September 8, 2025 • 13 mins
Summary
In this episode, Dr. Jeff discusses the essential elements of nurturing growth in church planting, focusing on the importance of authentic worship, building supportive systems, and the role of struggles in spiritual development. He emphasizes that worship should be about presence rather than performance, and that effective systems are crucial for sustaining community and discipleship. The conversation concludes with a prayer for perseverance and growth in the church's mission.
Takeaways
Worship in church planting is about presence, not performance.
Authentic worship can occur in simple, unpolished settings.
Systems in a church are essential for sustainable growth.
Every guest in a church matters and should feel valued.
Clear communication prevents confusion and builds trust.
Financial integrity is crucial from the start of a church plant.
Prayer should be central to worship and community life.
Struggles in church planting refine and strengthen the community.
Worship should feel like a prayer meeting, fostering connection.
Discipleship is best structured in community, not isolation.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/echoes-through-eternity-with-dr-jeffery-skinner--5523198/support.
Echoes Through Eternity Guiding church planters and pastors to plant seeds of prayer, holiness, and courage that outlast a lifetime. contact drjefferydskinner@protonmail.com
In this episode, Dr. Jeff discusses the essential elements of nurturing growth in church planting, focusing on the importance of authentic worship, building supportive systems, and the role of struggles in spiritual development. He emphasizes that worship should be about presence rather than performance, and that effective systems are crucial for sustaining community and discipleship. The conversation concludes with a prayer for perseverance and growth in the church's mission.
Takeaways
Worship in church planting is about presence, not performance.
Authentic worship can occur in simple, unpolished settings.
Systems in a church are essential for sustainable growth.
Every guest in a church matters and should feel valued.
Clear communication prevents confusion and builds trust.
Financial integrity is crucial from the start of a church plant.
Prayer should be central to worship and community life.
Struggles in church planting refine and strengthen the community.
Worship should feel like a prayer meeting, fostering connection.
Discipleship is best structured in community, not isolation.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/echoes-through-eternity-with-dr-jeffery-skinner--5523198/support.
Echoes Through Eternity Guiding church planters and pastors to plant seeds of prayer, holiness, and courage that outlast a lifetime. contact drjefferydskinner@protonmail.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Marcus Aurelius said, what we do in life echoes through Eternity.
What is your life echoing through eternity? Welcome to Echoes
through Eternity with doctor Jeffrey Skinner. Our mission is to inspire,
engage and encourage leaders from across the globe to plant
missional churches and be servant leaders. So join us and
(00:22):
hear the stories of servant leaders reverberating lives as God
echoes them through eternity. Brought to you by Missional Church
Planting and Leadership Development and Dynamic Church Planning International.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome into Echos to Eternity. I am your host, doctor
Jeffrey D. Skinner. What is God echoing toward your life today? Well,
we are continuing our discussion on journey through the first
hundred days of church plant. In episode one we talked
about breaking ground, the call, and the cost. In episode
two we explore planting seeds, vision, people in place. Now
(01:00):
we come to episode three, Nurturing Growth, worship systems, and struggles.
If the first one hundred days of a church plant
are about planting seeds and the next movement is about
nurturing those seeds into sustainable, spirit filled growth, this is
where rhythms of worship take root, where the unseen support
structures are built, and where the planter can encounters that
(01:23):
we're fighting fire as a struggle. Now, as hard as
this is, and it is hard, those three elements, worship,
systems and struggles are not accident. And what I mean
by that is not necessarily that God designed them to
be hard. That's just kind of the nature of life,
but that God uses those to form the planter and
(01:44):
the church into His likeness. So part one worship that forms,
not performs. When we think of worship, we all know
the big, flashy bands, the perfect sound systems, perheers music
in a church, plant worship rally looks like that in
the beginning, as fragile, as unpolished, and simple. Yet that
(02:06):
simplicity is where God often shows his glory. I remember
one of the earliest gatherings. We had road folding chairs,
a single guitar, and my son volunteering to run the
sound from a second hand speaker. Halfway through the first song,
the speaker died. People looked around awkwardly. Then someone began
(02:26):
to sing, quietly at first, then louder. Then the whole
room was singing. No instruments, no microphones, just voices, and
in that moment, the presence of God filled the room
in ways that I will never forget. That night taught
me this worship in a church plant is not about performances,
about presence. The songs reminds us again and again that
(02:49):
God in habits the praises of his people. Song three
two three, not the polished performance, not the perfect production,
simply his people lifting their voices in honesty. Worship in
the early days of a church plant is an invitation
to return to something raw and be sure. Before there
were stages and sound systems, before there were bulletins and projectors,
(03:11):
there were people gathering around the scripture, prayer, and song.
The other shirts didn't have worship leaders, they had worshipers.
Think about Paul and Silas in the Philippian Jail Acts sixteen.
Their worshippers weren't accompanied by lights or microphones. It was midnight,
their bags were bleeding, their feet were in socks, and
(03:32):
yet they began to sing hymns to God, and the
other prisoners listened. That night, the jail shook with God's presence,
and a family came to faith. That's worship that forms
not performs. Principles of early worship keep it simple. Choose
songs that people can learn easily. Don't overwhelm them with variety.
(03:54):
If you have an anthem or a theme song for
your particular church, utilize that theme song. Use it often.
You want this to become a part of the DNA
of this church, and so you want to repeat these
songs until they become the heartbeat of the community. In time,
these songs become like an anchor in people's souls. I've
(04:17):
met people years later who still recall the first worship
songs of their church plant. They will remember the sermon,
but they remember the song that carried them through those
first days. Anchor it in scripture, read it aloud, preach
it faithfully, pray it into the people's lives. In the
Wesleyan tradition, we believe scripture forms us, not just informs us.
(04:39):
John Wesley insisted that the people called Methodists be people
of one book, not because he dismissed other books because
but because he knew the Living Word shapes character like
nothing else. Make prayer central, create space for corporate prayer,
for our intercessions, for people to pray aloud. Early worship
(05:00):
should feel like a prayer meeting as much as the service.
The Moravians, whose prayer movement deeply in flints, Wesley discovered
that revival flow not from a polished services, but from
people who knew how to pray together and welcome in perfection.
When a child shouts, when a guitar chord is missed,
when those slides don't work, don't cringe, smile. I remember
(05:21):
the early days of church planting. I value perfection, I
value polished, and I want things to look as professional
as possible. I remember I would get so frustrated when
things would go wrong and it would just ruin the
entire service for me. And at the end of the service,
I'd be apologizing to people, I'm so sorry, this didn't work.
(05:43):
I'm so sorry, you know, guitar chord broke. One I've
discovered is people didn't care. They were not focused on
the things that went wrong. They were focused on the
spirit of the Lord. These are all signs of real life.
They remind us that worship is about meeting God in
the midst of the ordinary humanity. In fact, sometimes imperfections
on the very moments that God uses to break down
(06:05):
walls of performance and bring authenticity in a culture of entertainment. This,
this kind of authentic, experience centered worship fills countercultural but
that's the point. It forms people into disciples rather than consumers.
If there's one thing I've learned in coaching the church
planters from around the world these last five years is
(06:26):
we're much more focused in the West on buildings. We're
much more focused on the accouterments that a company worship
more so than to worship this self. In these other countries.
I've got a guy who's planted thirty something churches in Indonesia.
He wakes up, he hopes in a canoe and he
(06:47):
paddles across the to another island and plans a church.
He's there for a couple of days and then he
comes home. And in other countries they don't. They're not
worried about buildings that they'll they'll meet it and a treat.
They'll take pieces of wood and lean them against another
house just to create and put chairs out at a
(07:09):
canvas over the top. They're focused on the movement and
the moments, not everything that goes into it. I once
spoke with a young woman who came to a small
church plant for the first time. She had grown up
in churches with professional level bands and choreograph services, she
expected a similar experience. Instead, she walked into a room
(07:30):
of three people singing a capella. She told me later,
it fell so strange at first, but then I realized
I wasn't distracted. I was just singing, and I actually
prayed for the first time in months. That's worship that forms.
It doesn't entertain, it awakens, Part two of six building
systems that serve the mission. If worship is the heart
(07:52):
of the church, the systems are the skeleton. They're not glamorous,
but without them the body cannot stand. Now understand this
is difficult stuff. Planters sometimes resist systems because they seem
too corporate, they seem too cold to sterile, But in reality,
systems are simply love organized. They are the trelliss that
(08:14):
allow the vine to grow. John Wesley understood this deeply
early in Methodism. It wasn't just about fiery preaching. It
was about class meetings, band meanings, and accountability systems that
kept people on track. Without those structures, the movements would
have physicle. In fact, Wesley once said, the Gospel of
Christ knows of no religion but social no holiness, but
(08:37):
social holiness. For him, discipleship was never a solo act.
It was always structured. In commuting systems were not bureaucracy.
They were discipleship and action core systems for the first
one hundred days. The follow up system every guest matters.
Decide how you will connect with people after they visit.
Will it be a handwritten note, a phone call, a
(09:00):
text message, whatever it is, make it personal. People don't
come back where they feel invisible. One plant around know
bought a stack of simple, blank cards and wrote personal
notes to every guest. People were shocked. One woman told them,
this is the first time a pastor has ever written
me not hand. That simple system opened the door for discipleship.
(09:20):
But don't be afraid of utilize technology. There's plenty of
systems out there, plenty of communications systems out there, plenty
of follow up systems out there that are techno knowledge
you based that will supplement your handwritten notes and help you.
Communication system is key as well. Confusion kills momentum. Now,
when I say communication, sometimes you go into a church
(09:41):
and they'll spend five or ten minutes standing up front
explaining what's going on in the church for the day
and all the announcements for the week, and especially in
a church plan, people they're not as interested in what's
coming up. They're curious about what's going on right now,
and so standing up there lecturing people or five or
(10:02):
ten minutes worth of announcements gets boring for people. And
then simultaneously it distracts them and they'll begin to physically
their phones and different things like that. But it is
absolutely important that you have good communications. So when I'm
talking about communication here, we're talking about keeping your team informed.
A weekly email, a group chat, or a shared calendar
(10:23):
can prevent frustration and build trust. Remember, people aren't mind readers.
They want to serve, but they need clarity. I've seen
more conflict derives from miscommunication than from theological disagreement. Communication
systems are like oil in the engine. They keep things
running smoothly. Financial system integrity in money matters cannot wait
(10:46):
until later. I can tell you from experience that this
is a difficult topic, and I suggest that you address
this early. We were in the early days of planting
another congregation within our church. It was a Latino congregation.
The pastor had a great heart, was just an excellent preacher.
(11:06):
His family was supportive, they were around him. We had
invited him to come from another state. He had moved
his entire family to our area. But there was no
accountability in his financial system. In the Latino congregation, there's
a lot of cash and they were not really tracking
where that cash was going. And so I met with
(11:29):
him and met with his board to try and explain this,
and they mistook it that their pastor was somehow doing
something more unethical with the money, and it took me
a while to unravel that that was never mind. The
intent was simply to communicate that you had to have
integrity in money matters, and so just be sure that
(11:50):
that you have these in place. There, open a dedicated account,
use a simple bookkeeping tool, appoint someone trustworthy to oversee it.
In the Church of the Nazarene, this has to be
specific people. It can't just be anyone. It can't be
your family member, it cannot be the pastor. From day one,
battle stewardship and accountability. I tell planters every dollar that
(12:13):
comes in as holy, treat it as God's remember Wesley talk,
earn all you can, save, all you can give, all
you can Financial systems are not just about records. They
are about the discipleship and trust. Let's pray, Lord, thank
you for worship that forms us and it entertains us.
Thank you for systems God that steady us. Thank you
(12:34):
for struggles that refine us, or give us perseverance to
keep sowing and nurturing even when it feels small. Remind
us that you give the growth, and may what we
plant in these days echo through eternity in Jesus's name.
I pray Amen, then
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Haen
Marcus Aurelius said, what we do in life echoes through Eternity.
What is your life echoing through eternity? Welcome to Echoes
through Eternity with doctor Jeffrey Skinner. Our mission is to inspire,
engage and encourage leaders from across the globe to plant
missional churches and be servant leaders. So join us and
(00:22):
hear the stories of servant leaders reverberating lives as God
echoes them through eternity. Brought to you by Missional Church
Planting and Leadership Development and Dynamic Church Planning International.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome into Echos to Eternity. I am your host, doctor
Jeffrey D. Skinner. What is God echoing toward your life today? Well,
we are continuing our discussion on journey through the first
hundred days of church plant. In episode one we talked
about breaking ground, the call, and the cost. In episode
two we explore planting seeds, vision, people in place. Now
(01:00):
we come to episode three, Nurturing Growth, worship systems, and struggles.
If the first one hundred days of a church plant
are about planting seeds and the next movement is about
nurturing those seeds into sustainable, spirit filled growth, this is
where rhythms of worship take root, where the unseen support
structures are built, and where the planter can encounters that
(01:23):
we're fighting fire as a struggle. Now, as hard as
this is, and it is hard, those three elements, worship,
systems and struggles are not accident. And what I mean
by that is not necessarily that God designed them to
be hard. That's just kind of the nature of life,
but that God uses those to form the planter and
(01:44):
the church into His likeness. So part one worship that forms,
not performs. When we think of worship, we all know
the big, flashy bands, the perfect sound systems, perheers music
in a church, plant worship rally looks like that in
the beginning, as fragile, as unpolished, and simple. Yet that
(02:06):
simplicity is where God often shows his glory. I remember
one of the earliest gatherings. We had road folding chairs,
a single guitar, and my son volunteering to run the
sound from a second hand speaker. Halfway through the first song,
the speaker died. People looked around awkwardly. Then someone began
(02:26):
to sing, quietly at first, then louder. Then the whole
room was singing. No instruments, no microphones, just voices, and
in that moment, the presence of God filled the room
in ways that I will never forget. That night taught
me this worship in a church plant is not about performances,
about presence. The songs reminds us again and again that
(02:49):
God in habits the praises of his people. Song three
two three, not the polished performance, not the perfect production,
simply his people lifting their voices in honesty. Worship in
the early days of a church plant is an invitation
to return to something raw and be sure. Before there
were stages and sound systems, before there were bulletins and projectors,
(03:11):
there were people gathering around the scripture, prayer, and song.
The other shirts didn't have worship leaders, they had worshipers.
Think about Paul and Silas in the Philippian Jail Acts sixteen.
Their worshippers weren't accompanied by lights or microphones. It was midnight,
their bags were bleeding, their feet were in socks, and
(03:32):
yet they began to sing hymns to God, and the
other prisoners listened. That night, the jail shook with God's presence,
and a family came to faith. That's worship that forms
not performs. Principles of early worship keep it simple. Choose
songs that people can learn easily. Don't overwhelm them with variety.
(03:54):
If you have an anthem or a theme song for
your particular church, utilize that theme song. Use it often.
You want this to become a part of the DNA
of this church, and so you want to repeat these
songs until they become the heartbeat of the community. In time,
these songs become like an anchor in people's souls. I've
(04:17):
met people years later who still recall the first worship
songs of their church plant. They will remember the sermon,
but they remember the song that carried them through those
first days. Anchor it in scripture, read it aloud, preach
it faithfully, pray it into the people's lives. In the
Wesleyan tradition, we believe scripture forms us, not just informs us.
(04:39):
John Wesley insisted that the people called Methodists be people
of one book, not because he dismissed other books because
but because he knew the Living Word shapes character like
nothing else. Make prayer central, create space for corporate prayer,
for our intercessions, for people to pray aloud. Early worship
(05:00):
should feel like a prayer meeting as much as the service.
The Moravians, whose prayer movement deeply in flints, Wesley discovered
that revival flow not from a polished services, but from
people who knew how to pray together and welcome in perfection.
When a child shouts, when a guitar chord is missed,
when those slides don't work, don't cringe, smile. I remember
(05:21):
the early days of church planting. I value perfection, I
value polished, and I want things to look as professional
as possible. I remember I would get so frustrated when
things would go wrong and it would just ruin the
entire service for me. And at the end of the service,
I'd be apologizing to people, I'm so sorry, this didn't work.
(05:43):
I'm so sorry, you know, guitar chord broke. One I've
discovered is people didn't care. They were not focused on
the things that went wrong. They were focused on the
spirit of the Lord. These are all signs of real life.
They remind us that worship is about meeting God in
the midst of the ordinary humanity. In fact, sometimes imperfections
on the very moments that God uses to break down
(06:05):
walls of performance and bring authenticity in a culture of entertainment. This,
this kind of authentic, experience centered worship fills countercultural but
that's the point. It forms people into disciples rather than consumers.
If there's one thing I've learned in coaching the church
planters from around the world these last five years is
(06:26):
we're much more focused in the West on buildings. We're
much more focused on the accouterments that a company worship
more so than to worship this self. In these other countries.
I've got a guy who's planted thirty something churches in Indonesia.
He wakes up, he hopes in a canoe and he
(06:47):
paddles across the to another island and plans a church.
He's there for a couple of days and then he
comes home. And in other countries they don't. They're not
worried about buildings that they'll they'll meet it and a treat.
They'll take pieces of wood and lean them against another
house just to create and put chairs out at a
(07:09):
canvas over the top. They're focused on the movement and
the moments, not everything that goes into it. I once
spoke with a young woman who came to a small
church plant for the first time. She had grown up
in churches with professional level bands and choreograph services, she
expected a similar experience. Instead, she walked into a room
(07:30):
of three people singing a capella. She told me later,
it fell so strange at first, but then I realized
I wasn't distracted. I was just singing, and I actually
prayed for the first time in months. That's worship that forms.
It doesn't entertain, it awakens, Part two of six building
systems that serve the mission. If worship is the heart
(07:52):
of the church, the systems are the skeleton. They're not glamorous,
but without them the body cannot stand. Now understand this
is difficult stuff. Planters sometimes resist systems because they seem
too corporate, they seem too cold to sterile, But in reality,
systems are simply love organized. They are the trelliss that
(08:14):
allow the vine to grow. John Wesley understood this deeply
early in Methodism. It wasn't just about fiery preaching. It
was about class meetings, band meanings, and accountability systems that
kept people on track. Without those structures, the movements would
have physicle. In fact, Wesley once said, the Gospel of
Christ knows of no religion but social no holiness, but
(08:37):
social holiness. For him, discipleship was never a solo act.
It was always structured. In commuting systems were not bureaucracy.
They were discipleship and action core systems for the first
one hundred days. The follow up system every guest matters.
Decide how you will connect with people after they visit.
Will it be a handwritten note, a phone call, a
(09:00):
text message, whatever it is, make it personal. People don't
come back where they feel invisible. One plant around know
bought a stack of simple, blank cards and wrote personal
notes to every guest. People were shocked. One woman told them,
this is the first time a pastor has ever written
me not hand. That simple system opened the door for discipleship.
(09:20):
But don't be afraid of utilize technology. There's plenty of
systems out there, plenty of communications systems out there, plenty
of follow up systems out there that are techno knowledge
you based that will supplement your handwritten notes and help you.
Communication system is key as well. Confusion kills momentum. Now,
when I say communication, sometimes you go into a church
(09:41):
and they'll spend five or ten minutes standing up front
explaining what's going on in the church for the day
and all the announcements for the week, and especially in
a church plan, people they're not as interested in what's
coming up. They're curious about what's going on right now,
and so standing up there lecturing people or five or
(10:02):
ten minutes worth of announcements gets boring for people. And
then simultaneously it distracts them and they'll begin to physically
their phones and different things like that. But it is
absolutely important that you have good communications. So when I'm
talking about communication here, we're talking about keeping your team informed.
A weekly email, a group chat, or a shared calendar
(10:23):
can prevent frustration and build trust. Remember, people aren't mind readers.
They want to serve, but they need clarity. I've seen
more conflict derives from miscommunication than from theological disagreement. Communication
systems are like oil in the engine. They keep things
running smoothly. Financial system integrity in money matters cannot wait
(10:46):
until later. I can tell you from experience that this
is a difficult topic, and I suggest that you address
this early. We were in the early days of planting
another congregation within our church. It was a Latino congregation.
The pastor had a great heart, was just an excellent preacher.
(11:06):
His family was supportive, they were around him. We had
invited him to come from another state. He had moved
his entire family to our area. But there was no
accountability in his financial system. In the Latino congregation, there's
a lot of cash and they were not really tracking
where that cash was going. And so I met with
(11:29):
him and met with his board to try and explain this,
and they mistook it that their pastor was somehow doing
something more unethical with the money, and it took me
a while to unravel that that was never mind. The
intent was simply to communicate that you had to have
integrity in money matters, and so just be sure that
(11:50):
that you have these in place. There, open a dedicated account,
use a simple bookkeeping tool, appoint someone trustworthy to oversee it.
In the Church of the Nazarene, this has to be
specific people. It can't just be anyone. It can't be
your family member, it cannot be the pastor. From day one,
battle stewardship and accountability. I tell planters every dollar that
(12:13):
comes in as holy, treat it as God's remember Wesley talk,
earn all you can, save, all you can give, all
you can Financial systems are not just about records. They
are about the discipleship and trust. Let's pray, Lord, thank
you for worship that forms us and it entertains us.
Thank you for systems God that steady us. Thank you
(12:34):
for struggles that refine us, or give us perseverance to
keep sowing and nurturing even when it feels small. Remind
us that you give the growth, and may what we
plant in these days echo through eternity in Jesus's name.
I pray Amen, then
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Haen
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