ARP Magazine - Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church

Outreach North America
Is God Calling You to Grow and Change?
DR. ALAN J. AVERA
Executive Director
In our From the Field article this
month, Brandon Barrett tells us
about how a phone call from an
old friend became the conduit for a
new call from God.
These kinds of calls do not neces-
sarily come just when we are looking
for a change. Sometimes God knows
we need to grow and stretch in
precisely the ways we had not been
seeking to grow and stretch. Sometimes
God has been preparing us
for exactly the kind of challenge that
only He knew we soon would be
called to face.
From my own experience as a
church planter over 20 years ago, I can
tell my readers that church planting is
not easy. In fact, it is the most difficult
thing I have ever done. Though difficult,
church planting also has been
the most rewarding thing I have ever
done. I grew through the challenges
of church planting in ways I could
never have anticipated.
How is God calling you to grow
and change? If you are a pastor or
seminary student, is God calling
you to the challenging task of multiplying
disciples through planting
new churches? If you are comfortable
in your pew each Sunday, is
there some way God is calling you to
be more active in serving your church
or your community? Perhaps God is
even calling you to help in one of our
new congregations.?
Grace Presbyterian–
By Rev. Brandon Barrett
A year ago I answered the phone and
heard the voice of an old friend. Ten years
earlier we had been together, along with our
wives, in a church small group in Chapel Hill,
NC. They were calling to see if I might be interested
in moving to Columbia, SC, where
they now lived, to plant a new church.
I almost laughed. My wife Liz grew up in
Charlotte, NC, where they refer to Columbia
as “the armpit of the South.” We had
never seriously considered church planting.
I was serving as the senior pastor of a PCA
church in Williamsburg, VA – a beautiful
town that had never been called the armpit
of anything. As my friend and I talked, Liz
The Barrett family
looked at me from across the kitchen and reminded me to at least talk and pray about it before
saying no.
That night we had a call from a friend – and the beginning of a new call from God. Over
the next year, we walked through the process of thinking, praying, and interviewing to be
the mission developer for Grace Presbyterian Church in Northeast Columbia. Through these
months, we often thought of closing the door and staying put in Virginia, but at each point we
simply felt that God had us in the process for a reason and that whatever the outcome would
be, we were to trust Him and His timing. With each visit to Columbia, we found something
strange happening to us – we were feeling that Columbia was our home.
Called to Serve
Through the process, God made it clear that He was calling us to Columbia to help start
this church. Since moving to Columbia in June, we have been at First Presbyterian Columbia,
the sponsoring church of this Catawba Presbytery plant. I have been teaching a Sunday School
class, getting to know people, and sharing the vision for this new church that God is creating.
God is faithful. Just as He called us here, He is calling others to be a part of this church.
Recently, we started meeting as a Launch Team: 28 adults and 22 children. We will be
working together to get to know people in Northeast Columbia, learning how to be a church
together, and growing as a team in the mission and vision to which we have been called.
We have a lot to learn about how to reach this part of our city, but there are a few things
we do know: God has called us to be a church committed to reaching the lost and unchurched
and de-churched. We want to be, in the words of another pastor, “sinner-safe” – a church that
welcomes sinners and graciously offers them the words of life.
We want God’s grace toward us to make us gracious towards others.
And we want to live daily in the reality that Christians are people
who have been called into a mission by God – a mission to be his witnesses
wherever we are, making disciples of all nations, to the glory
of God.
We hope to begin public services on Palm Sunday, but we know
that we have to take our time, get to know our city, and love our neighbors.
We will not open our doors until we actually know the people
we hope to reach and are ready to invite them into this community of
God’s people.
Liz and I are finding Columbia to be beautiful in ways we had not
expected. We have been warmly and graciously received here. We are
making good friends, seeing God’s provision at every step, and growing
in our heart to see God’s mission go forward here, in Columbia,
our new home.?
24 THE ASSOCIATE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN