Hard Fun: The Challenge of Year One
written by Lance Ford
The quest to begin a new church is most commonly called, “church planting.” It sounds innocuous enough. Has a nice ring to it. Farm livin’. Fresh air. The joy of organic development. Ask anyone who has planted a church and you will quickly dismiss all Hootervillian narratives. Church planting is more like a Nascar race: Fast, fierce, pitstops, crashes, duct tape, and risk. The upside: It’s a blast! Most church planters will agree that the adventure of walking with the Lord as he shapes a new congregation is simultaneously the most hard and most fun thing they’ve ever been a part of. Just ask Andy Wood, founding pastor of Breakthrough Church, which meets on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington. Andy (23) and his wife, Stacie began Breakthrough in 2004.
As if beginning a new church was not enough challenge for Andy and Stacy, they were only married six months prior to moving to Texas to begin Breakthrough Church. Added to these two huge lifestyle changes is the fact that Andy began his seminary tenure shortly after moving to Arlington as well. In spite of three major new responsibility roles (husband, pastor, post-grad student) Andy says the new season of his life has developed his walk with the Lord in a way he could never have planned for. He explained that the stretching and demands on his time and life actually pushed him into the arms of the Lord and caused him to grow deeper in his relationship with Christ. “I’ve grown more spiritually over the last two years than ever in my entire walk with the Lord. I have experienced the payoff of listening to people who have done this before. My coaches have helped immensely.” Wood says, “The one thing I would tell someone is don’t start a church in the first year of your marriage. It challenged us, although it has worked out great. The thing I expected least was the pressure, especially the financial side of it. I have had to really learn and trust that God builds the church, but we have to work.”
Andy’s eyes light up and a smile stretches across his face when he shares, “The joy of seeing the church formed is so cool. Watching how it morphs, changes, and grows like a child. My greatest joy has been in seeing people’s lives change. Especially those who have come from non-Christian backgrounds. We have had Hindus who became a part of our group and six months later they are following the gospel and they know Jesus. The tough part is when you really invest into someone and they just don’t make it.”
A recent series, “Boy Meets Girl” has proven to be a topic that has engaged the primarily twenty-something target group. Wood shares that today’s young people want to know what the Bible says about relationships, therefore he is not hesitant to clarify gender roles, “They want to know the truth. They want to know what the Bible says. They know whatever it was their parents tried to live by didn’t work.” Breakthrough has quickly caught on. In just over a year’s existence attendance has risen to close to one hundred, mostly students, on Sunday mornings. Prior to the beginning of the 11:01 a.m. service, the second floor commons area where the congregation gathers is filled with the aroma of fresh bagels and waffles while the live worship band plays in the background.
Andy and his team have already begun to dream and strategize a vision for planting more churches on other surrounding university campuses. He said, “We are trying to assess what transferable principles we have learned that could help us to help others do this.”
Check out Breakthrough Church www.breakthroughchurch.org.
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