So how does one begin starting a church from scratch?
We didn’t want to focus on “former” Adventists, or even those who may be considered non-regular attenders. We didn’t want to focus on those who were currently attending church, but were bored with the music, order of service, or “dress-code.” We didn’t want to be considered “sheep-stealers” or just be involved in moving the saints from one church to another.
Yet, within Adventism, there didn’t seem to be many church plants that had successfully gone into the unchurched population and built a church of “living stones.” But, we knew, in our hearts, that if that were our intention it would become our reality.
As we moved into the Springs and began to get settled, we kind of wandered and studied the culture, the community, and the opportunities. Before the first month was over, we had our first small group.
We had been invited to dinner by seminary friends Robert and Heather. At this dinner we met Skylar and Jeff. She was a recently re-baptised Adventist and her husband was a relatively new Christian. Within 10 minutes of meeting Skylar she asked about the plant and after we explained it, she exclaimed, “I want to be a part of that!”
Skylar and Jeff brought two of their non-Christian friends too. With that first small group, we began studying Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God Workbook. We had chosen the book before Sky and Jeff had invited their friends. Chris and Kelly were very open to hearing the Gospel. All four of our new friends were actively involved in the 12-Step fellowship and were relatively new in their sobriety.
About the time we finished the 13 week study in the workbook, Chris asked me if he could be baptised. In the meantime, we began to make many friends in the Colorado Springs 12-Step community. Because of Jennifer and my unique histories in battling drugs and alcohol in different ways, we fit in well with this group that is often not reached by Christianity in general, or Adventists.
We baptised Chris in the Summer of 2003 and the majority of people at his baptism were not Adventists and many were not Christians. It wasn’t long before many of those people were in some form of a small group at Common Ground. In fact, after the first 13 week semester ended with Skylar, Jeff, Kelly, and Chris, we added another six people to the group.
As the second 13-week small group semester ended, we were able to multiply into four groups; and by the Fall of 2003 we had six small groups operating with a total congregation size of about 50 people – mostly non-Adventists and unchurched.
This was exciting to have a reach so broad into the unchurched community, but now a new challenge was looming on the horizon. Because of our “rapid” initial growth, we needed to clone Jennifer and I. We didn’t have enough disciplemakers to go around. We needed leaders, we needed solid Adventist disciples to lead by example, and we needed solid Adventist members to help us keep the foundation of Adventism in our midst.
Choosing the Experiencing God Workbook principles as our foundational message, was a great victory though. It provided the direction and vision to create solid spiritual DNA.
