The Journey / Vintage21 Merge-Adoption-Rescue

Tomorrow 9/9/07 is the first sort-of "big day" since my church The Journey agreed to be merged, or basically turnover the keys, to another church Vintage21. Tomorrow is our soft launch. I call it a soft re-launch since we've already started once, hard launched once, soft launched once, and near about stopped... all in the first year! Such is the nature of church planting and starting... something I never thought I'd be doing, nor wanted to do. Eighty percent (or some large number) of church plants don't make it past a year. We're trying to stay out of the 80 percent.

So here are the highlights, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, 2007... Our pastor and long time good friend did not feel God was calling him to pastor a church plant any more, and he was called elsewhere. We weighed options regarding partnering with another church startup, or simply shutting down, and coordinating how we might scatter to other churches. We had about 80 or so adults, and probably 50 kids. We made some calls, and ultimately, Vintage21 convinced us not to close down. Their lead pastor Tyler Jones said we have 1 million people in the Triangle who did not yet know Christ, and that we needed all the churches we could get in neighborhoods around the area.

Vintage21 is a church in Raleigh, the capital city. Most of their church body is under the age of 30, and the pastors are about 32. This worked out well for us at The Journey, because we still wish we were under the age of 30, and we sort of remember being 32. So after all sorts of debate and analysis and discussion of questions and gnashing of teeth and writing of notes and FAQs, the merger was approved about a month ago. Among the people remaining by that time, it was actually approved overwhelmingly. It's amazing how secular businesses merge all the time, yet churches seem to have a hard time pulling it off. So we're learning as we go, for sure. We've had some hiccups along the way, and we still have not signed all the legal documents required by the state... but that will come.

I'm so used to looking at this from my perspective. I am one of the leaders at The Journey, so I'm usually thinking selfishly as in "What does this change mean to me? Or us? Will my needs and preferences be met?" Right now, I am just thankful we've made it this far. If I look at this from Vintage21's perspective, here we have an established church that has grown 100% a year for each of the last 4 years. I'm sure they had quite a platefull for 2007 already. When we came along in May, they were just beginning a construction up-fit in a new location and former bar downtown called Jillians. They just moved into the building and are still working out the kinks with that process. They are active in Acts29 and are hosting a boot camp later this month. They are allowing the city to use their space to host a creativity conference called SparkCon this month. They planned a grand opening to welcome the downtown communities into their place.

So with all this on their plate, along comes The Journey needing help in late May! Right away, the pastor began driving to our site to teach at our service, in between their #1 and #2 services. They brought down a site pastor from Richmond to help us out during our initial transition. So tomorrow is the soft re-launch, when we will likely have a few new elements that make it feel like Vintage21. I think the big re-launch is being discussed for January. I think this amount of time will give them more ability to work with the Cary site to plan the big day.

But for now, we have the soft re-launch, which I pray will be a burst of momentum. We sure need it.

The abbreviated story of how The Journey came to join forces with Vintage21

As a leadership team, we had about 10 days notice that our pastor was going to step down. We considered many options and played out many scenarios, none of them were real appealing. We had calls into several places, including a few local churches like Hope Community and Vintage21, and the Acts29 Network (to which V21 belongs). But it looked pretty bleak. I even had charts made up with pictures and graphs that argued for closing the doors and trying to find some synergy and join forces with other churches. I was looking forward to being done with it, and moving on to an established church and plugging in (after recuperating for a long time, of course).

Dan, one of our leaders, had talked on the phone with Tyler Jones at V21 on Thursday before Memorial Day, and he said that the conversation was pretty encouraging. The Friday before Memorial Day... literally at 5:30pm... we met with Tyler at his home right in the middle of downtown Raleigh... ok a few blocks east... right near the Raleigh Rescue Mission. I am not kidding... I went with Dan and another leader, 100% convinced that we were closing the doors after the coming Sunday. Within 60 seconds, Tyler spoke words that completely changed my heart and mind. He put wind back in my sails that I had not felt in years. He was encouraging, positive, biblical, humble, confident, firm, and gracious all at the same time. It was absolutely amazing.

Our theory was that there was not a market in Cary for another church like Hope Community, or Crosspointe, or Hope Chapel. Tyler disagreed... He said that there are a million people in the Triangle who don't know Jesus, and that it is NOT true that we have enough churches. We need all the churches we can get. We need churches in every neighborhood across the Triangle.... The local church is the best way to reach our communities and neighbors and friends for Christ. It was so refreshing to hear a leader who is convinced of their mission, and is non-compromising about executing it.

As it turned out, Tyler was in the midst of his first 3-week vacation in years, and had the coming Sunday off from preaching. (I believe this was God's providence.) So he agreed to come to West Cary on his day off, on a holiday weekend, the day that our pastor resigned. Our pastor gave his talk. Then I talked a bit, and then Tyler came up and breathed the same level of excitement and encouragement into what he said to our congregation. He recognized and affirmed our pastor for his service and courage to heed God's calling to step down. And he talked of the mission of the local church. After he was done, people were SOOOO pumped up and excited! So, on what was intended by the enemy to be a day of defeat for the kingdom, I truly believe was a major day of victory!!! I strongly encourage you to listen to this audio 5/27... You will readily hear the humility and the passion and the biblical leader qualities that we heard... http://thejourneycommunity.net/html/sermons_online.html

So we started out with this try-and-see relationship with Vintage21. From that point forward, Tyler and Vintage21 changed their schedule such that he preaches service #1 downtown, then drives to WCMS, then preaches at The Journey, then drives right back downtown to preach service #2 there. Then he preaches in the evening there, too. The Vintage21 elders were always very humble and seemed to be such passionate followers and imitators of Christ, we could not help but think God was at work.

During that time, we met with Hope Community. While I would say that The Journey had a lot more in common with Hope Community, and they agreed to help us in some ways, there was not a sense of us being a part of a larger kingdom vision with them. There wasn't the same level of urgency and vision about keeping The Journey open that we experienced at Vintage21. I think the proximity of The Journey at West Cary was too close to Hope (I think it's 8 miles) and I also think they were already busy with another church plant.

During all this time, the V21 elders were fasting and praying about our situation. They came to us with a proposal: Let's merge!!! We would remain in Cary, and Tyler would continue to preach for us. They would staff a site pastor who would serve to care for the families at the Cary site. So after much discussion, The Journey partners overwhelmingly voted for the merger in late July. We have a site pastor, Robert Greene, who is currently commuting from Richmond to Cary 2x per week to be with us. He has a long-standing relationship with Vintage21 and Acts29 and has been hoping to formally get into those organizations.

One thing we're surely missing is a youth group. We have, literally, a handful of youth. And that is important to parents who have youth. Tyler challenged our folks and said, "When you're 13, you are old enough to labor with us and build the youth ministry from the ground up!" He really believes in people taking ownership in the kingdom and not just being served. AMEN!!!! Despite all the hurdles like these, I am convinced that we are in God's will, and that He is going to work out something super great in the end.