In light of the complexity of New York City, the guys at Trinity Grace Church have sensed that being faithful to God’s mission to reach the lost and strengthen the family of God is by planting neighborhood centered churches know as Parishes.
In this fourth and final segment of my interview with Caleb Clardy and Guy Wasko, they answer the questions,
“What is the leadership structure over the Trinity Grace Church Planting Network?”
“Where might the Parish Model not work?”
They provide some robust feedback and precautions to assist a planter in examining whether the Parish Model is right for them. Often times, pastors want to think “model first” and wrap the context around their preferred method of planting a church, or network of churches.
Additionally, Guy and Caleb share the many ways that they have been blessed by not being able to choose who walks through the doors of their church service on any given week. Neighborhood churches do not focus on one target group, but rather all people covered within a geographic region.
This is the final part of a four part series. For those with longer attention spans, you may watch the full video here.
In this four part interview, we’ve been examining the Parish Model of Church Planting through the eyes of two men who are doing it incredibly well, all by the grace of God. Spanish River Church has partnered to financially support three of the five church plants in the Trinity Grace Church church planting Network.
In this third part of the interview Caleb and Guy answer, “How do the different Trinity Grace Parish Churches work together?”
They explain:
How they collectively stay in prayer and share stories
Handling church discipline
Being connected to other Network pastors
How each TGC church births other parish church plants
How the multiple Parishes gather together to stay connected
Stay connected for the final segment due out on Monday. For those with longer attention spans, you may watch the full video here. Enjoy!
In this second video, Guy Wasko and Caleb Clardy of Trinity Grace Church continue to explain the Parish Model, which is becoming increasingly popular among church planters in urban contexts. Spanish River Church has partnered with Jon Tyson to start three of their now five parish churches.
In this video, Caleb and Guy explain and answer the discipleship structure of Trinity Grace Church, including:
Sunday Gatherings – Weekly traditional Sunday Service
Missional Communities – Groups serving their neighborhoods
Life Groups – Neighborhood centered small groups
Core Communities – Same sex groups consisting of approx 3 believers
City-Wide Worship – Collection of all the TGC family to worship Jesus
Look out for the next two parts to be released in the coming days. For those with longer attention spans, you may watch the full video here.
Have you asked the question, “What is the ‘Parish Model’ of church planting?” I have, and in late 2010, I had the pleasure of sitting down with good friends and Spanish River Network church planters Caleb Clardy and Guy Wasko to examine in depth the increasingly popular church planting movement known as the Trinity Grace Church network of churches.
My hope was to unearth what has made them uniquely successful in the urban church planter cemetery of NYC. Where others have come with lofty dreams and fallen by the wayside, this spirit filled, prayerful and motivated team of planters has persevered, grown, and even thrived in territories New York churches have poorly reached in years prior. Jon Tyson, originally from Australia, has led Trinity Grace from a single church to five, with more launching nearly every year.
Trinity Grace Church utilizes the “Parish Model“, as many describe it, to surface church planters, create neighborhood missional communities, and ultimately start new churches. Each of these church plants are highly connected, yet distinct as the neighborhood they are reaching. This vision of having gospel centered neighborhood church plants in New York is shared by many, including Redeemer, who is beginning to transition their main parish church into several sites throughout the city.
In this first of four parts, Caleb and Guy explain and answer:
Who is Trinity Grace Church? (1 min 12 sec)
What are the benefits of the Parish Model? (1 min 51 sec)
Warnings about choosing the Parish Model (7 min 30 sec)
Look out for the next three parts to be released in the coming days. For those with longer attention spans, you may watch the full video here.
The following is a brief interview with Adam Flynt on his recent launching of The Crossing Church in Jacksonville, Fl. Adam, his wife Kristen, and the rest of his team launched Crossing Church on September 18th, 2011.
Q: How did your launch service go?
A: It’s hard for me to say that we’ve launched. I’d rather say “launching.” As my father-in-law says, “rockets don’t launch all at once. Every launch is really a series of launches.” So we say we are “launching”. And God has been really gracious to us as we are launching.
On our first Sunday, we had over 150 total people in attendance. Our launch team consisted of about 40 adults.
Q: Did anyone make a profession of faith?
A: Though we did not have any come to Christ on our first Sunday, I have had a number of follow up conversations with individuals who are not followers of Jesus or who invited friends who are not followers of Jesus. They have all expressed a real joy about coming to church and wanting to know more and talk more about Jesus. We are praying hard as we share the bad news/ good news of the gospel with everyone
Q: In what way did God move that excited you the most?
A: I was most excited about how many people who don’t go to church and who are not followers of Jesus came on Sunday.
Our first Sunday was a great day because God gave us a great team of leaders. They really took on so much our first Sunday and really owned it. We also did as much as we could well in advance. This meant that everything we could do the week before, we did. That left a lot of margin to spend with people the week of the launch. I loved that I wasn’t holed up with printing, folding, putting ProPresenter together, etc.
Q: How did you budget in rest after?
A: Knowing this is Jesus’ church has helped tremendously to stay rested and avoid burning out over the idol of working too hard. We had family in town who came to our house on Sunday and cooked lunch for us. I also took the following Monday off to just rest and spend the day with my wife.
Dony St. Germain, Haitian Church Planting Movement Leader and strategic partner with Spanish River Church, discusses the unique challenges he and El Shaddai Ministries International face in planting reformed churches in Haiti. SRC has planted 28 churches in Haiti through ESMI.
Spanish River Church
