Latest / Harvest After Sunday / Church Planting: Guest Speaker Brandon DeLage
Transcript
- Harvest Media: Welcome to the Harvest After Sunday podcast. My name is Stefan, and I am the pastor of preaching and teaching here at Harvest. And Natalie is not here today because we have a guest with us on the podcast, and that is Brandon Delaj, who was our guest preacher this last Sunday. And so we were going to have you on to have a little conversation about church planting because you are a church planter. You have recently planted a church in the Phoenix area and as a church we've been focusing on mission go and part of mission go is planting of churches. Mm-hmm. And so we thought it'd be great to have that conversation. So why don't you first start by just telling us a little bit about yourself. Okay. so that people can have some background. You preached here, but that doesn't mean that people really know who you are. So tell us a little bit about who you are. Totally. So I'm originally from Illinois what I call home, like the Chicago suburbs, is what I would claim as like home base, even though I've moved a bit. My wife Maddie and I've lived in Denver and here obviously and I spent some time in Dallas in middle school, but the Chicago suburbs are what I call home. I grew up the oldest of four boys, so it was a loud, rambunctious, competitive household. Lots of lots of games on the driveway of basketball and football and stuff like that, which gives me a little bit of an intensity, I would say, as a dude. but also just a love For what family can feel like. I I grew up a part of a great family and really thankful for that. And went away to school down in southern Illinois, a town called Carbondale, Illinois, which is more known for churning out alcoholics than it is pastors. not a great thing to be known for. I would not correct. why I went there actually. I chose to go to SIUC because the age you could get into the bars in town were 19. Wow. So you literally just could you be a freshman, be 19 years old. and go, here's my ID and can get into the bar. And once you're in, I mean, that that was the appeal for me is what I'd say, going there as a freshman college. So I was chasing that down, even though I'd grown up in the church world. And the first six, seven, eight weeks of college I was rushing fraternity Greek life a bit. I didn't realize it was rushing. I didn't know what rush was 'cause it was a freshman, but I was rushing and simultaneously I realized after the fact that Jesus was rushing me. and and his grace just really intercepted my life fall of two thousand eleven, my freshman year of college and that's where I understood who Jesus really was and what he was offering me in his life and his death and his resurrection. And so freshman year college, I get saved. go through school trying to be in the sports industry and eventually realized that ministry is something I'm really feeling called and tugged towards so my junior year college I take an internship at the church I grew up at in Chicago and that's where I realized, man, no, this is genuinely what I feel not only fulfilled in doing, but like I feel almost meant to do this. Like you a one somebody might call it like called to do it. there was just a genuine sense of peace and fulfillment and confidence. Like, wow, this is how God made me and so Started doing that in Chicagoland as a youth pastor at a at a big old church out there, and it was fun to be a part of seeing God do some crazy awesome big things. And in that time I met my wife Maddie. So we grew up at the same church, different campuses, and met her. 2016 summer is our official meeting. 2016's a great year. I met Maddie, the Cubs won the World Series, and that's all that really matters as far as 2016 goes. and so then we met, we end up moving. Moving to our Har Harvest, which was the church I was at in Chicago. they had planted a church in Denver. We went to that church plant in Denver as their youth pastor for a few years and so started having kids. we now have four kids. I have an eight year old girl, a six year old boy, a four year old girl no, she just turned five last week, a five year old and a two and a half year old. so four kids. Life has been full and fun and Jesus has been kind of at the center of it for about fifteen, sixteen years now, thankfully. So that's kind of a brief kind of flyover of No, I love I love that background. And I I think that a lot of times we can when we talk when we hear about a hear from a preacher, hear about a pastor or a church planter, we just think that like they just like were from the very beginning, they knew that this was what they were going to do. And you you as you learn about pastors and preachers and church planters. You learned that that all of their life was actually a process of God providentially guiding them to the place where when they were called to the ministry, they would say yes. Yes. And so they look back over their life and they think, Man, all these things that felt so unrelated, all these things that seemed like like I was off track. God actually used all of them to bring me to this place where I would say yes to this calling. Mm-hmm. And so I think I think any time that we can hear about the story of a pastor or church planner, we we benefit. So hearing that, hearing that that the Lord directed you and guided you to where you are now in the Phoenix Valley, you didn't start here. No. you didn't start out with plans to plant a church here. What what ultimately led to you saying, I believe God's calling me and by extension us as a family to plant a church in the Phoenix Valley right now. Yeah. Yeah, I think what's So awesome about God's sovereignty is in the moment it feels kind of out of control, and then looking back, it's just so clearly, meticulously designed by God for what He wants to accomplish. 2020, big year for our country. That's one way to put it. And we were in Illinois at that point. We're we're still in Chicago land at Harvest, and we had just gotten the sense that God was calling us to something new and something fresh, and we didn't know what that. Was just yet, and had a friend out here who was a youth pastor who was going on to plant a church himself here in the Phoenix area. It was like, Hey, we're looking for my replacement in youth ministry. You've been on youth ministry for a while. Why don't you come out here? And I was like, Man, sunshine sounds great, but 115 doesn't sound great. So also being away from family and friends and going to that far, we'd already lived apart from family in Denver. We're just like, Do we really want that? So it took about nine. Nine months of preparation for God to really soften our hearts to coming and even entertaining an interview here. And we get here April of twenty one and God just opens our eyes to the potential of what God could do here. you land obviously at Sky Harbor, and one of the first things you see going east is Tempe in Tempe Town Lake, and I didn't realize ASU was there. For whatever reason, growing up in I just associated Tempe with Tucson and a significantly better place is Tempe. Arizona than Tucson. No shade. I guess it's That's my home that's my hometown. That's your hometown. So I don't like the Wildcats, isn't that fair? Valid, valid, very valid. But what what was what God was doing is not only bringing us here for youth ministry, but way back when when I get is transformed by the gospel at eighteen, I'm a part of a church that was planting churches exclusively in college towns. So from my earliest infancy as a newborn believer God has like started hardwiring in me that I'm gonna be a part of a church planting church. That I'm gonna be, at that time I thought I was just gonna work in the athletic department at a college university, and I was just gonna go as a person working a job who loved Jesus and wanted to make disciples alongside. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I was gonna be the pastor at that point. I just thought my yes was on the table to planting. Well before it was planting as like a community member rather than planting as a pastor. Yeah. That yes was the first. Yes. And that dream, that like ambition to be a part of a church plant just grew over that decade of doing a ministry. And being here, I got introduced to this network of churches called the SALT Network. shout out Salt Company. that's the name of our college ministry, and they plant churches exclusively in college towns like I had experienced in Carbondale. And I realized that all my background in student ministry, like middle school and high school. My love of the next generation, coupled with a desire to rally people for the mission of God and contending for the lost, that convergence of passion points and giftedness was like what's gonna be the highest return on investment for my life? My whatever years God gives me here. What's gonna give him the greatest return on the his investment he made in me to save me from my sin? And how can I leverage my life for what God cares about most? And realizing that planting a church was gonna be the yes for that. Yeah. And so two thousand twenty three ish, I started having conversations with my church leadership about hey, there's this thing in my heart that I don't know how to discern it. I feel like I'm called to plant a church in a college town. I feel like this is these are the factors, right? Like, hey I I want to contend for the lost. I want to rally people from the mission. Where can I best do that? And they were like, We think you could could and should plant a church. And they said, Where do you want to go? And I said, Give me Tempe, baby. Get me get me get me get me to the biggest school in the country with a lot of lost people. Yeah. And I what I love about about how you walked through that is it was the in your words, it was the convergence of the the experiences that God had given you to this point. Mm-hmm. And the passions that you already had, that when they came together, it just made sense. This is where the Lord has been preparing me and this is where he's leading me. I think that a lot of times people will will sit on the sidelines of the mission because they think, well, I don't I don't have all these great skills that are necessary for the mission. And and I I think that your story demonstrates this very well. It's not about whether you have the skills, it's about the fact that you have a testament. Testimony and you have you have passions that the Lord has given you. And that testimony and those passions, when they come together, nestle you into a place in the mission. It's not gonna be the same place as somebody else, but it is the place that God has ordained for you to play in that. And for you it's church planting. Yes. Now, the church that you planted is Saint City Chapel. Yes. Tell us a little bit about that church, that that unique assembly, it's its demographics, you Yeah, you're wanting to reach the campus, but no doubt also multi-generational within the community. So tell us about your church. Wow. I it's so fun to like now reference Saint City as not just an idea that I'm anticipating, but a a body of believers that I now can picture and live with and love. the name Saint City comes from Matthew five, that you, the saints, are the light of the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. And we don't wanna hide it under a basket, but we want others to see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven. And so Saints, which is one of the most common names given to Jesus' people in the New Testament, comes from that idea. This idea that we are not sinners anymore, but we are saints, and we are intended to be a f foretaste of the city to come, the heavenly city that I can't wait. By the way, New Jerusalem is gonna be sick. I can't wait for New Jerusalem. but that's that's where we get our name and we want to shine in the darkness. We really do. We believe that Tempe is a place that is very lost and in deep Darkness. The the the name of Tempe actually isn't the original name of the town. it used to be called Haydn's Ferry. And when the settlers came, it was a the common trade point here in the Phoenix area. And one of the tribes came up and they named it the name Tempe because that was the place where God and man met. It was the river valley. It was frankly in mythology like Eden. Yeah. It was the intersection point between God and man, and we just want to stand in that gap and intercede and go, hey, this There is there's actually a better person who has come who's actually stood in this gap for us in his name, Jesus, want to introduce to as many people as possible. there's about a quarter of a million people in Tempe, just under quarter million, 80,000 of whom are college students at the Arizona State University, 98% of whom of that, we would say are lost, like in no gospel ministry of any kind. So what that tells me is if you are less than a two percent. gospel ministry people group you would qualify in the Middle East or in Africa or in Asia as an unreached people group. What I love about that opportunity is that means the harvest is plentiful and it's right here in my backyard and I speak their language from many of them. I dress like many of them generationally as close as I can, I guess. I can relate to them. I can reach them in a different way. And I have great respect for William Carey and what he did in China. I have great Respect for the missionary work of going to the nations. I just know my ability to reach as many people as possible is best utilized right here in Tempe. And what I love about Tempe is the nations are here. So for us, it's like, hey, I can reach a guy from Azerbaijan who goes to school here, and we can reach him with the gospel, train him for the gospel, and then send him back to his people indigenously in a way where he can yield more fruit than I could. and then we can plan. churches there. That's what I would reach people here to plant churches there is one of our major heartbeats. And so we have obviously the college ministry and then on the community side there's, you know, another hundred and forty, hundred and fifty thousand people in Tempe who are lost too, who are persuaded of the lives of Joseph Smith, who are living for their own kingdom in various ways. And so St. City Chapel, that's our heartbeat missionally, and then who we are now is just really a church who's just trying to be a light in the darkness for those people. And so we're we're about a year old. We launched August third, two thousand twenty five, and now we have just eclipsed that annual our first birthday. And seen a few hundred people come and we're excited about that. That's awesome. And you guys are meeting school. Yes. As most church plants do. Yes. So we did set up and teardown at a middle school in Tempe and now we're at a Christian middle school that lets us that has like a it was originally built as a worship center, the worm we're in. So it gives us a lot more lighter lift on Sunday morning setup teardown wise wise at least. But that that highlights something that is the reality of a church plant. And that is that you don't have a place that you can just set and forget. Nope. You have to you have To set up and tear down every week every part of the of the weekend service, kids ministry, yeah. Put you're putting up temporary walls and you're and you need an entire crew of servants who say my role in the mission of planting a church is to help with the setup and teardown, or to be the welcoming committee, or to to stand out in the parking lot and help people find parking. Like that is actually participating in the planting of a church. Yes. Yeah, it's it's crazy to me. Like when I pictured or expected a church plan, I expected it to be like out of my garage to start with like four or five people and we just, you know, reached our coworker and it grew and it grew and it grew from there. And What surprised me is how many people were willing to go work a job nine to five Monday through Friday or go be in their home raising their kids w depending on their station in life, who were willing to go, you know what, I will leave a really great church in Arizona. I mean, we had thirty f thirty eight plus people move from across the country at SALT network churches at college towns to move here to establish saying, Hey, I experienced a college munition that changed my life. I want to do that for some Sun Devils. They move here, go get a job here. Some of them having never Heard me preach before, having never seen Arizona before, they said yes to Jesus and coming here and going here, changing their zip codes, so like, hey, we need a church there like this. And those people are what St. City's actually really just built upon, other than the word of God and the obvious, like Christian doctrinal, like foundations. I'm saying for a church plant to exist, it takes an army of people and they go work jobs, they give money that they that they worked hard to make and they give it to the generosity of seeing God's name more known. Then they get up at Sunday morning at five AM and they drive a trailer and then they unload it at a hundred and twenty degrees and it's full of kids stuff and worship stuff and signs and they will do that every week because they believe so wholeheartedly that Jesus Is worth it. Yes. And I'm paid to be there, frankly. I'm and I go, wow, these people they nothing encouraged me more than the people God's given us. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about just church planting. Okay. Like we we now we now can say as a as an audience listening to you, that you understand the reality and the process. And so you can certainly help us to think about this. I've been very vocal with our church over the last few years, but especially over the last year, that church planting needs to be something that is in our future. I I say that the the the best thing for any city is more healthy churches. That's right. The best thing for our city is not to have bigger churches. It is to have more healthy churches. And so when and and by God's grace, I am very, very thankful to say that Harvest Bible Church is a very healthy church. Totally. so we should then have a mind toward multiplying this healthy church into more congregations around the valley and around the world, because that is the best thing for our city. Now you know you you you are in a different seat in this whole process. Yeah. And it's kinda like if if someone were to say, Hey, I really want to go to Paris on a on a vacation and you've been to Paris and you're like, Okay, so here's some things you need to know. Great. Like love that you have that vision. Yeah. Love that you have that desire. Here's some stuff that is gonna be really good for you to think about before you venture out into that. So as a as a church planter who has been trained, who has been sent, who has been in the trenches of church planting, talking to a church that is saying we want multiplication of healthy congregations to be in our future. Totally. What are the things that you would say, Okay, so here's what you need here's what you need to know. First reality is Is that you you got the the hardest part down, which is establishing a healthy church that that wants to replicate. And so that heart or that ambition has to be the first thing because you don't want to replicate a bad thing. You want you want another healthy church established. And so a lot of church planting, the dirty secret is especially in like certain denominations, it was just church splits. I this thing is going bad, so let me go do my own thing. That's unhealthy, and that's not actually what church planting is. That's church splitting. That would be church division. What you and I are talking about isn't church division, church subtraction, where we're going down in numbers necessarily, or even church addition where we're just becoming marginally a bigger church. What we're talking about is church multiplication, which is new life and a new outpost. And I think it has to start with that paradigm of we're trying to multiply what God has put in in and invested in Harvest Bible Church to go, what can how can we multiply? So a multiplier heart goes, how can we multiply to disciples in our group? How can we multiply leaders in our churches? How can we multiply ministries in our churches? And therefore, how can we multiply churches from that? And that multiplication has to start at the ground and work its way up to the highest level, which is a church. And when the church is healthily multiplying disciples, leaders, ministries, and those are established, you now have something worth multiplying to another space. So that's the first thing. And then our participation In that. So that's the paradigm. The participation comes from there's all different ways to participate. When Jesus says in the Great Commission, hey, go and make disciples, there are that word go is a very important word. Like, what does it look like to go? And I think go can look any number of different ways. The question isn't if you're called to go, it's in what aspect are you called to go. And that's where Jesus custom tailors it, I believe, to the person to some extent, but you have to have the humility, each and every one of wha to what extent is he asking me to sacrifice for the sake of the kingdom. So going can be as you are going in your home, making disciples in your family, go. Like go and make disciples. Like that's awesome. Going can be continue going to that job. But going can also mean changing your zip code and planting a church. It could be changing instead of driving fifteen minutes south, you're driving fifteen minutes north so that a church can be established in Desert Ridge or whatever. It it's the consideration of how can how can I go and make disciples? And and you just have to ask yourself your qu the question of hey, what is God what is God asking us to do as a family or as a church that is going to help more worshipers be reached and realized and give back glory to the God who is worthy of more worship. Yeah. the paradigm, the participation. And what I love about the participation too is I think that's also s Trinitarian. Mm-hmm. That there are senders and there are there's a sent one. that Jesus is the sent one, that the Father sent the Son, and the Son is the one who incarnated. The Son is the one who went and accomplished the work of the of the ministry and the Father was the sender. And I think that We just have to consider whether we're either in this role of in terms of what I mean by that is obviously not being God. But Right, not in the Trinitarian sense. But in in the image of God, the reflection of God's sense. Like how do we reflect God in how we then go or so? Yes. So you more than likely, Stefan, being here at Harvest Bible Church, you are not gonna be the sent one to goes out and plants another church. Could that happen, if Jesus asked you to, I know you'd say yes, because you love to obey him. But more than likely you're the And you're trying to find and identify planters who want to go and make disciples in a new context. And they are the sent ones. But what I would say of Harvest Bible Church needs to consider every time you identify a planter, every time we raise up a godly man, they need to ask themselves the question: hey, is my yes on the table for wherever Jesus would ask me to do, whenever he'd call me to go, would I do it? Especially, and I want to be sensitive here. especially in our Phoenix Metro where comfort is a premium to us, where We've chosen to s a lot of us have chosen to some extent to be independent here. We've left family and we come here and we're in that the idea of for the sake of a community or for the sake of my discomfort, willing to do something, it's going to press on the deepest parts of our heart and realize where is Jesus still not Lord? It that's what church planting does. It exposes that and it and if we're a church planting church, that's the thing you'd have to anticipate. as a people is it's gonna get kinda ugly in my heart as I ask these questions, but the best kinda ugly, the sanctifying wrestling match of Jesus. Conforming you to his image. Yeah. And then the final thing I'll add is the other thing you have to prepare for is gospel goodbyes. Yeah. Gospel goodbyes are so sweet because you know you have eternity with them, but they are really hard. If you want to be a church planting church, you have to embrace the reality that multiplication costs you your favorite some of your favorite people. Yeah. That the person in your small group that you've raised up for years and you love and you spend holidays with and you vacationed with They might say yes to going and that means your relationship changes to some naturally by and that's really hard. Yeah. But also worth it, I would say, for eternity of somebody else. Yeah. Well, we talk a lot here at that the three ways that we participate in the mission is you pray, you give, and you go. Pray, give, go, baby. And if if I'm praying to participate in being sent out for the mission in church planting, I'm gonna go with a group of people to go plant another. I'm gonna give of my life to it, so I'm leaving, I'm going, then we as the ones who are sending are prayerfully sending you. And we're giving by saying, Lord, we're giving these people, we're we're letting them go. And we're gonna we're gonna effectually go by sending them out and supporting them and caring for them and enabling them. Totally. Like it it is a it's a very symbiotic relationship where the whole church has to be together. Yes. In the in the Vision of we want to see more churches planted so that more lives can be reached, so that more worshipers can be made, so that more glory is given to God. And so we will we will go through the wrestling of what really has my heart. We will go through the letting go of comfort and independence and we will transition to discomfort and dependence and we will raise up people who are going to go the whenever the day comes in our church where we say, Okay, we're gonna send out people to plant a church or perhaps to revitalize a church, you know, a church that's that's been struggling for years and they just need new life breathed into them. Mm-hmm. that we we when we reach that point, like we want to say who's gonna go and have a large number of people say, We'll go. Yes. And and see that as a beautiful though hard thing. Like good things are hard things. Yes. And letting go of good people is hard, but when when it's counts in the vision and mission of we want to see multiplication. Yes. Our goal and that's where like I kinda got back to earlier, our goal is not big Bigger churches. Our the best thing for our city is not bigger churches. I'm not saying that to be a big church is bad. I'm saying we can't have that view of Harvest Bible Church. Yes. That we just gotta get bigger because that will be better. No, no, we believe at Harvest Bible Church that bigger is not nearly as good as multiplication more healthy churches because churches are able to then be planted in communities. rather than asking those communities to come to us. and so I think that's that's super helpful. The paradigm, the participation, the gospel goodbyes. How how would you say as we finish up? Yeah. How would you say if someone is excited about what you're doing, the Saint City Chapel, what are some ways that Harvest and people at Harvest and some people at Harvest, I believe, have even started coming to your church. Yeah. I remember you preached last year. Yes. And we had a couple be like, You know what? Harvest has been great, but we're gonna go be a part of what he's doing. And we were we were like, That's awesome. Yes. Yes. Go do that. So maybe maybe not take more of our people. But if they wanted to go, certainly what are some ways that people at Harvest can participate in or and or support what is happening at St. City Chapel. Shout out Charlie Renee. they're been such a gift to our church and I think the pray give go is it it is so helpful for simplifying what does it look like in this frankly very confusing like category called church planting. What can everybody do? One genuinely and I it's not just the spiritual answer. I I believe what I preached on Sunday, which is we pray before we go work the field. So if you could be praying for us, we are working in an area that I feel the spiritual counterattack from the enemy. And yet, what's so helpful about Luke 10 is he saw when he's saying that he saw Satan fall like lightning, what Jesus is helping us see is that our storming the gates of hell. Like it the church is moving forward. And I feel that counterattack. And what I would just ask is have a church family that's regularly praying for us, who's regularly praying for me and my family for praying for Tempe and and God's work there. That's a significant, genuine request of mine to go please pray for us. Set an alarm on like if you at 1002 you're praying for us, great. If at 10 two they're like, hey that's name my church, I'm praying for Harvest Bible church, awesome. But Just set alarm on your phone and just pray for us, you know, once a week or every day, whatever you want. I'll take as much prayer as people are willing to give. give is obviously a a significant thing. When you're a church plant in a college town, college students are a lot of givers. They are fantastic. They bring energy, they bring optimism and hope. They do not bring money. and so we we're always praying for external partnership in terms of financially at at ho at Saint City and asking God to supply for our needs. We know Philippians four is true that he will supply richly for every need of ours and we've seen him meet bills and meet needs, but it is we run lean. Like it's it's it's tight and that puts us in a place of dependence and my prayer is that some of you would hear this and go, Well, I can meet that need. I just sold my business last week and got some money to, you know, offer you guys and so that that'd be a huge Huge way to participate. And then when I'd say go, the going would be one I think most helpful for Harvest Bible Church would be as you know people who go to school at ASU or who live in Tempe without a church, like send them our way. If they're in, you know, South Scottsdale, where it's 30 minutes up here, but it'd be 10 minutes south for them. Let them know there's a church there who has the same heartbeat we have here. Yeah, which is you know, we're about the gospel. We are gospel people down at in St. City Chapel as well. So you can let people know that we're go or that we're there. That there's some sent ones among them. and if you move or if you relocate for whatever reason to these valley, come join us. But then I think the thing that would encourage me most, even more than sending people our way, which is really kind and we would love that, is carrying the heartbeat of what, why we're in existence, why you're leaning into the Mission Go initiative as a church is what blesses us and what will a rising tide of Phoenix, all of us being about church planting, about the kingdom. More than the name of Harvest or Saint City. Being goers in your workplaces, being goers in your neighborhoods, and being a church planting church, that blesses Saint City more than you realize. And I don't know God in the sovereignty how he's gonna work all that out. I just know it's good for Saint City when Harvest Bible Church is a going church. Yeah. and so if we're goers in wherever we work in the valley, if we're goers and whatever we're responsible for, I think that's gonna help Saint City in a big way. And so we love your generation. Generosity and time, talent, and treasure. We love your prayers. We covered them and your going. That that's what I'd call back to in the multiplication mindset is it can't just be your vision. It can't just be the vision of the pastors here. For a church to truly being a going church, for a church to be a multiplying church, everyone at Harvest Bible Church, all the membership has to go. We I am a goer. How I am going gets to be determined, but I am a goer to people, to naturality. for church planting for the glory of his name. I think Piper said church planting exists, missions exist because worship does not. Right. And so go. Go wherever you gotta go and and let people know there's a name worth worshiping. And a name that that is deserving of everything. Who loves you, who gave himself for you. And I think if Harvest Bible Church rallies around that and they're they wake up every day wondering how they can give their life Well said, and thank you for taking the time to sit and blast have this conversation and we will continue to pray for Saint City. Thank you. For you, for your family, and just for all the work that the Lord is absolutely doing and will continue to do on the ASU campus through your church's presence in that community. Thank you. Thank you for joining us for the Harvest After Sunday podcast, where we help you to grow into the image of Christ by applying the truth of his word for his mission. We'll see you Sunday.