August 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Summary
In this episode of Echos Through Eternity, Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner shares his journey of relocating and the personal updates of his family, particularly focusing on the call and cost of church planting. He emphasizes the importance of understanding God's will, the spiritual warfare involved, and the necessity of prayer and holiness in the process. Dr. Skinner discusses the joy and fear that accompany church planting, the significance of counting the costs, and shares stories that illustrate the transformative power of faith. He concludes with practical steps for the first 100 days of planting a church, reminding listeners that the journey is both heavy and holy, filled with challenges but also immense joy.
Key takeways.
The call to plant a church must come from God.
Understanding the community's needs is crucial for effective church planting.
Spiritual warfare is a reality when planting new churches.
Prayer is essential for the success of a church plant.
Joy and fear coexist in the journey of church planting.
Counting the costs includes personal, emotional, and financial aspects.
Small beginnings can lead to significant spiritual impact.
Stories of transformation highlight the importance of faith in church planting.
Practical steps can guide the early days of a church plant.
The ultimate goal is to make Jesus known, not to build one's own name.
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 of Echos Through Eternity, Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner shares his journey of relocating and the personal updates of his family, particularly focusing on the call and cost of church planting. He emphasizes the importance of understanding God's will, the spiritual warfare involved, and the necessity of prayer and holiness in the process. Dr. Skinner discusses the joy and fear that accompany church planting, the significance of counting the costs, and shares stories that illustrate the transformative power of faith. He concludes with practical steps for the first 100 days of planting a church, reminding listeners that the journey is both heavy and holy, filled with challenges but also immense joy.
Key takeways.
The call to plant a church must come from God.
Understanding the community's needs is crucial for effective church planting.
Spiritual warfare is a reality when planting new churches.
Prayer is essential for the success of a church plant.
Joy and fear coexist in the journey of church planting.
Counting the costs includes personal, emotional, and financial aspects.
Small beginnings can lead to significant spiritual impact.
Stories of transformation highlight the importance of faith in church planting.
Practical steps can guide the early days of a church plant.
The ultimate goal is to make Jesus known, not to build one's own name.
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
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome into Echoes through Eternity. I'm your host, doctor Jeffrey D.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Skinner.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Well, it has been a minute since we last recorded
an episode, and I apologize for that. Life has happened.
We have relocated from the Atlanta area to the Nashville,
Tennessee area. I found a wonderful community here where I
plan to plant a brand new church. Still in the
(00:27):
discerning stage and praying stage this season, where you're just
trying to make sure that your your will is aligned
with God's will, to make sure that you know this
is not just something that that you came up with
and as a result of some bad barbecue the night
before or anything like that. And we're going to find
(00:49):
a partner church as the most successful version of church
plants that are out there running there. It's a parachute
drop where you just drop into US city and not
really understand who the people are or what's going on.
And this is kind of an experiment. I've kind of
gone live today. I usually recording it and I will
(01:10):
still continue to recording at it, but we're gonna try
the live version first just to.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Kind of see how this goes. I may blow up
if it does. We just won't do it again.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
But the only way to try new things is to
try them, and no way to go live without actually
trying it.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
So we're going to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And so anyway, just so it's kind of what's going
on with us, My wife has retired for thirty three
zero point three three years of teaching and just just
a wonderful school that she's landed. In most of her
school teaching career, she has taught in areas that were
(01:55):
struggling and the students were struggling, and she loves She
has a heart for the marginalized. She has a heart
for those for the least of these, and and that has.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Been where she has taught.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
But thirty three years of that wears on one. We
had hoped that she would get teach she has a
PhD in curriculum. We had hoped that she would teach
it the collegiate level so that she would get a
little bit of rest.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
But as God has it, he and we aligned his
will with.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Our will with his, it was not in the cards
at least this time for her to do higher ed.
So she's gone back into the classroom. But God has
blessed her with an incredible school with incredible children who
are among some of the most blessed within the community,
(02:55):
which is a good thing that they're blessed. But simultaneously,
it means her job is a lot easier. Many the
things that have warned her down over the years she
no longer has to do. She gets a duty free lunch,
which means she does and I've watched your children.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
She just drops them off and they eat. She doesn't
have as many meetings.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Because her school is not a Chapter one or whatever
you call that, that school where the federal government is
kind of in and overseeing things. That's not the situation
that she's in right now. And so she has been blessed.
And that's just kind of kind of an update of
what's going on with the Skinner family. And so this
(03:37):
is echoes through Attorney, Season four, episode one, and I
don't know if I said it or not, but welcome
into It goes through Attorney, and the question is, as always,
what is God echoing through your life?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Today? Today's topic is breaking.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Ground, the call and the cost the first one hundred
days of church planting and today war Big begin the
very beginning with the holy moment of saying yes, God's
called plant and a church.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I get a talnded episode breaking ground.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And one of the things that that I always tell
people when they tell me they're called to plant a
church is or they want to plant a church? Is
I ask them why do you want to plant a church?
And the only reason that anyone should ever plant a church,
it's not because the church needs.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
A new area. Are new a church? I mean the
community needs a new church.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
It is not because there's not a particular denomination for
your church in that area. So in other words, there's
maybe your church of Nazarene or you know, some other
Disciples of Christ or something, and maybe your community doesn't
have a.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Church of a Nazarene.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
That's not a reason to plant a church. Just because
you feel like you have the gifts in the graces
to plant a church doesn't mean that God wants you
to plant a church. There's you know, entrepreneurs are called
to plant, are called to start businesses, but they're also
called plant churches. Just because you happen to have an
(05:11):
entrepreneurial skill skit doesn't mean that you are called to
plant a church.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And so you may figure it out.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
The only reason to plant a church is because God
has called you to plant a church, so I want
to talk about that scriptural and scriptural anchor here is
Luke fourteen twenty eight thirty says, suppose one of you
wants to build a tower.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Jesus reminds us that the work of the kingdom is costly.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And I can tell you this from personal experience.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
From the time that I planted the last church I
planted was seven years ago, or when I left church
planting and began coaching was seven years ago. Actually, I
guess technically it was nine years ago that I left
church planting.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But it was it was ten years ago. That are
excuse me, It was almost fifteen.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Years ago, sixteen years ago that I actually began plant planting.
The last church was the Mount Church and Nazreene in Auburn, Alabama.
And when I say that, but when we began, that's
when we started and uh and so uh you know,
since then, I've learned a ton, began coaching others and
(06:30):
helping others to plant. But one of the first things
that I did then was learned to count the cost.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And then I.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Thought it was just about money. And budgeting and things,
but there is a personal cost to planting a church.
It's kind of mentioned that my wife has taught in
uh in communities where there was a great need previously,
and that's a highly rewarding thing, just like church planting
is a highly rewarding but it's a it's a high cost,
(07:01):
and church planting is one of the hardest things that
you will ever do when it comes to ministry, because
you're going in and you are taking ground back from
the enemy.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
You are advancing the Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Of God, and the enemy does not like that, and
he will attack your family. He will find your Achilles Heill,
and he will grasp that Achilles hill. And that was
true the first time, and it has been true this time.
We moved here. Our family was relatively stable and we
moved here, and I won't go into all the details here,
(07:34):
but our family has certainly been under attack and continues
to be under attack as a result of us seeking
to discern God's will and plant a church. So the
first part of it is counting that cause. Saying yes
is joyful, but it's frightening. Joy is in imagining what
(07:57):
could be in a love visionary. I love envisioning what
could be within a community, and and I love sitting
down and making that plan and talking with the community
and discerning what the community needs are. Those are the
fun things that drive me in the early days of
(08:18):
church planting. There it's just I just love it. But
simultaneously and to discern where God is working already, rather
than me going in parachute dropping and saying God, join
me in this work, is about figuring out where God
is already at work and then beginning to work there
because it's so much easier when God.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Has already been at work within a community.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And so the enemy hate so when you start new churches,
that's the good side of the church planting is all
the visionary and everything the plane goes. The negative side,
the hard side, The side is going to cost you
the most, is that the enemy hates new churches. The
moment you say yes to guys, will you awaken spiritual opposition.
(09:04):
And that's why the DNA of a new church must
be prayer, holiness, and courage. And when we say holiness,
sometimes we misunderstand that word holiness to mean, you know,
this is just really gonna be a good work, a
Christian work, a highly moral and ethical thing. And they are,
(09:25):
but that's not necessarily the things that are always holy.
Holy is just a term that is biblical, that's used
to describe God.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And so when God.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Introduced himself to humanity, to Abramy's and even to Moses,
he said, I'm a God like no other. I'm not
a god of wealth, I'm not a god of fertility.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I'm not a god of blessing for whatever particular needs
you have.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I am a god of all other gods. I am
a God like no other. And so the word they
used was holy. In other words, he is, He is
completely other, indescribable, immutable, which means that that we he
is incomprehensible yet for the intervention of the Holy Spirit
(10:14):
and revelation of God by God himself in the person
of Jesus Christ, right, and that happens through the Holy
Spirit and through the Cross. I don't want to get
too deep into weeds here, but that's what that word
holy means. And so when we come in into a
new community, we must be holy, we must be completely other.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
We can't join in.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
The latest political or cultural conversation. Cracker barrels Ben of
the News here in the last few days. And that's
not our argument, that's not our fight. Let them people
do what they're going to do. I could care less
about the logo. I just want good food, right, And
so that's not our arguments there that we have to
participate in. It's not our job of the church planet
(10:58):
to go in and find out whereby is arguing, where
everybody agrees and suddenly hop.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
On that bandwagon. We are in the work.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We're doing the work of God, and so that comes
through prayer of discerning and that's not begging God to
bless what we're doing, but again it's discerning and working
and helping to align our will.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
With God's will.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And so that that's part of that holdness thing and
encouraged because again we're taking back land from the enemy.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
My family is absolutely under attack. But I am not
discouraged from the work.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
That God has called me to do, which is plant
churches in the Nashville, Tennessee area and to help others
plant churches and in Nashville and beyond. And I've been
coaching people from literally all over the world. I've coached
hundreds from Africa, coach pastors from India, pastors from Bangladesh,
(11:53):
pastors from South Africa, Uganda, just I mean, you name
the country in Africa or pretty much. I'm a pastor
of coach pastors in Scotland, of coach pastors in Europe.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
That's what I've been doing the last seven years.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I continue to do and I will continue to do
that regardless of what the enemy throws at me unless
I die.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
That is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
And so the early days of a church plant or
like setting the DNA of a body, if you plant
in prayer, you will reap power. Now again, power in
the Kingdom looks very different than power of an empire,
or power of the United States, or power of China
or the power of Russia military power.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
That's not what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
We are talking about the power of God, the power
of the Holy Spirit. And to kind of borrow a
line from Heuey Lewis and the News is the power
of love, right, And that is what we're talking about.
Prayer infuses us with the power of God to transform lives.
And again, it's not us transformed lives transforming lives, it's
us living out Kingdom values in our life, spraying the Gospel,
(13:06):
the good news and going into the communities and telling
them that they are loved deeply, that that love is
not something they have to earn. They don't have to
strive to belong because there was a God who said
his only son to down across in order that they
may have access to that love. And that is that
transforming power. Especially, it's ironic that there's so much research
(13:31):
is coming out that the millennials and not just millials,
but everybody struggles with belonging today because there's so much
out there that's telling us that we don't belong, that
we have to earn our belonging.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
We have to earn our key part of that's cultural.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
But I see that not just the United States. I
see that all over the all over the planet. Wherever
I'm talking and UH coaching pastors to plant churches, I
hear that saying thing. And so you want to make
sure that you plant in prayer, you'll reap in power.
If you plant in holiness, you'll reap health. If you
(14:10):
plant encourage, you will leap in faithfulness. And so the UH,
you know, that's the that's the key to UH to
UH church planting there is to make sure that in
these first early days that you're you're saying yes to God.
Now they're they's joy. In those early days, the vision
stirs you see your mind.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
What could be.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
You dream of worship services alive in the spirit. You
imagine baptism and borrow baptistries. Children learning to pray, young
adults discovering purpose. Broken marriage is healed, prodigals are turning home.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I have my own.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Product that I'm praying for today. Those visions are not fantasies.
There are glimpses of what God longs to do. And
those glimpses keep you moving, keep us moving. When the
nice get long, that call to see those lives transform,
that's what that's what keeps us going. And I remember
(15:08):
when the first gatherings in the living room, when when
the worship was simple, when we were first starting our
first church.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
It's just a guitar and a few voices.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And and I still remember the sermon I've reached on
that day, and it was are you are you a
river of life or pond scum?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
And I talked about the value of reproduction.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I talked about the value of pouring into others and
giving ourselves away.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Because what's the difference between The reason we don't drink
pond water is because it's full of bacteria. It's full
of life, but it's unhealthy life.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
It's not life that gives it's bacteria that will make
us sick.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And that's why we can't drink pond waters because it's unhealthy.
Why is it unhealthy because it has no outlet.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
It just remains constant and still as it sits there
after day after day.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Because it has no source of life.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
It never it never gives itself away, and it's never
poured into by anyone else. That is a kingdom life
where you want to A river of life is the
opposite of that. A river of life that's where it
has a fresh source that's constantly feeding it, and it's
constantly flowing to another source and giving itself away to
(16:25):
streams and other things and other bodies of water that
are out there. That was that first sermon at first,
that first time that we met. I still remember those days.
I remember that that night a woman who hadn't hadn't
stepped into a churching decade, broke down in tears and.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
She said, don't I don't know if God still wants me.
And that moment was worth every ounce of fear, every
ounce of cost, and.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That fear of company's joy. But alongside joint comes fear.
Fear of failure, fear of projection, fear of what people
will say if it doesn't work, They'll talk about me
and say that I'm a failure, or say that I
was crazier or whatever it is that we fear that
they're going to say that we were dumb or something.
Now I used to walk into first meetings with a
(17:15):
nod in my stomach. What if I'm not smart enough?
What if no one came? What if those who did
were disappointed? But maybe I'm not a good preacher. What
if we never gained momentum and never learn to thrive.
Those fears are normal. They don't disqualify you. They prove
that you are a human. And yet faith is not
(17:37):
the absence of fear. Faith is obedience in the presence
of fear, and doubt is not a lack of faith.
But doubt is a dialogue of faith is a dialogue
with doubt. It says that despite my doubts, I'm going
to be fearless and have faith and move forward into God. Well,
(17:59):
I'm I'm Wesley in in my theology, I don't I
don't hide that we believe in something called prevenient grace,
and that is that that grace of God that's working
before us. A conversation with a friend of mine the
other day who's a strict Calvinist, he believes in a
total depravity, the unconditional election of the saints, limited atonement
in the words, uh, when Jesus died in the cross,
(18:21):
it was only for those that were that were elected
into the faith. And so that irresistible grace, which is
I of the tulip, because if God has has preordained
that you're going to be saved, you can't resist that.
And the perseverance of the saints. Again that once saved,
always saved. If God has called you to be saved
and preordained for you to be saved, and there's God
(18:43):
can't be wrong.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
God is all powerful, and therefore you must and that
that key comparent. There is that total depravity that says
there's nothing that humanity can do in and of his
or her own power to reach God.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And Wesley in theology, yes, we agree that there is
a depraved that the humanity's soul, the humanity itself is
depraved except for the grace of God.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
When Jesus died on the cross, he made his grace.
He made God's grace of able to everyone.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And that is what allows a depraved soul to respond
to God. And that is that grace that goes before
long before you read a cafeteria. God is already preparing
the soil. He's stirring hearts, he's aligning conversations, opening doors.
You are not starting from nothing. You are joining what
He has already begun.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And then count the costs.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I'll tell you there's a high cost, Jesus said, count
the cost, and the cost of planting is.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Real, a personal cost. Or life will be stretched.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Then you will have emotional exhaustion, you will feel like
your time will feel like it's not your own because
you're constantly pouring out yourself to others. That's why Sabbath
is so important. Your soul would need rest, prayer, and replenishing.
Does first one hundred days require a planter who is
(20:08):
deeply rooted in Christ. Show me a person who's not
root in Christ, and I'll show you a person who's
going to fail. Now that doesn't mean that, as you fail,
you were not root in Christ. That those opposite of
that is not necessarily true, Nor does it mean that
if you're root in Christ, there's absolute guarantee success.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
That's not true either. Sometimes the enemy wins.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
If you're looking at a church, if your plan was
to plan a church at thrift for one hundred years
and it know it to lasts for three from a
human standpoint.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
You may consider that a failure.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
But maybe that wasn't part of God's plan. You have
to look at whom did you lead to Christ? What
saved your song during that time of three years? Even
if you're in if you end up closing your church
plant within us three years, how many people did you reach?
And if you reach just one you were successful. There's
a financial cost there, there's a require sacrifice. You have
(21:07):
seasons of living on less uh. The money you have
is going to be split between you and your family
and your church.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
That is a real cost. You have to raise support
or trust God for provision in ways that stretch you.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Remember, small beginnings are not failures. Their holy seeds emotional costs.
You'll face discouragement, You'll feel invisible, You'll feel like nobody belonged,
that you don't belong that you're not worthy of.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
The large church pastors out there.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Overcome those, fight through those, ask the Lord to speak
into you. Seek out mentors. And you know, a mentor
is someone who has been where you want to go.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And so, if I want to be a millionaire, I'm
not going to seek out somebody in poverty to tell
me how to become a millionaire. What I want to
do is find someone who's earned a million dollars and
go there.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So if I want to plant a really big, a
really nice, thriving community.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Of one hundred and fifty or two hundred people, and
there's a reason I choose that number is because I
think feel like when you get beyond that number there,
or when you get beyond a couple of three years there,
you need to be thinking multiplication.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You need to be thinking.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
About where that next church and who you're going to
send out to plant that next church. So you should
always be giving people away and sowing seeds of people
into other churches there. So if that is your vision,
find another pastor who has done that. Don't the enemy
will tell you that you're not worthy of those pastors' time.
But I promise you those pastors desire for you to
(22:46):
be a success sayer looking for people to pour into
spiritual warfare. The moment you say what yes, you will
waken opposition. The enemy hates new churches, doors will close,
temptations will rise, division will try to creep in. But
take heart the battle as the Lord's Clothe yourself in
the armor of God. Surround yourself in prayer. That means
(23:08):
enlisted others into an army of prayer warriors for you
and stories that shape us.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Let let me share a story of another planet.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
He began with just ten people in his living room,
no budget, no building, no staff. Their worship was simple,
even awkward, but within weeks the young couple gave their
lives to Christ. That moment shaped everything. The church realized
that they weren't about style. They weren't about salvation. They
were about salvation. They were not just about style because
(23:40):
they had no style. Another planter told me that in
the first hundred days he felt like every seat, like
quitting every single week. But one Sunday a child raised
her hand and said, I want to follow Jesus, and
that moment reminded him every ounce of cost is worth
one soul. These stories are remind us first fruits are small,
(24:02):
but they set the DNA.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
The early days set the DNA.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
DNA is not about style or branding, is about spiritual substance.
You can have great worship, you can have incredible sermons,
but if you don't have any substance there, the people
will end up walking out in the back door.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
All you're doing is offering a buffet. But let me
tell you, when you're offering a.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Buffet, I don't care if you're offering prime reb or seafood.
Someone eventually is going to get tired of prime rib
and seafood and they'll find another buffet that offers something
better or something different in town. And so careful about
looking to create some great you know, six flags over
(24:50):
Jesus or because we don't. The church doesn't have the
budget to compete with Disney, and we don't have the
talent to compete with Disney. But what we do have
is the Holy Spirit and an army of volunteers in prayer,
warriors that are praying for the spirit of God. Jesus
wasn't fancy. Jesus just came in. He was he was low,
(25:11):
and he came in and he transformed the entire world,
so much so that its split time. We went from
the before Christ to the year I mean to after
Jesus was crucified. We that was a time of change
of transformation there so BC to a d I think
(25:34):
they've rebranded that something else now, but but uh, you know,
when I was growing, it was called a d But
the early day set in the DNA.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
It's not just about stylar branding.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
There you will plant in prayer, you reaping power, and
you plan holiness, reaping health, planning, courage practical.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Stiffs for the first one hundred days.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Walk your city in prayer, speak blessings of our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces.
Listen to the people. Ask them what they love, what
they fear, what they long for. Clarify your vision, write
into a single paragraph so others can carry it.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Build your launch team around character, not charisma. Keep your
gathering simple, spirit filled, and centered on Jesus. So close
us out days. The call to plant is heavy and holy.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
It will cost you, It will break you, but being broken,
Jesus reminds us on the cross. Being broken is a
chance for God to come in and make us hold.
But it will also fill you with joy, and you
cannot that you cannot find anywhere else because it's not
about building your name, is about making Jesus known. So
(26:46):
we'll close this today in prayer. Lord, thank you for
your call to plant churches. Thank you as you go
before us in prevenient grace. I give us the courage
to say yes, strength to your cost, and faith to
believe that small meetings lead to eternal fruit. May the
DNA we plant echo three attorney in Jesus Name.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Amen,
Welcome into Echoes through Eternity. I'm your host, doctor Jeffrey D.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Skinner.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Well, it has been a minute since we last recorded
an episode, and I apologize for that. Life has happened.
We have relocated from the Atlanta area to the Nashville,
Tennessee area. I found a wonderful community here where I
plan to plant a brand new church. Still in the
(00:27):
discerning stage and praying stage this season, where you're just
trying to make sure that your your will is aligned
with God's will, to make sure that you know this
is not just something that that you came up with
and as a result of some bad barbecue the night
before or anything like that. And we're going to find
(00:49):
a partner church as the most successful version of church
plants that are out there running there. It's a parachute
drop where you just drop into US city and not
really understand who the people are or what's going on.
And this is kind of an experiment. I've kind of
gone live today. I usually recording it and I will
(01:10):
still continue to recording at it, but we're gonna try
the live version first just to.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Kind of see how this goes. I may blow up
if it does. We just won't do it again.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
But the only way to try new things is to
try them, and no way to go live without actually
trying it.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
So we're going to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And so anyway, just so it's kind of what's going
on with us, My wife has retired for thirty three
zero point three three years of teaching and just just
a wonderful school that she's landed. In most of her
school teaching career, she has taught in areas that were
(01:55):
struggling and the students were struggling, and she loves She
has a heart for the marginalized. She has a heart
for those for the least of these, and and that has.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Been where she has taught.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
But thirty three years of that wears on one. We
had hoped that she would get teach she has a
PhD in curriculum. We had hoped that she would teach
it the collegiate level so that she would get a
little bit of rest.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
But as God has it, he and we aligned his
will with.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Our will with his, it was not in the cards
at least this time for her to do higher ed.
So she's gone back into the classroom. But God has
blessed her with an incredible school with incredible children who
are among some of the most blessed within the community,
(02:55):
which is a good thing that they're blessed. But simultaneously,
it means her job is a lot easier. Many the
things that have warned her down over the years she
no longer has to do. She gets a duty free lunch,
which means she does and I've watched your children.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
She just drops them off and they eat. She doesn't
have as many meetings.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Because her school is not a Chapter one or whatever
you call that, that school where the federal government is
kind of in and overseeing things. That's not the situation
that she's in right now. And so she has been blessed.
And that's just kind of kind of an update of
what's going on with the Skinner family. And so this
(03:37):
is echoes through Attorney, Season four, episode one, and I
don't know if I said it or not, but welcome
into It goes through Attorney, and the question is, as always,
what is God echoing through your life?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Today? Today's topic is breaking.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Ground, the call and the cost the first one hundred
days of church planting and today war Big begin the
very beginning with the holy moment of saying yes, God's
called plant and a church.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I get a talnded episode breaking ground.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And one of the things that that I always tell
people when they tell me they're called to plant a
church is or they want to plant a church? Is
I ask them why do you want to plant a church?
And the only reason that anyone should ever plant a church,
it's not because the church needs.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
A new area. Are new a church? I mean the
community needs a new church.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
It is not because there's not a particular denomination for
your church in that area. So in other words, there's
maybe your church of Nazarene or you know, some other
Disciples of Christ or something, and maybe your community doesn't
have a.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Church of a Nazarene.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
That's not a reason to plant a church. Just because
you feel like you have the gifts in the graces
to plant a church doesn't mean that God wants you
to plant a church. There's you know, entrepreneurs are called
to plant, are called to start businesses, but they're also
called plant churches. Just because you happen to have an
(05:11):
entrepreneurial skill skit doesn't mean that you are called to
plant a church.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And so you may figure it out.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
The only reason to plant a church is because God
has called you to plant a church, so I want
to talk about that scriptural and scriptural anchor here is
Luke fourteen twenty eight thirty says, suppose one of you
wants to build a tower.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Jesus reminds us that the work of the kingdom is costly.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And I can tell you this from personal experience.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
From the time that I planted the last church I
planted was seven years ago, or when I left church
planting and began coaching was seven years ago. Actually, I
guess technically it was nine years ago that I left
church planting.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But it was it was ten years ago. That are
excuse me, It was almost fifteen.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Years ago, sixteen years ago that I actually began plant planting.
The last church was the Mount Church and Nazreene in Auburn, Alabama.
And when I say that, but when we began, that's
when we started and uh and so uh you know,
since then, I've learned a ton, began coaching others and
(06:30):
helping others to plant. But one of the first things
that I did then was learned to count the cost.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And then I.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Thought it was just about money. And budgeting and things,
but there is a personal cost to planting a church.
It's kind of mentioned that my wife has taught in
uh in communities where there was a great need previously,
and that's a highly rewarding thing, just like church planting
is a highly rewarding but it's a it's a high cost,
(07:01):
and church planting is one of the hardest things that
you will ever do when it comes to ministry, because
you're going in and you are taking ground back from
the enemy.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
You are advancing the Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Of God, and the enemy does not like that, and
he will attack your family. He will find your Achilles Heill,
and he will grasp that Achilles hill. And that was
true the first time, and it has been true this time.
We moved here. Our family was relatively stable and we
moved here, and I won't go into all the details here,
(07:34):
but our family has certainly been under attack and continues
to be under attack as a result of us seeking
to discern God's will and plant a church. So the
first part of it is counting that cause. Saying yes
is joyful, but it's frightening. Joy is in imagining what
(07:57):
could be in a love visionary. I love envisioning what
could be within a community, and and I love sitting
down and making that plan and talking with the community
and discerning what the community needs are. Those are the
fun things that drive me in the early days of
(08:18):
church planting. There it's just I just love it. But
simultaneously and to discern where God is working already, rather
than me going in parachute dropping and saying God, join
me in this work, is about figuring out where God
is already at work and then beginning to work there
because it's so much easier when God.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Has already been at work within a community.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And so the enemy hate so when you start new churches,
that's the good side of the church planting is all
the visionary and everything the plane goes. The negative side,
the hard side, The side is going to cost you
the most, is that the enemy hates new churches. The
moment you say yes to guys, will you awaken spiritual opposition.
(09:04):
And that's why the DNA of a new church must
be prayer, holiness, and courage. And when we say holiness,
sometimes we misunderstand that word holiness to mean, you know,
this is just really gonna be a good work, a
Christian work, a highly moral and ethical thing. And they are,
(09:25):
but that's not necessarily the things that are always holy.
Holy is just a term that is biblical, that's used
to describe God.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And so when God.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Introduced himself to humanity, to Abramy's and even to Moses,
he said, I'm a God like no other. I'm not
a god of wealth, I'm not a god of fertility.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I'm not a god of blessing for whatever particular needs
you have.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I am a god of all other gods. I am
a God like no other. And so the word they
used was holy. In other words, he is, He is
completely other, indescribable, immutable, which means that that we he
is incomprehensible yet for the intervention of the Holy Spirit
(10:14):
and revelation of God by God himself in the person
of Jesus Christ, right, and that happens through the Holy
Spirit and through the Cross. I don't want to get
too deep into weeds here, but that's what that word
holy means. And so when we come in into a
new community, we must be holy, we must be completely other.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
We can't join in.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
The latest political or cultural conversation. Cracker barrels Ben of
the News here in the last few days. And that's
not our argument, that's not our fight. Let them people
do what they're going to do. I could care less
about the logo. I just want good food, right, And
so that's not our arguments there that we have to
participate in. It's not our job of the church planet
(10:58):
to go in and find out whereby is arguing, where
everybody agrees and suddenly hop.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
On that bandwagon. We are in the work.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We're doing the work of God, and so that comes
through prayer of discerning and that's not begging God to
bless what we're doing, but again it's discerning and working
and helping to align our will.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
With God's will.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And so that that's part of that holdness thing and
encouraged because again we're taking back land from the enemy.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
My family is absolutely under attack. But I am not
discouraged from the work.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
That God has called me to do, which is plant
churches in the Nashville, Tennessee area and to help others
plant churches and in Nashville and beyond. And I've been
coaching people from literally all over the world. I've coached
hundreds from Africa, coach pastors from India, pastors from Bangladesh,
(11:53):
pastors from South Africa, Uganda, just I mean, you name
the country in Africa or pretty much. I'm a pastor
of coach pastors in Scotland, of coach pastors in Europe.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
That's what I've been doing the last seven years.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I continue to do and I will continue to do
that regardless of what the enemy throws at me unless
I die.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
That is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
And so the early days of a church plant or
like setting the DNA of a body, if you plant
in prayer, you will reap power. Now again, power in
the Kingdom looks very different than power of an empire,
or power of the United States, or power of China
or the power of Russia military power.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
That's not what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
We are talking about the power of God, the power
of the Holy Spirit. And to kind of borrow a
line from Heuey Lewis and the News is the power
of love, right, And that is what we're talking about.
Prayer infuses us with the power of God to transform lives.
And again, it's not us transformed lives transforming lives, it's
us living out Kingdom values in our life, spraying the Gospel,
(13:06):
the good news and going into the communities and telling
them that they are loved deeply, that that love is
not something they have to earn. They don't have to
strive to belong because there was a God who said
his only son to down across in order that they
may have access to that love. And that is that
transforming power. Especially, it's ironic that there's so much research
(13:31):
is coming out that the millennials and not just millials,
but everybody struggles with belonging today because there's so much
out there that's telling us that we don't belong, that
we have to earn our belonging.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
We have to earn our key part of that's cultural.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
But I see that not just the United States. I
see that all over the all over the planet. Wherever
I'm talking and UH coaching pastors to plant churches, I
hear that saying thing. And so you want to make
sure that you plant in prayer, you'll reap in power.
If you plant in holiness, you'll reap health. If you
(14:10):
plant encourage, you will leap in faithfulness. And so the UH,
you know, that's the that's the key to UH to
UH church planting there is to make sure that in
these first early days that you're you're saying yes to God.
Now they're they's joy. In those early days, the vision
stirs you see your mind.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
What could be.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
You dream of worship services alive in the spirit. You
imagine baptism and borrow baptistries. Children learning to pray, young
adults discovering purpose. Broken marriage is healed, prodigals are turning home.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I have my own.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Product that I'm praying for today. Those visions are not fantasies.
There are glimpses of what God longs to do. And
those glimpses keep you moving, keep us moving. When the
nice get long, that call to see those lives transform,
that's what that's what keeps us going. And I remember
(15:08):
when the first gatherings in the living room, when when
the worship was simple, when we were first starting our
first church.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
It's just a guitar and a few voices.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And and I still remember the sermon I've reached on
that day, and it was are you are you a
river of life or pond scum?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
And I talked about the value of reproduction.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I talked about the value of pouring into others and
giving ourselves away.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Because what's the difference between The reason we don't drink
pond water is because it's full of bacteria. It's full
of life, but it's unhealthy life.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
It's not life that gives it's bacteria that will make
us sick.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And that's why we can't drink pond waters because it's unhealthy.
Why is it unhealthy because it has no outlet.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
It just remains constant and still as it sits there
after day after day.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Because it has no source of life.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
It never it never gives itself away, and it's never
poured into by anyone else. That is a kingdom life
where you want to A river of life is the
opposite of that. A river of life that's where it
has a fresh source that's constantly feeding it, and it's
constantly flowing to another source and giving itself away to
(16:25):
streams and other things and other bodies of water that
are out there. That was that first sermon at first,
that first time that we met. I still remember those days.
I remember that that night a woman who hadn't hadn't
stepped into a churching decade, broke down in tears and.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
She said, don't I don't know if God still wants me.
And that moment was worth every ounce of fear, every
ounce of cost, and.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That fear of company's joy. But alongside joint comes fear.
Fear of failure, fear of projection, fear of what people
will say if it doesn't work, They'll talk about me
and say that I'm a failure, or say that I
was crazier or whatever it is that we fear that
they're going to say that we were dumb or something.
Now I used to walk into first meetings with a
(17:15):
nod in my stomach. What if I'm not smart enough?
What if no one came? What if those who did
were disappointed? But maybe I'm not a good preacher. What
if we never gained momentum and never learn to thrive.
Those fears are normal. They don't disqualify you. They prove
that you are a human. And yet faith is not
(17:37):
the absence of fear. Faith is obedience in the presence
of fear, and doubt is not a lack of faith.
But doubt is a dialogue of faith is a dialogue
with doubt. It says that despite my doubts, I'm going
to be fearless and have faith and move forward into God. Well,
(17:59):
I'm I'm Wesley in in my theology, I don't I
don't hide that we believe in something called prevenient grace,
and that is that that grace of God that's working
before us. A conversation with a friend of mine the
other day who's a strict Calvinist, he believes in a
total depravity, the unconditional election of the saints, limited atonement
in the words, uh, when Jesus died in the cross,
(18:21):
it was only for those that were that were elected
into the faith. And so that irresistible grace, which is
I of the tulip, because if God has has preordained
that you're going to be saved, you can't resist that.
And the perseverance of the saints. Again that once saved,
always saved. If God has called you to be saved
and preordained for you to be saved, and there's God
(18:43):
can't be wrong.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
God is all powerful, and therefore you must and that
that key comparent. There is that total depravity that says
there's nothing that humanity can do in and of his
or her own power to reach God.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And Wesley in theology, yes, we agree that there is
a depraved that the humanity's soul, the humanity itself is
depraved except for the grace of God.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
When Jesus died on the cross, he made his grace.
He made God's grace of able to everyone.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And that is what allows a depraved soul to respond
to God. And that is that grace that goes before
long before you read a cafeteria. God is already preparing
the soil. He's stirring hearts, he's aligning conversations, opening doors.
You are not starting from nothing. You are joining what
He has already begun.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And then count the costs.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I'll tell you there's a high cost, Jesus said, count
the cost, and the cost of planting is.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Real, a personal cost. Or life will be stretched.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Then you will have emotional exhaustion, you will feel like
your time will feel like it's not your own because
you're constantly pouring out yourself to others. That's why Sabbath
is so important. Your soul would need rest, prayer, and replenishing.
Does first one hundred days require a planter who is
(20:08):
deeply rooted in Christ. Show me a person who's not
root in Christ, and I'll show you a person who's
going to fail. Now that doesn't mean that, as you fail,
you were not root in Christ. That those opposite of
that is not necessarily true, Nor does it mean that
if you're root in Christ, there's absolute guarantee success.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
That's not true either. Sometimes the enemy wins.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
If you're looking at a church, if your plan was
to plan a church at thrift for one hundred years
and it know it to lasts for three from a
human standpoint.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
You may consider that a failure.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
But maybe that wasn't part of God's plan. You have
to look at whom did you lead to Christ? What
saved your song during that time of three years? Even
if you're in if you end up closing your church
plant within us three years, how many people did you reach?
And if you reach just one you were successful. There's
a financial cost there, there's a require sacrifice. You have
(21:07):
seasons of living on less uh. The money you have
is going to be split between you and your family
and your church.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
That is a real cost. You have to raise support
or trust God for provision in ways that stretch you.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Remember, small beginnings are not failures. Their holy seeds emotional costs.
You'll face discouragement, You'll feel invisible, You'll feel like nobody belonged,
that you don't belong that you're not worthy of.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
The large church pastors out there.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Overcome those, fight through those, ask the Lord to speak
into you. Seek out mentors. And you know, a mentor
is someone who has been where you want to go.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And so, if I want to be a millionaire, I'm
not going to seek out somebody in poverty to tell
me how to become a millionaire. What I want to
do is find someone who's earned a million dollars and
go there.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So if I want to plant a really big, a
really nice, thriving community.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Of one hundred and fifty or two hundred people, and
there's a reason I choose that number is because I
think feel like when you get beyond that number there,
or when you get beyond a couple of three years there,
you need to be thinking multiplication.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You need to be thinking.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
About where that next church and who you're going to
send out to plant that next church. So you should
always be giving people away and sowing seeds of people
into other churches there. So if that is your vision,
find another pastor who has done that. Don't the enemy
will tell you that you're not worthy of those pastors' time.
But I promise you those pastors desire for you to
(22:46):
be a success sayer looking for people to pour into
spiritual warfare. The moment you say what yes, you will
waken opposition. The enemy hates new churches, doors will close,
temptations will rise, division will try to creep in. But
take heart the battle as the Lord's Clothe yourself in
the armor of God. Surround yourself in prayer. That means
(23:08):
enlisted others into an army of prayer warriors for you
and stories that shape us.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Let let me share a story of another planet.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
He began with just ten people in his living room,
no budget, no building, no staff. Their worship was simple,
even awkward, but within weeks the young couple gave their
lives to Christ. That moment shaped everything. The church realized
that they weren't about style. They weren't about salvation. They
were about salvation. They were not just about style because
(23:40):
they had no style. Another planter told me that in
the first hundred days he felt like every seat, like
quitting every single week. But one Sunday a child raised
her hand and said, I want to follow Jesus, and
that moment reminded him every ounce of cost is worth
one soul. These stories are remind us first fruits are small,
(24:02):
but they set the DNA.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
The early days set the DNA.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
DNA is not about style or branding, is about spiritual substance.
You can have great worship, you can have incredible sermons,
but if you don't have any substance there, the people
will end up walking out in the back door.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
All you're doing is offering a buffet. But let me
tell you, when you're offering a.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Buffet, I don't care if you're offering prime reb or seafood.
Someone eventually is going to get tired of prime rib
and seafood and they'll find another buffet that offers something
better or something different in town. And so careful about
looking to create some great you know, six flags over
(24:50):
Jesus or because we don't. The church doesn't have the
budget to compete with Disney, and we don't have the
talent to compete with Disney. But what we do have
is the Holy Spirit and an army of volunteers in prayer,
warriors that are praying for the spirit of God. Jesus
wasn't fancy. Jesus just came in. He was he was low,
(25:11):
and he came in and he transformed the entire world,
so much so that its split time. We went from
the before Christ to the year I mean to after
Jesus was crucified. We that was a time of change
of transformation there so BC to a d I think
(25:34):
they've rebranded that something else now, but but uh, you know,
when I was growing, it was called a d But
the early day set in the DNA.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
It's not just about stylar branding.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
There you will plant in prayer, you reaping power, and
you plan holiness, reaping health, planning, courage practical.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Stiffs for the first one hundred days.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Walk your city in prayer, speak blessings of our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces.
Listen to the people. Ask them what they love, what
they fear, what they long for. Clarify your vision, write
into a single paragraph so others can carry it.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Build your launch team around character, not charisma. Keep your
gathering simple, spirit filled, and centered on Jesus. So close
us out days. The call to plant is heavy and holy.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
It will cost you, It will break you, but being broken,
Jesus reminds us on the cross. Being broken is a
chance for God to come in and make us hold.
But it will also fill you with joy, and you
cannot that you cannot find anywhere else because it's not
about building your name, is about making Jesus known. So
(26:46):
we'll close this today in prayer. Lord, thank you for
your call to plant churches. Thank you as you go
before us in prevenient grace. I give us the courage
to say yes, strength to your cost, and faith to
believe that small meetings lead to eternal fruit. May the
DNA we plant echo three attorney in Jesus Name.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Amen,
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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.