Kevin Miller is the pastor of Awaken Church in Clarksville Tennessee. He is a great Bible teacher, fellow church planter and good friend. Head over to Kevin’s Blog today. He’s posted an interview he did with me as a part of a series about church planters. Even if you are not a church planter I still think you’ll find this blog series interesting.
Check it out!
Kevin’s Blog: http://awakenthechurch.blogspot.com/
Awaken Church: http://www.awakenchurch.org
Almost twenty years ago I went on a mission trip to Jamaica. I know what you’re thinking…Jamaica…mission trip…yeah right. But really, it was a mission trip; snorkeling was only slightly involved. On that trip was a guy from my Sunday school class, Wes. Today he’s a pastor down in Columbia, SC and his dad runs a Spartanburg tradition: the Beacon.
The Beacon is a staple of Spartanburg culture and history. Its greasy chili-cheese burgers, onion rings and icy cold sweet tea have been filling Southerners up (and out) for over 60 years. It opened on Thanksgiving Day in 1946 and has kept going six days a week (closed on Sundays), 52 weeks per year, serving 1,000,000 customers yearly.
Not only is the Beacon good eats, but it’s a meeting place for the community. Posted along the walls are weekly high school football scores, ads for local businesses and schedules for monthly or bi-monthly Bible studies held right there in one of the dining rooms.
A few weeks ago I reconnected with Wes’s Dad while also reconnecting with a Chili Cheese A-Plenty (think giant hamburger covered in Texas chili and hidden beneath a pile of onion rings). I shared with him about the church and he said he wanted to help. He said he would let Calvary Spartanburg advertise at the Beacon, for free. He put me in touch with the man who hand paints every sign that goes up in the restaurant. Last week I saw it for the first time.
The New Sign at the Famous Beacon
If you live in the area or ever have the opportunity to visit the Beacon, swing by and take a look. It’s just opposite the main cash register.
God keeps blessing me with opportunities through old relationships like this. I guess there is something to be said for ministering where you grew up.
Sometimes I felt like this day would never come. It always seemed off in the distance. Yet here I am on the other side of Calvary Spartanburg’s amazing first service. We had a great crowd and “Calvary Kids” (our Children’s ministry) was pretty active. It was a great time that went by in a flash.
It wasn’t without its share of problems however. I found out last week that we would only have 15 minutes before service to setup. That obstacle alone would have made yesterday very challenging but we had 2 families from Calvary Chapel Pickens helping us and we were able to start the service only 5 minutes late. I want to give a big thank you the Hudsons and the Lathrops for all their support and sacrificial service to this new congregation.
We are going through the Gospel of Luke at Calvary Spartanburg and yesterday I started with the first 4 verses of chapter 1. Luke wrote this gospel to Theophilus (which is translated “Lover of God”) so he would be informed and assured of what he believed as a young Christian. I think a lot of people think they know what the message of the Bible is or who Jesus said He was, or how Christians should act. This is often based on experience, tradition or hearsay rather than from carefully reading the Bible to find the truth. The Gospel of Luke is a message to all modern “Lovers of God” so that they can know for sure the answers to those questions. Next Sunday we will be picking up where we left off in verse 5 as we continue in Luke chapter 1. If you plan on attending next week, feel free to read ahead.
Our park outreach yesterday was a big success! Everyone who came was very surprised that everything was free; a few folks thought it was a birthday party. One person who was new to the area even told us that they would be coming to the first service today. We gave out all but 4 of the gift bags, most of the hotdogs and all of the balloons! In all we had about 200 people stop by.
Let me just say thank you to all of you who helped out and to those who were praying for Family Fun Day. Thanks also to all of you who are helping out and praying for our first service today.
A perfect day for the event.
We had 5 games for kids to play; everyone got a prize bag when they finished.
The expertly manned info table.
“Go past the fire eater and you’ll see the prize table on the left…”
I love this sign; we can use it at events or at church and it collapses into a small container.
Hey, I know that kid!
Click this banner to visit
Passionate Harvest is a coffee retailer whose coffee comes directly from either Christian coffee farmers and/or missionaries from around the world. So when you purchase their coffee (and you really should) you are also supporting Great Commission work.
They also partner with local churches, and provide them with whole sale coffee beans so they can sell 1lb bags as a fundraiser for short term mission trips. The end result is Missions supporting Missions. It’s a great concept and a great ministry. You can visit their site at www.PassionateHarvest.org or by clicking the banner at the top.
Mark is the main roast master there and I’ve had the privilege to work with him a number of times. He used to be the assistant manager at Calvary Albuquerque’s coffee shop and while we where in Montreal he built and donated a mobile espresso bar to the church. He also let me make his website.
I called him the other day to order beans and get some advice on making coffee at Calvary Spartanburg. He recommended a Bunn Airpot Brewer. It makes a perfect pot of coffee in about 3 minutes and the Airpot will keep it hot for hours. After I got off the phone I ordered a small one online. The next day Mark called me and told me to cancel the order.
“I’ll get something in the mail for you in a few days” he said
Well, look what just came in the mail!
Bunn is beautiful
It barely fits on my counter!
Not only did Mark donate the Bunn to the church, but it’s also a much bigger brewer than I originally had ordered. Thanks Mark!
Today we went to the YMCA and did a practice set-up. Basically we went a week early to set things up so we could look for problems and snags so we don’t have to deal with them next week as people are coming in. It’s something we had done in Montreal and I thought that it was a good idea to use here. Glad we did!
About 80% of what we had planned worked out fine the first time around,but the other 20% took some creative problem solving. For starters there were two big trash cans full of water in the middle of the area we had wanted to set up chairs. The building is pretty old so the roof leaks right there after a big rain. We also had to trouble shoot the placement of the projector. Everywhere that would be out of the way of the congregation was either too close or too far away from the screen. Finally, I had to play with the recording settings on the laptop until the audio didn’t sound like I was talking through equipment from a Wendy’s drive-thru. Most of the bugs we were able to fix before we left, and the few things that remain I can easily fix this week.
Please pray for this final week as we get ready for not only the first service of Calvary Spartanburg but also Family Fun Day.
Trying out the sound system
Checking the layout
Our First Congregation
Saturday November the 7th, the day before Calvary Spartanburg’s first service, we are holding our last outreach called Family Fun Day.
Here are the Details:
Happy Hollow Park in Spartanburg
12-4pm Saturday, November 7th
Hot Dogs & Drinks
Balloons & Face painting
Bouncers &Slides
Games & Prizes
All free!
If you are in the Spartanburg area come have some fun and grab some lunch on us.
Also, if you want to help promote this event right click here to download a full-size flier that will print up just great!
I’ve got two opportunities to speak this week. Monday night I’m leading worship and teaching at a home Bible study with Harvest Chapel in Travelers Rest SC. Harvest Chapel is a Calvary church plant not far from where I went to college that just started up this March. I’m looking forward to getting to know this congregation better and encouraging them as we discuss the Word.
Thursday, I’ve been invited to teach at the weekly Campus Crusade meeting at USC Upstate. I met with some of the staff of Campus Crusade last week to discuss how Calvary Spartanburg could help them reach the area Colleges. We had a good time of fellowship and at the end of the time they asked me to come a speak at their meeting. I’m very excited about this opportunity because I have such a desire to see students encouraged in their Christian walks.
Pray for these two speaking engagements, that God would speak through His Word and those that hear it would act on the message.
I made some changes to the church website. I’ve tweaked with the design, added an “About” page with a statement of faith, and started a new twitter feed to make church announcements. If you haven’t visited Calvaryspartanburg.com recently take a second and check it out.
This week marks one year of blogging for me. A lot has happened since I started this blog to “track the spiritual and logistical journey of planting Calvary Spartanburg”. I thought a year in review was in order.
October 08:
-First blog post about God’s call in my life to plant a church in Spartanburg.
-Bought CalvarySpartanburg.com (and .org). This was the first time I officially declared Spartanburg as the planting site for the church.
-Confirmed there was not a Calvary Chapel work going on in Spartanburg.
-Invited my friends Cesar and Aliza to come plant with us. (Though God eventually showed them that they should stay where He has them, for now.)
November 08:
-Set June 22, 2009 as our date to move back to South Carolina, and bought tickets.
-I got the first staph infection in the family that made its rounds through the four of us until it was finally eradicated in June 09 over 8 months later.
December 08:
-Celebrated our last Christmas in Montreal, and our first one as just the four of us with no family.
-Began to pray for God’s provision for the church, and financially for us. I made a commitment to not to stress or strive when it came to God’s church or God’s provision. (It’s working out pretty good so far.)
January 09:
-Went live with www.calvaryspartanburg.com (with very little info).
-Started looking passively at who would take over my responsibilities at Calvary Montreal.
-Recorded 3 songs with my friend and fellow worship leader Andy Dibiaso. You can see them again here 1 2 3.
-Started to talk with a few pastors and supporters about our move and the about the church plant.
February 09:
-Updated www.CalvarySpartanburg.com with a new design and contact info.
-Announced on Sunday the 15th that we would be leaving Calvary Montreal. Everyone seemed to be sad to see us go, but many were excited for the adventure God was taking us on.
-Made the Blog live that night (it had been restricted access before that), and changed my contact info on Facebook. 83 people visited that first day.
-Started to actively look for people to take over my responsibilities.
March 09:
-Andrea had to go to the ER for a bad staph infection on her stomach. For the next six weeks we had to go back every two days to get the wound redressed (including Easter morning).
-I was invited to Regeneration in Oakland for a visit in August to teach.
-My mom came up for Jakes 3rd and Andrea’s [redacted] birthday.
April 09:
-Went to the Calvary Chapel Deep South Conference and wrote to recaps of all three days (I will not recap the recaps). I met several people that I now consider good friends there such as Scott Hunt and Jay Lathrop.
May 09:
-Kicked everything into high gear for our international move.
-Visited my good friend Andy Falleur (for the last time “sniff”) at Calvary Ottawa, and taught at their morning service.
June 09:
-Sophie got what would be the last of the staph infections that had plagued us for months. It came only 10 days before we where to move, and we had to make alternate traveling plans.
-5 days later, after a family visit to the head of Infectious Diseases at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, the doctors told us that Sophie was healing so well we would not need to postpone our move to the USA. We were also given rounds of tons of medication and treatments so we could eradicate these infections for good. God hears the prayers of His people.
-June 18th my brother Michael and his wife Donna arrived to help us pack and move. This was the first time they had been to Montreal, and Donna’s first time out of the USA.
-June 22 my two brothers and I crossed the US/Canada border in record time. After driving 24 hours straight, we made it to my mom’s place in SC.
July 09:
-After weeks of looking for a place to live in the Spartanburg area, God used a “chance” meeting on the 4th of July to provide us with a awesome house to rent in our price range. I still have a hard time believing we get to live in it, despite having been here several months.
-Left SC for a month-long trip to Albuquerque to visit Andrea’s family, and our supporters and friends.
-Calvary Spartanburg was incorporated as a church.
August 09:
-Taught at Regeneration in Oakland for both Sunday services.
-Moved into the new house.
-My friends Eric and Isaac sent a week with us as a part of their summer-long, international, vintage-VW-van-powered road trip.
-Finally felt led to pick Calvary Spartanburg’s starting date. November 8.
-Found a place to meet at the YMCA, which was about 1/3 the price of my next best option.
September 09:
-Made a Facebook group and added a link to the website.
-Held my first Board meeting. Resulted in a lot of god ideas like…
-Planning our first series of outreaches at Converse College in partnership with BCM.
It’s been a crazy year and the church hasn’t even started yet. I fully expect that this coming year will be much like the last– full of excitement, changes, and pain. But one thing will not change. Christ will continue to be the Anchor that I hold. He is with me and He has called me here.
