Lessons from the Joshua Tree - Christianity Today

Behold, the Joshua tree! It grows in only one place: Joshua Tree National Park in California. The park is basically a desert. Bathed in ethereal red light at dawn, it becomes a furnace by noon with temperatures routinely soaring beyond 120 degrees.

So why is the Joshua tree special enough to have a national park named after it? Because it's pretty much the only thing that will grow there. Even though the environment is brutal, this particular tree has somehow found a way to adapt and survive.

It's a little like that for churches on Long Island, New York. The ground is hard and not conducive to church life. People are jaded, and clergy are often treated like snake oil salesmen. In some cases, I have to admit, the attitude is deserved. Some have dubbed Long Island "The Preacher's Graveyard." It's a difficult place to grow a church.

The hard soil, however, is capable of nourishing life. But churches there must do what they have done around the world and throughout history: adapt and learn to thrive in even the most difficult environments.

That's our story at True North Community Church. We opened our doors on Long Island in September 2005. Some seven years later, we're amazed at what God has done. We're running four services each Sunday, and we've had the honor of baptizing hundreds of new believers! While we've been blessed to thrive in a challenging environment, we certainly aren't the only ones. I'm thrilled to see other "Joshua tree" congregations springing from the hard soil of Long Island.

The "planting" analogy is apt. A new church begins as a seed, receives water and nourishment, and for reasons even experts don't fully understand, produces a living thing with the potential to nurture and shelter other life. Although we may not understand the unseen miracle involved in a church's birth, I'm beginning to understand the ways God has enabled our church family to thrive. Here are the lessons I'm learning.

Tend the roots

Plants must develop root systems. So must churches. Tending to the roots is perhaps the most neglected aspect of church planting. Most church planters are great at measuring visible things: attendance, offerings, volunteer sign-ups, baptisms—stuff above the surface. But it's just as important to pay attention to the less visible but still essential aspects of ministry.

These include a church planter's personal and family life. Church planters need to ask: How many Sabbaths have I skipped? How many dinners with my family have I missed? How many times has my spouse been exasperated by the fact that I just can't seem to put down my smart phone? It's easy to overlook such things, but they matter not only for the strength of our personal lives, but ultimately for the church we're helping to plant. We ignore them at our peril.

Our team learned early on that if we didn't establish clear boundaries to protect family life and personal health, the church would swallow every waking minute.

Our team learned early on that if we didn't establish clear boundaries to protect family life and personal health, the church would swallow every waking minute. We had to acknowledge this is God's initiative, not ours. He can do it without us.

But for the moment, he has given us a part to play in his work. We strive to play that role faithfully and well, but we can't make the mistake of thinking we're indispensible. We need to unplug regularly.

So, we work hard. And we rest hard.

Roots take time to develop. Fostering a vibrant spiritual life, a healthy family, and vital ministry team can take years. Church planters often grow frustrated when they're not seeing huge results right away. Yet that doesn't mean growth isn't happening.

Some species of bamboo grow their roots for up to 10 years before producing visible growth. When they finally do punch through the surface, they are capable of growth rates up to three feet per day!

Our church has grown quickly, but only if you start measuring from the day things became visible. When you consider the 10 years our team spent ministering to youth on Long Island before a church plant was even on our radar—years that we spent doing life together, attending retreats, doing missions trips, and ministering to high school students; years that we spent putting down roots—the growth rate is far less spectacular. But those years of nurturing the roots were essential for our future growth.

Understand your climate

There's a reason palm trees don't grow on Long Island and oak trees don't grow in Joshua Tree National Park—the environment isn't conducive to their health.

When it comes to a church plant, knowing the environment is just as important. One reason so many churches fail in Long Island is because a lot of people have found the environment too foreign and challenging.

New York has a unique culture. To outsiders, the in-your-face interactions, the speed at which people drive, the blunt talk can feel refreshing at first. But they get old.

I've been told by more than one non-native, these things have a way of gnawing away at one's psyche. Pastors often throw up their hands and say, "It's impossible to grow a church there."

It's not that they're less gifted or capable leaders, or even less tough. They're just facing some climate issues, and they failed to anticipate how influential that climate would be.

That's not to say someone from a different culture can't succeed here. There's no gutsier breed of church planter than what I call "The Paratrooper," men and women who are called to start a church in a foreign city (or country!). I've been privileged to know many of them, and I'm certain that the things they've gone through would chew me up and spit me out. The world is being reached by such people with a cross-cultural calling.

But these folks anticipate the toll exacted by adapting to a new culture. Anyone planting a church in unfamiliar territory must be willing to do the same. If you're an outsider, don't try to hide it. Spend as much time as you can with the people of your new community. Celebrate differences. And don't work too hard at pretending to be one of them. Natives will know you're a newbie, but people everywhere value authenticity.

At the same time you'll have to work hard to adapt. Seek out area-natives as you build your team. I've been blessed to be surrounded by other New York natives who "get" the culture. It saves a lot of time and energy on training, and makes them ready to minister effectively from day one.

Find support systems

All church plants need support to survive the first year. In our case, that support came from a church planting outfit called Orchard Group. They coached me and alerted me to potential pitfalls. For young planters, getting some help from a more experienced leader is always a good idea.

Before the Orchard Group made a commitment to us, they sent my wife and me to the Church Planting Assessment Center (CPAC) for extended testing and review. Kingdom resources are far too precious and our stewardship of them too important to waste energy on church planters who aren't up for the challenge.

I also found help from some of the other planters and pastors on Long Island. In the plant kingdom, individuals com-pete. In God's kingdom, they help each other—or at least they should.

Our church recently opened a new facility. On the Sunday we opened, I received six emails telling me about what had happened at Smithtown Gospel Tabernacle, another Long Island church. The pastor there, Gary Zarlengo, had stopped the service to pray for us. Not only did they pray, the whole congregation lifted up a shout of joy on our behalf! Todd Bishop, lead pastor of The Point Church (another local plant), brought in lunch for our entire staff that week to celebrate with us and to encourage us. Friends from other congregations stopped by to offer words of encouragement. I still smile when I think about it.

These guys set such a great example for us. When a friend of mine prepared to launch a church, we knew we had to get behind them. We supported them financially and even encouraged some of our people to leave our church to join them.

Weather the storms

Some of the great things about planting a church are the intense relationships you develop. There's something about the shared experience—that in-the-trenches, changing-the-world-together mission that creates bonds that transcend friendship and makes you into a family. Our lives are deeply interwoven.

But such intimacy, when conflicts arise, can make for serious emotional upheaval.

When we planted True North, my mentors all told me: "Some of the people who start this with you won't be here in a couple of years."

I didn't buy it. "Nonsense!" I said. "We will be the exception to the rule." I figured that the time we'd spent building relationships would exempt us from having anyone leave.

I was wrong.

We've lost four members of our core team. Two were staff members and two were key volunteers. Every time this happened, it felt like having a tooth pulled without anesthesia. The familial bonds and shared memories made it incredibly painful. And in every instance, the crisis seemed to erupt right before I was getting ready to take some time off.

Thankfully I've been able to maintain good friendships with three out of four of those who left. One now attends another church but stops in once in a while to catch up. Two now live out-of-state but attend services when they're here. And when they walk in, it's all love. The fourth has simply dropped out of contact, but I'm optimistic we will reconnect some day.

In the years since our opening, we've seen truly astounding acts of generosity and awe-inspiring selflessness. But we've also experienced a ton of discouragement and challenge. There's something about being a new church that amplifies the swings. When it's good, it's amazing! And when things go bad, it feels like the world is going to end.

Fortunately we serve a God who loves to expand modest efforts for his glory, a God who uses a child's lunch to feed 5,000. It's amazing what he will do when we just show up and obey.

And as for the Joshua tree, well, it may not be the most imposing tree on the planet. But it's good at putting down deep roots and growing where it was planted.

We can go and do likewise.

Bert Crabbe is pastor of True North Community Church on Long Island, New York.