Below is my note outline for my portion of the class.

It’s a discussion on the process the Apostle Paul went through. I believe we all go through similar processes as we follow Jesus.

I’m sharing my story too, and the journey God has us on.

Also, I’m leading a little discussion/thought process on the different styles of church planters. After all, we aren’t all the same! God made us all unique.

*NOTES BELOW*

My Background:

Pastor’s Kid
Called to the Ministry
NU 1997
Ordained, 1999
Youth/Music/Childrens/Associate experience
Planted a church in Cosmopolis, WA 2006

My Assignment:

Church Planter to North End of Boise
Help establish church planting structure for S. Idaho

My Vision:

Equip and invest in a Generation

Preach the Gospel

Train and Release Church Planters

The Life of a Church Planter:
A Pattern from the Life of the Apostle Paul

Repentance (Acts 9, Saul’s Conversion)

We are all walking in our own way before the Lord directs us. Even though God may not send us on a 180 literally, He does want to change us on the inside.

Prayer (Acts 9:12)

An important detail of Paul’s life was that He was having an ongoing conversation with God. It isn’t like we see Paul’s long, elaborate prayers recorded in Scripture like we do with Jesus, but we know Paul heard from God.

Calling (Acts 9, Jesus speaking to Saul and Ananias)

Without Calling, you’re dead in the water. Forget about it.

Blindness (Acts 9, Saul on the road to Damascus)
(lonely wandering with baggage) Saul stumbled around for a bit. Baggage he had with him became less important.

God’s Love is blinding. Love is blind. Love also causes us to become blind.
When we are blind, we become sensitive to things around us we did not notice before. We rely on different senses. We slow down. We observe from the heart through reflection.

Like film, the light we receive in the inspiration and openness of the moment can only be developed in the dark loneliness of the soul.

Blessing and Affirmation (Acts 9:17)

Although it may appear this way from what we know of Paul, Saul wasn’t the only one who thought he was called. Others will see it too.

Your vision is unique to you, but not invisible to others. If you’re the only one who believes your vision, you’re just daydreaming.

Renewal (Acts 9:18-19)

(re-visioning) (scales fall from our eyes)
This includes de-churching and the ability to see things differently.

Tooling and Education (Acts 9:22)

You need training specific to your calling. You need to seek it out. You don’t do this alone.

Support and Partnership (Acts 9:23-25)

Paul never left without support.

Teamwork, Building, and Strategy (Acts 9:26-31)

No lone rangers here.

Journey (Acts 13:1-3)

They took The Gospel wherever they could. Also, wherever they should.

Preaching and Ministry (Acts 13:4-)

You plant churches by sowing the seeds of the Gospel.

Hardship (Acts 9-)

Expect hardship. It’s God’s way of weeding out the jerks and strengthening those who aren’t quitters.

Replication (Acts 12:25-)

Paul was a hero, but he obviously took good notice of Jesus’ ministry. He poured his life into others. He invited and brought others along in the journey.

Leadership (Acts 13-)

You have to be the leader.

Mentoring and Legacy (Acts 16-)

Paul didn’t die as the washed up hero or the has-been. He spent the final hours of his life making sure his legacy lived on.

*The Holy Spirit gave power, boldness, and ability.

*Experience was drawn both from personal history, training, talent, formal education, and the school of hard knocks.

You’ve Got Style!
(Just make sure it’s the one God wants you to have.)

Philip: Individual
Stephen: Situational
Peter: Institutional
Paul: Leader
Silas: Partner
Timothy: Local/Connected
Barnabas: Relational/Networker
John Mark: Helper

His point was that we need wisdom and we need to ask for it, but we also need to read what’s right in front of our nose! A theme in The Book of Proverbs is that we need to seek out wisdom and satisfy our thirst for learning and understanding by learning from the Wisdom that our God has out before us. His other point was that there is a chapter of Proverbs for every day of the month. He has made a habit of reading this corresponding chapter of Proverbs every day of the month, every month of the year.

That’s a good habit. It’s a habit I want to keep in my life. Its a good habit for all of us, and a wonderful way for us to commit short Scripture passages to memory through repetition and application. Today, seeing how it is the 20th, I am adding a photo of a great section of verses from the 20th chapter.

The years of training we received as “Partners” at Starbucks was so thorough and was treated with such importance. It has always stuck with me. One thing we were taught was that Starbucks had perfected the art of roasting coffee. Starbucks had successfully popularized dark roast coffee by telling everyone it was the “Best way possible to enjoy coffee, and that the Starbucks Roast® was unrivaled and brought out the ultimate potential in the bean” (my paraphrase).

Yes, we were champions of the dark roast, spreading the good news of Starbucks’ incredible revelation with the world. What Starbucks eventually produced was a brilliant creation of their own niche market. This was accomplished by lots of positive reinforcement and by being very, very proud of the way they presented their product. All along the way, critics exclaimed: “Your coffee is burnt and bitter”. All along the way, we politely disagreed, educated the customer, and marched on. While many who did not initially like it “acquired a taste” for the Starbucks Roast, many more did not, and would march off to buy their coffee elsewhere.

For over forty years, Starbucks did just fine by ignoring their critics and staying true to their core values, systems, and beliefs. However, they did so by blatantly ignoring the hard facts about coffee all along the way. Coffee actually can taste more bitter when it is roasted darker. That doesn’t make it wrong. It is just the way it is. In the end, the dissenters who complained of the bitter taste were made to feel that their tastebuds were off while all the dark coffee lovers gloried in their agreement.

The drawback? It’s really hard to promote your preferences without devaluing the preferences of others. Starbucks made the ultimate choice to embrace their preference over principle and turn it into a bias.

Preference: we want everyone to like our coffee dark roasted the way we do.

Principle: People have different tastes and dark coffee tastes bitter.

Now, the giant green siren has done the unthinkable. She changed her message, her roasting philosophy, and strategy to satisfy the palettes of customers they have for years scared off, underestimated, and undervalued. So how do they attract customers they don’t have? The underlying hope, of course, is to get people who have embraced their dark roast doctrine for years to evangelize their friends who refuse to go to coffee with them and are getting their light roast coffee elsewhere. This is a tall order of a grande scale. (no pun intended)

Starbucks did this not by changing or abandoning their preferences that they have held to for decades, but by paying attention to the greater principles at work and taking into account the preferences of a wider market. Whether or not the company has done too little too late or has laid a blonde roasted egg from a marketing perspective is outside the scope of this analysis. What this story is highlighting is the importance of paying attention to the bigger and more obvious principles at work rather than letting preferences result in narrow-mindedness and ignorance. When preferences take precedence, the unfortunate result is ignorance of the greater principles.

While I am still wondering what took them so long to figure this out, I admire Starbucks for their bold move and new stance. By sharing their own personal, late-in-coming epiphany that: “some coffees taste better when roasted lighter”, they successfully negotiated a change of one of their unwritten core values. Now the coffee, not the roaster, is king. For the die-hard Starbucks traditionalist, the implications of this aren’t as bad as you think. This doesn’t mean we are all forced to abandon our preference in favor of someone else’s. (You can still get that same dark roast coffee any time you want.) It is, however, about allowing the preferences of others to peacefully co-exist in the same space as yours.

By highlighting and celebrating the preferences of others we are, in fact paying more attention to and embracing the greater principles. The other crazy thing that might happen is you might try the “Blonde Roast” and make a new friend. Maybe you’ll hate it, who knows? But hate it or love it, you will be less bitter.

-Ryan McCullough

We want to take this opportunity to thank you for praying for us. We have sensed God’s divine presence in our work here on a daily basis as He opens doors and is changing lives. We know that a major reason this is happening is because you are praying.

We want to thank all of you who have responded with so much encouragement and financial support. Many of you who are a part of this prayer team are also giving in so many ways to make this ministry possible.

We pray for you during this Christmas season that you would be filled with the love of Jesus and that His love would warm your hearts and homes with the peace and joy that only God can give.

Our prayer is that we would be givers who share with others and love from a pure heart. Too often, our focus has been so small because it revolves around what makes us happy. Maybe we have even known a time when we were not happy about the Christmas season. The business and materialism can really get us down. When we give from a heart that is fulfilled in Jesus, the Christmas season is so much better. I enjoy games, movies, food, and parties and all the other trappings of the season. However, I have found it is the focus of my heart that ends up determining my ultimate happiness or unhappiness . When Jesus is at the center, Christmas becomes outward focused, where we enjoy giving to others and sharing happy times with them. What we have is more than enough. After all, we have already been given the greatest gift of all. Christmas is all about celebrating that truth.

The first thing I would like to address is our desire to recruit even more prayer support. If someone else in your house or family or friends would like to pray for us regularly, please forward our email address to them or recommend them to our website where they can sign up. www.connectboise.org Our goal is to eventually have 500 people praying for us. Currently, we are around 150.

PRAYER NEEDS SUMMARY:

SMALL GROUPS AND OUTREACH
RELATIONSHIPS AND HEALING AND SALVATION FOR FAMILIES IN BOISE
HEALTH AND STRENGTH FOR OUR FAMILY AND TEAM
SAFETY AS WE TRAVEL
BUDGET AND PROVISION FOR FINANCES
MORE LEADERS
WISDOM IN PLANNING
MORE CHURCH PLANTERS IN IDAHO
MORE PRAYER SUPPORT

NEWS AND UPDATES

Our first small groups (Connection Groups) are beginning in Hyde Park! It is exciting to see these faith communities form. One is a group of parents and kids that meets at our house. Another group is being led by Jana, our fifth grade daughter. Her group, called “Faithgirlz” is made up of fifth grade girls from her class and other girls from the school who want to learn about Jesus and learn important life skills. They do projects together and reach out to people in the community. They had the opportunity to reach out to our neighbor, Christina, who had just survived an airplane crash. They made cards and visited her in the hospital.

We have had the privilege to preach in several wonderful churches across the Southern Idaho District, the Northwest District, and the Oregon District, in Ontario, OR. The kind people of the Southern Idaho District are opening their hearts and supporting us in prayer and giving. We are excited to see new churches started in Idaho. Hyde Park in Boise is just one place where God is stirring the hearts of His people to plant new churches. We believe this with all our hearts and we are asking everyone to pray not only for these needy communities across our state, but for God to call people: pastors, leaders, and prayer warriors who will respond to God’s call to plant these churches.

Please pray for us regarding our budget. In the last couple months, we saw an increase of almost $200 a month from our support level that we had since we relocated to Idaho. This puts our monthly support somewhere around the 60% mark. This not only helps pay our family’s living expenses, but provides for necessary funds to conduct outreach and ministry expense. We are still in need of $1800 a month in support. We are happy to say that God is our provider. We are praying for individuals to step up and help us with this need. We are asking God to provide 30 new supporters who will give to help us reach our goal. We are asking for the following pledges:

8 people who will give $100 a month
12 people who will give $50 a month
10 people who will give $40 a month

Please pray for God to provide this need. Also, If you would please prayerfully consider supporting us financially, we would greatly appreciate it. If you are willing to help us with this need, please contact us via email or phone.

We are meeting with our leadership team on a regular basis now. It is such a blessing to work with people who are friends united for God’s purposes. Please pray for God to call more workers and add to this team. There is so much work to be done. We are in need of help and wisdom as we plan for the future. Pray for us as we develop our strategy and build relationships in our community.

I (Ryan) had the opportunity to go to the Church Multiplication Network “Bootcamp” in Reading, PA. I was given the opportunity to serve as a coach for a round table of new church planters and had the opportunity to encourage them as they begin their journey. It was especially refreshing for me to be able to hang out with my dear friend and brother, John Jay Wilson, who works with CMN. We were able to visit and stay with Pastor Todd Bishop and visit their church plant in Long Island, NY and meet their amazing leadership team. The experience really confirmed the calling in my heart to help equip more people who will plant churches. Seeing NYC for the first time and the historical sights in Philadelphia was also a huge highlight. We even got our car towed three hours before my flight, which was a thrill. You can pray that my contested citation with the City of New York goes well so I can get my money back. Good times.

STRATEGY

I wanted to take the time to share some strategy with you. It always helps to verbalize what we are thinking, planning, and doing. The main reason I am sharing this at length is so you can know better how to pray for us during this critical foundational time. I will be sharing details like this with you from time to time, because I believe it helps us to pray together in unity for what God is sending us to do. I also enjoy being transparent and sharing the process with you. My heart is not to bore you with details, so if you choose not to read this lengthy portion, I completely understand.

We are continuing to build relationships in our community and make new friends. These relationships are the beginnings of the new church. As we include these friends in our Christian community, amazing life change occurs. People who do not know Christ learn about Christ. People who do not have Christian relationships develop Christian relationships. Moreover, we all become friends with each other regardless of our diversity or background. Allowing Christ to be the one thing that joins us together is normal in church settings. Allowing our lives to be joined together in community and friendship is often viewed as the next step in our relationship with Jesus. It doesn’t always have to be that way. We believe that one of the most effective ways of reaching people for Jesus is to introduce them to a Christian community. When we see Christian community in action and make friends with people who believe in Jesus, our lives begin to change. Our decisions to be involved in relationships always change us. Once a person has made the choice to be involved in a small group, they are much more likely to respond to the gospel and accept Christ. Once they do make that wonderful decision, community and friendships are in place and “Christian life” outside the “church service” is natural and normal.

Our goal is to have ten such groups functioning in the next 10 months. This is a tall order and will take a lot of effort and outreach on behalf of our team. This is why we are asking you to pray for us in this. We need God’s help. There are many reasons why we are setting this goal. The most important reason is so people will be connected to God through faith in Jesus. We feel that 10 groups is an attainable goal to begin with, but it will take a lot of work to get there. Furthermore, we are gearing up for a public church launch in the fall of 2012. We want to build a church gathering the right way. We want it to emerge out of necessity from a core of connected, caring individuals who want to meet and know why they are coming together. There is nothing inherently wrong with making a lot of noise and telling everyone that “A new church is starting” However, we don’t think a church gathering in Hyde Park will launch well if we focus on marketing and advertising alone. Connected, Christian communities must function first, or else they will struggle to be anything more than a “small group ministry”.

We believe that the church grows only as people are discipled. Jesus’ call to us was to “make disciples”. He said that building the church was His responsibility. Yes, He will do it through us, but we need to be clearer on the fact that the main thing is Jesus’ call to his disciples to “go and make disciples.” Disciples are made not through a program or through massive exposure to church services, although God can use those mediums with great effectiveness. Instead of just relying on the Sunday gathering, we think effective discipleship occurs in every aspect of our walk with Christ. We are discipled in four main ways:

With 1: Jesus, one-on-one where we GROW INDIVIDUALLY
With 2: With a mentor/coach where we can GROW PERSONALLY
With 12: in the context of small groups where we GROW RELATIONALLY
With 20: In a church gathering with 20 or more where we GROW CORPORATELY

We are teaching that being a disciple and making disciples is the main thing we do as believers in Jesus and that everything we do as a church should help us fulfill that Great Commission. When we are strategic about understanding how we grow as disciples, we can be more intentional as we strive to obey Jesus in carrying out His call to us. Jesus operated flawlessly in all four of these environments. If I’m completely honest with myself, I realize that I may be weak in one or more of these areas. That problem is not an uncommon one, and is the reason why we need to strive for excellence in all four areas. This may require a radical reshaping of my practices and habits on my part, and that is okay. The main thing is that we can all identify the areas we need to grow in. When we do that, we can be intentional about bringing others along in the journey.

Please pray for us as we find ways to implement this strategy as a church and teach everyone to practice these four environments in their own lives and model them for others.

WE LOVE AND APPRECIATE YOU!

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Ryan, Angela, Joshua, Jana, and Caleb McCullough
1014 N. 16th St.
Boise, Idaho 83702

Thanks to our supporters and team who have helped and prayed for us.

I felt months ago that God spoke to my heart that He was going to “Pick us up and carry us over”. This was pertaining to our questions of timing and possibility of getting to Boise in the summer of 2011 before the school year started. Even when we did not think it was possible, God still had a way.

We are truly “Carried by God’s grace”

-Ryan and Angela McCullough

To our team of prayer supporters:

Thanks so much for your prayers. God has certainly been answering!

The last couple weeks has been a nonstop stream of change and activity that we have welcomed and embraced fully. I was just looking at pictures from the month of August and I almost cannot believe so many different “snapshots” could possibly fit into one month. There’s the Oregon Coast, Yakima, Aberdeen, Cosmopolis, Boxing and packing up our house in Cosmopolis, riding bikes, moving to Boise, first day of school, Idaho license plates, and pictures of our new house in the north end of Boise.

Would I have believed it if someone would have told me on August 1 that this would all have happened and that I would be writing this email from a coffee shop in Hyde Park in Boise where God first directed us to the North End? Well, I can say that I would have welcomed that news, but I would have had a hard time understanding how God could orchestrate things so quickly. Some days I wake up and wonder how we got here so quickly after all this waiting. I feel “translated” like Philip was in the Book of Acts! I guess our theme of the month would have to be: “God answers prayer.”

I will share with you some key things that God has done in direct answer to the prayers you have prayed:

-We packed up our house in 7 days, Angela closed her salon, thanks to friends and family who helped us in so many ways.

-We made it safely to Boise.

-Our moving expenses were taken care of!

-God provided a hotel for us to stay in for the entire time that we were “homeless” thanks to the seniors of the Southern Idaho AG District. We were so grateful for that.

-Our kids got started in school and are making friends. Joshua is loving 7th Grade at North Jr. High and will be playing tennis in the fall. Jana is making friends in 5th Grade at Washington Elementary and is planning on playing cello in the orchestra. Caleb is loving the 2nd grade and is making friends.

-We were welcomed warmly by so many pastors and wonderful people in the local churches.

-We got into our house early and had a great experience with our landlord. We also have a great relationship with the former tenants of the house who were so kind to us and left us a freezer full of food and meat! They were so encouraging. The house was so clean and everything worked great with no interruptions in utilities. We feel right at home even though we are sleeping on the floor on air mattresses (kind of a regular deal for us lately!)

We rented our house in Cosmopolis to some great people.

-We were able to obtain health insurance at half of the cost we had planned for.

-We are adjusting well and feel such peace and fulfillment knowing God “picked us up and carried us over”. He truly keeps His promises and does wonderful things.

Now, I want to share some needs with you. I am asking you to please pray very specifically for these needs and for anything else the Lord lays on your heart. We know that we certainly do not receive what we do not ask for and also we tend to get what we pray for. That statement obviously has a lot of implications, so we have obviously put a lot of thought into these requests. (Does it make sense to say we pray about what we need to be praying about? Sounds funny at first, but it’s definitely true…)

NEEDS FOR SEPTEMBER, 2011

MOVING

Pray for Ryan, Joshua, and our friend, Rob Wright who is going with us to Cosmopolis to get the moving truck packed with our belongings tomorrow. We have a couple people who are supposed to meet us in Cosmopolis to load the truck, but one friend who was scheduled to help us injured his hand and so we are down a man. Please pray that we get the extra help we need. It will be an almost 1200 mile round trip in a little more than two days. We will be unloading the truck on Sunday and we will have help unloading, praise God for that!

BUDGET

We are currently surviving on half of our budget. We were able to raise this amount before moving to Idaho, and we are currently working very hard to raise the rest. This puts us at approximately $2,000 a month of support currently coming in. We have $2774 in monthly expenses with rent and insurance and all our utilities and bills. This is not counting any food or fuel for our vehicles. You can see we are living on miracle provision. God has promised to provide. We need His help. Please pray.

HEALTH

Pray for physical strength and health for each member of our family. Our lives and schedules are demanding right now as we are moving and adjusting.

UNPACKING

The next couple weeks will be filled with the rigors of unpacking boxes and getting settled. Please pray for strength and sanity!

ADJUSTMENT / FRIENDS

Pray for us as we adjust to a new area, a new neighborhood, and new relationships.

PREACHING SCHEDULE / MISSIONS SERVICES 6 MONTHS

We are preaching/ presenting our ministry to local churches. Many of them have expressed interest in helping us out on a monthly basis. We have not traveled very extensively until now and we are trusting that God will provide as Has in the past with help from His people. God has amazing ways of providing in this way. We are praying for our schedule to continue to fill up. Thankfully, our fall schedule is becoming full. Pray that this will continue through the winter. Keep the churches in prayer. We will keep you updated as it pertains to our schedule and plans and ask for more specific prayer as we get closer to these dates. Our next service will be September 25th in Ontario, OR with pastors Ron and Debbie Dye. After that, we will be heading back to WA on the first two Sundays of October to minister in a missions convention in several churches in Grays Harbor County.

SAFETY IN TRAVEL

As our travel schedule fills up, we will be putting a lot more miles on our vehicle. Pray for safety in travel and provision for these trips.

TEAM DEVELOPMENT

Pray for our team members. Pray for cohesion, clarity, and God-inspired ideas as we develop a clearer strategy and implementation of reaching Boise for Jesus.

CHURCH PLANTERS

I talk with more and more people who are stirred in their hearts to plant churches, not only in a support role, but possibly in a full-time capacity. Many are feeling God’s call to pioneer churches in a missionary way much like what we are doing in Boise and have done in Washington. Our heart goes out to them and we want to be committed to prayer and support to these people. Jesus said to pray to the “Lord of the Harvest” that He would send laborers into His harvest field. I know that this has a much broader sense than just church planters, but this is the prayer that we continue to pray. Pray generally, pray for Idaho, and pray for individuals as God lays them on your heart.

STRENGTH / WISDOM / FAVOR / ENCOURAGEMENT

In everything we do, we want to please God. Please pray that we stay strong, focused, and encouraged. There is so much God has done and so much more He wants to do through us. We are only getting started. Stopping to look around can fill us with a tremendous sense of accomplishment and wonder as we see how God has brought us through. In the same moment, however, it can be very daunting to look at the “wind and the waves” like Peter did as he was distracted as he let his problems overwhelm him. You can see what I mean when I say this. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and keep trusting Him.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PRAYING! We definitely need it. We are relying on God to answer. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you want to discuss something with us or ask more in-depth questions on how you can pray for us more specifically.

-Ryan and Angela

Our new home address is:

1014 N 16th
Boise , Idaho 83702

(208) 871- 3729

Sometimes, when God is “supposed to be” moving us, or when we are asking Him to open doors for us, it feels like nothing is happening. While it may feel that way sometimes, for me to really believe that God is doing nothing when I want Him to do something shows a tremendous amount of misunderstanding and arrogance on my part. After all, this life is not all about Him doing what I want Him to do, It is all about Me doing what He wants me to do.

Many struggle with this. We don’t like to surrender control to an all-powerful God by nature. Our human nature is not hardwired to enjoy obedience very well. However, I have found that as I grow in understanding of who God is, I am actually happier when I work according to what He wants. How can this be? Well, quite simply, when I move beyond understanding to true belief in the fact that God cares about me and wants the best for me, things begin to improve dramatically. He knows what is good for me better than I do. Do i truly believe that?

Over the past few months, we have been doing everything we could do to get to Boise. Many doubted our ability to get there, and at times, we even doubted ourselves. In a moment of weakness, I could even say that I may have begun to doubt God’s planning at certain times. I wished a few times that He would do things differently. We wanted to get to Idaho so bad! It just didn’t seem fair that He would call us to go to Boise and then not tell us exactly how to do it.

Thankfully, God is patient and understanding toward me and allows me to continue at times when my perspective is skewed. God is patient with our doubt and He even works through it, but there is more to this life than the cycle of me doubting and worrying and then God proving Himself to me and Him saying: “See, I told you not to worry or doubt…” He wants us to move with Him every step of the way. (His way)

God does speak to us. He spoke to me 5 months ago when I was right in the middle of one of my “doubt cycles”. He said to me: “Ryan, quit trying to make it happen and trust Me that when I move you, I will simply pick you up and carry you over.” Right in that moment, I had a picture of getting sucked up in a whirlwind and put down in another place. I knew right then and there that while that process is messy, turbulent, and dangerous, it would also be quick, direct, and miraculous. Whirlwinds scatter and throw anything that’s not strapped down. They also centralize and bring things together very rapidly. Sounds like an opportunity for practicing surrender obedience.

A few days ago, we found a house in Boise and a renter for our house in Washington. We also realized that we would have exactly 7 days to pack up and move to Boise before school started.

We are riding the whirlwind. The edges are terribly fast and busy and stuff is getting thrown around, but I’ve found the center is quite calm.

In all this apparent chaos, there is a beautiful transport.

Goodbye, Cosmopolis. Boise… Here we come.