cutting-edge's blog

This month’s question is posted by Nicole McAdoo-Popovich, Denver Hub pastor from Arvada Vineyard, CO and answered by Jeff Heidkamp, co-pastor of Mercy Vineyard in Minneapolis, MN with his wife, Le Que Heidkamp, and editor of Cutting Edge, the Vineyard church planting magazine. Nicole is one of a group of current and potential church planters within Arvada Vineyard, and this is one of the most common questions they struggle with.

When my wife was having our first child, the midwife was very concerned because the baby was in the breach position. If the baby was to try to leave her body that way there would be real damage to the baby and my wife. In the birthing process leaving well is critical.

Leaving well in the birth of a church is important too! We want healthy, strong churches right from the start that have what they need to grow to full maturity. There is a lot of unnecessary pain and agony when the leaving is done poorly.

A frequent question for church planters is how to balance church and family. I generally give a two part answer: one answer for the first year of planting, another answer for all the years after that. In the first year I recommend working all out, especially at gathering, in hopes of getting the church to an attendance of 100 or so in the first year-two years at most. This would make all the other things more simple. Which means that in the first year a planter has to get by on minimal family time.

Today a friend told me about visiting a church in another city. The first time he went it was for a Sunday evening service he found on their web site. But when he got there the place was closed - no signs, no lights, no notice, and no people except for three other newcomers who did the same thing - look on the web and come to the stated service time. So eventually he tried again on Sunday morning. But the service was much longer than he expected - he had arranged a ride from someone else and had to leave after 90 minutes and the sermon still hadn't started!

Welcome to the Cutting Edge blog. We're going to try something a little different with this blog. There are so many interesting things to think about with church planting that it's hard to know what thread to pick up first. My mind goes blank!Welcome to the Cutting Edge blog. We're going to try something a little different with this blog. There are so many interesting things to think about with church planting that it's hard to know what thread to pick up first. My mind goes blank!