do it. But, if you can do nothing else, stop fighting it...God WILL have His way with you!

How do you pastor your family?

I shepherd my family through the same biblical principles as I see the Church functioning. I incarnate in their lives and activities, sharing life with them to know them so that I avoid the propensity to herd them, but rather go after each ones heart. We live out mission together by inviting our unbelieving friends and sometime even the homeless into our home to share meals with us. And we create culture together by being involved in the cultural centers of Atlanta as a family, even with our young children. All of this is done through the gospel, and are implications of the gospel and God's word. My children will know poverty, and the gospel answer to it. They will know the spiritually enslaved, and the gospel answer to it. And my wife will know how to lead women well full of grace and truth, through the gospel. We by no means live this perfectly, nor do I pastor them in it perfectly, but it is what we are striving for.

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

Total Church/Confessions of a Reformission Rev.

How can we pray for you? 

Pray that I stay faithful and will be fruitful, but not at the cost of my family. Pray that the Kingdom would come in Atlanta, and that God would continue to send me able men who will labor along side me in this work.

Church Profile: Renovation Church
Launch Date: September, 2009
Location: Atlanta, GA 

Mission, Vision, Values of Church 

Vision

Renovation Church exists to glorify Jesus in rebuilding the city holistically through the Gospel, that it would be a beautiful city, renewed physically, culturally, and spiritually.

Mission

To establish a viable, Spirit-led worshipping community in Grant Park that glorifies Jesus, lives the implications of the gospel, dwells deep in culture, and serves the poor and oppressed through life and resource.

Worship

Worship is not only something we do when singing songs on Sunday morning, or when the church is gathered. We are always worshipping because we were made to be worshippers. It is who and what we worship that determines to who our lives belong.

A life that belongs to Jesus and is truly worshipful is one transcendent of place, transformed by the gospel, informed by truth and fully embodied at all times as a living sacrifice before the Lord. It is Greek linear thinking that compartmentalizes our lives into segments that don’t intersect. In this line of thought we begin to see ourselves as having a “church life”, “work life”, “home life”, “social life”, and “service life”, each disconnected from the other. In reality, if the Gospel transforms us, the whole of our lives is a living, worshipful sacrifice, and no one area is segmented from another.

It is in our desire to live as worshipful sacrifices to the Lord that we strive to deeply love and dwell in: the gospel, which is Jesus; His crucifixion being the heart of the gospel, His resurrection is the power of the gospel, and his ascension the glory of the gospel; the truth, which is not relative, but absolute, and finds it’s fulfillment in Jesus; and transformation, which is a product of both truth and the gospel as we are being made into the image of the glory of Christ. (Romans 12: 1-2; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; John 14:6; 2 Corinthians 3:18)

Mission

A life that is characterized by being a living, worshipful sacrifice should also be characterized as one lived missionally. Missional living is a way of life, not something we do. So we seek to be passionate and authentic missionaries, consumed with gospel love, authentic in our relationships, and intentional in how we do life, on mission as missionaries. Those who do not follow Jesus are not “marks” or targets, but rather, they are people that we seek to see through the eyes of Christ as we share the gospel, love them boldly, and serve with intention.

This is not our mission, but God’s, and He has invited us, as followers of Jesus, to join Him in His mission that began back in the garden, in Gen. 3:14-15, when He preached the first gospel following de-creation. He declared then what His intentions were toward humanity…toward His creation. He began then His pursuit of a people for Himself.

We see clearly in scripture that God, before time began, planned the means of His salvation for those whom He would draw to Himself. And so He, in Christ, came to earth and incarnated. He lived a perfectly worshipful life, died a criminal’s death, and rose victoriously, conquering all the powers of sin, death, hell, and the grave. This fulfilled the means of God’s mission, and now we have been sent to carry the message of that mission to the world. We realize the depth of this invitation as we incarnate in the cultures in which we exist, meaning in every arena of life we are fully present, and full of grace and truth; as we live as ambassador’s of reconciliation, reconciling men to God, families and races; cultures and classes…being reconcilers in a segregated and divided city; as we lovingly and authentically show mercy from a position of humility, serving those outside society’s bounds of functionality; and as we seek justice for those who can not seek it for themselves (the slave, the fatherless, the weak) bringing a world made right into focus by the visible Shalom of God. (Gen. 3:14-15; John 20:21; 1Thessalonians 2:8; John 1:14; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Matthew 9:13; Amos 5:24)

Community

As an implication of the gospel, we want to cultivate true, living, Gospel community that is characterized by: authenticity, vulnerability, accountability, confession, repentance, celebration, conversation, laughter and deep affection for one another. We desire to create an environment that finds grace in knowing we are all broken, all sinful, and all in need of a Saviour…no perfect people allowed.

Community must be both organic and intentional. It should be an outworking of the internal renewal we experience through the gospel, leading to an external expression of that renewal in how we relate to each other. As such we will share meals together, with the follower of Jesus, and with those who don’t. We will share gut wrenching laughter, and bitter, sober tears. We will have light, joyous conversation; deep, penetrating conversation; and hard, relationship threatening conversation, all in an effort to build true community.

We will love one another, accepting all at any stage in their life journey, but also confront and be confronted with the gospel, and our need to be rescued as we call each other to abandon all to pursue Jesus. We will be rich with diversity of all kinds; race, class, ability, calling, gifts, goals, hopes and dreams. We are doing life together, not simply for affinity, but through commitment to one another, our shared values, and the gospel. True gospel community is doing what we do everyday, but doing it in community. (Acts 2:42-47)

Renewal

Dr. Tim Keller says, “…inner city children, through no fault of their own, may grow up with vastly inferior schooling, and with an overall environment extremely detrimental to learning. Conservatives may argue that this is the ‘parents’ fault or the ‘cultures’ fault, while Liberal’s see it as the failure of government and/or the fruit of systematic racism, but no one argues that it is the children’s fault!” So in a sea of possibilities, one may ask, “where can I bring renewal with gospel intentionality?”

It has been said that the place God calls you is the place where your great joy, and the worlds great hunger intersect. As followers of Jesus we are called to surface that calling, and be released back into society to both create and cultivate cultural goods, regardless of type or function. So whether it is a magnificent painting, a beautiful composition, a set of blueprints, a coffee drink, an amazing beat, establishing law, or succeeding in business, we are mandated to create and cultivate culture. This means that we, as the body of Christ, will create and cultivate cultural goods that help, and even enable the city of Atlanta to look ever more like the city to come…in every way. Renewal in and of all facets of social structure is an out growth of the implications of the gospel, as the gospel has a deep, vital, and healthy impact on the arts, business, government, media, and academia of any society.

Renovation is committed to working with all Atlantans to create a better more beautiful city for all Atlantans. Renewal of our city now points us towards the ultimate renewal of all things for which we wait with great expectation. (Jeremiah 29:4-7).

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

As an implication of the gospel, we want to cultivate true, living, Gospel community that is characterized by: authenticity, vulnerability, accountability, confession, repentance, celebration, conversation, laughter and deep affection for one another. We desire to create an environment that finds grace in knowing we are all broken, all sinful, and all in need of a Saviour…no perfect people allowed.

Community must be both organic and intentional. It should be an outworking of the internal renewal we experience through the gospel, leading to an external expression of that renewal in how we relate to each other. As such we will share meals together, with the follower of Jesus, and with those who don’t. We will share gut wrenching laughter, and bitter, sober tears. We will have light, joyous conversation; deep, penetrating conversation; and hard, relationship threatening conversation, all in an effort to build true community.

We will love one another, accepting all at any stage in their life journey, but also confront and be confronted with the gospel, and our need to be rescued as we call each other to abandon all to pursue Jesus. We will be rich with diversity of all kinds; race, class, ability, calling, gifts, goals, hopes and dreams. We are doing life together, not simply for affinity, but through commitment to one another, our shared values, and the gospel. True gospel community is doing what we do everyday, but doing it in community. (Acts 2:42-47)

As such The Gospel Community environment will function as the primary means for pastoral care, deep relationships, resourcing, discipleship, accountability, mentoring, mission, serving, community, and training. This will also represent a key connecting point for spiritual seekers, doubters, and skeptics. A Gospel Community is not JUST a Small Group, Bible Study, Support Group, Social Activist Group, or a Weekly Meeting. It can involve these sorts of things, but it doesn't stop there. The goal is to move beyond the weekly gathering and begin to do life together intentionally. True gospel community is doing what you always do, but doing it in community, with gospel intentionality. This is where we practice deeply the “one another’s” of scripture.

The only means by which the church will functionally “promote” cultural engagement, incarnation, and mission is through mercy & justice, worldview apologetic forum, and art, music, and sports engagement. The goal is to move our attendees and members beyond being told where and how to serve as they begin to do mission, incarnation, and make culture where they live, work and play.

The Fight Club environment is the deepest level of intimacy and commitment. Fight Clubs, even more than Gospel Communities, open us to share our lives, our struggles, our fears, and doubts; and to be accountable. The name Fight Club was chosen because of the nature of sin, and the fight it takes to overcome those things we’ve done, and those things done to us. This is a deeper source of discipleship, and an incredible “iron sharpening iron” environment. These are organic, relational, groups of 3-4, men or women, that are not programmed or staged, but happen within the bounds of the natural rhythms of each participant’s life. Fight Clubs will receive training as well as spiritual and relational support.

Where the worship gathering equips primarily through preaching and worship in song, the gospel community equips through discussion of sermon material, studies on spiritual disciplines and doctrine, prayer and worship, and serving together. Finally the Fight Clubs equip through a deeper level of trust, sharing and giving of ourselves to one another. Where the gospel community and worship gathering will meet weekly with static days/times, the Fight Clubs will be meet bi-weekly on any day at any time.

This is a strict avoidance of the programmatic and event centered nature of most contemporary ministry. It is not saying those models are wrong, but rather they will not function well in our context.

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

We have seen God miraculously meet our needs time and again prior to my getting a salary from Perimeter. We have seen people come to faith prior to us becoming a Church. I have seen the culture of our loft community change since God planted us here. And we have seen God, time and again, show us that this is His work, and He will be faithful to complete it.