The corporate gathering of believers serves many purposes: it is a family reunion. A time of mutual encouragement. A moment to join voices and minds in order to proclaim the majesty of God. A regular reminder of the truth of the gospel and how it can be applied to every celebration and sorrow in our lives.

But those are the purposes for those on the inside. Believers…Christ followers…Christians gather to encourage each other, and worship, and remember the gospel. What, then, is the purpose of the corporate gathering for those who don’t yet know Jesus?

It points. 

The weekend gathering points to something greater than the weekend gathering. The welcoming inclusion of church hospitality is not an end to itself, but it points to a sweeter welcome and a greater inclusion. The observable worship of gathered believers helps unbelievers see clearly the One who is being worshiped.

This “pointing” is important, especially for those who did not grow up in the church. Especially for those who might have a broken view of the church. When we speak of church as family and God as Father, we use terminology that isn’t always received with the warm feelings that we intend. When we refer to each other as “brother” and “sister,” we risk being misunderstood by those whose relationship with their brother and sister of birth is full of toxicity.

If broken homes, broken marriages, and broken families have done anything, they have introduced a gap into our society. “Church as family” and “God as Father” carry a different weight. An incomplete meaning. A descriptor that’s accompanied by a heavy shadow.

A gap.

Each weekend, the gathered church has the opportunity to bridge that gap. We can point across the chasm of lost years and broken hearts and show them that God is a perfect Father who never leaves, never disappoints, never betrays.

As we encounter those who have been hurt by their brothers and sisters and children and spouses, we can stretch our arms out across ravines of despair and bitterness and introduce them to a new kind of community. Imperfect? Yes. Prone to sin? Yes. But a community that is slowly, certainly, intentionally walking together to create a new family. And a community that is proudly, without hesitation and with no reservation, pointing them to the one who sticks closer than a brother.

Sin creates gaps. The gospel bridges them. Broken relationships lead to hopelessness. The gospel restores real hope. 2 Corinthians 5 reminds us that not only have we been reconciled to God, but we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

We point.

We proclaim.

We love.

We reconcile.

We stand in the gap.

This is an updated version of a post first published in 2016.

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Q:

How would you recommend introducing a new guest services process to a church whose current model is completely different from what we learned today? What should I tackle first?

[Question submitted in a recent One-Day Workshop]

A:

This is a really good question that is somewhat difficult to answer, primarily because it’s the dead horse I’ve been beating for many years now (and I’ll link to some of those other posts at the end of this one).

But if I’m narrowing in on the heart of the question: What should I tackle first?, my answer is simple:

They have to feel it.

“They” are your staff, your volunteers, your congregation, maybe even you. If there isn’t an emotional shift from the way things are to the way things could be, you will find this to be a much bigger battle than you expected.

We see the “feel it” emotional shift all over scripture: Thomas’ revelation of the risen Jesus in John 20:28 (“My Lord and my God!”), the exclamation of the Philippian jailer in Acts 16 (“What must I do to be saved?”), and the realization of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 (“See, here is water!”), among many others.

If there is a danger here, it is that we drum up emotionalism or pound the bully pulpit in order to get people to feel what we want them to feel. Note that in the examples above, Thomas and the jailer and the eunuch came to their emotional shift by (a) the work of the Holy Spirit and (b) discovery of truth. Neither Jesus nor Silas nor Philip did any brow-beating or arm-twisting, they simply presented the evidence and let the Spirit do his work.

And it’s the same in getting an inward-focused congregation to feel the emotional shift in being outward-focused. People rarely change because they’re told to. They change when they see reality clearly:

• Is this a service where you’d be comfortable or embarrassed to invite your unchurched friends?
• Is this a church where your prodigal grandchildren would want to attend?
• Is our congregation friendly … or intentional?
• Do we actually have first-time guests? Do any of them become second-time guests?

That’s not emotionalism or arm-twisting. That’s calmly helping people to see the truth on their own. And in the process, you begin with prayer. You continue with prayer. You end with prayer. You ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what’s real and help people feel it.

As promised, some supporting articles:

• Q&A: How Do I Change an Established Culture?
• How to Change Your Culture…When It’s Not Your Job.
• The Fastest Way to Change Your Guest Services Culture
• Creating a “Whole Church” Hospitable Culture

Want to submit a question for a future Q&A post? Ask it here.

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In case you haven’t been paying attention, the world is falling apart.

Rainforests are burning down, polar bears can’t find an iceberg to stand on, and fossil fuels have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Regardless of where you stand on climate change or whether Al Gore has solved it (shout out to the 90s kids), I think that we can agree that we’re burning through resources faster than we can replace them.

My question is, does the same challenge apply to your volunteers?

Here’s what I mean: in many of our churches, we treat vols as a renewable resource:

• We take and take, without ever considering how we might give in return
• We have a short-term view of their longevity, not always considering future health
• We ask them for more and more “yes” and rarely help them say “no”
• We focus on the task and not on the person
• We turn serving into a transaction

Many times, we assume that volunteers are renewable. Volunteers, plural? Sure they are. If you have 50 volunteers today, the chances of you having 50 volunteers two years from now is relatively high.

But are they the same 50 volunteers? Or have you allowed some to fall off the map, but because your roster stayed in the 50s, you feel pretty good about the situation?

So another question: are you helping your volunteers replenish faster than they’re consumed? Some thoughts on how you might do this:

• Make sure they have the right fit for your team
• Help them differentiate between “because I should” vs. “because it matters”
• Help them to grow spiritually
• Huddle with them regularly
• Determine whether they’re a laborer, ladder-climber, or a lifer (and lead them accordingly)
• Invest in their development
• Celebrate them well, and often, but…
• Remember that your job is not to make them happy

Don’t allow your volunteers to go the way of the dinosaurs. Don’t just keep your roster filled, keep your team healthy.

Your roster may be renewable. Your individual volunteers are not.

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I experienced it again a few weeks ago.

I was part of a conversation in our High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort. A question was raised about centralized standards vs. local interpretations, and how our vols should respond when those things don’t seem to complement, but compete.

The day before, I was in another gathering. This one was with our Guest Services Directors from all of our campuses. That day’s conversation was on weather standards surrounding our first-time guest tents. The tension (tentsion? Discuss.) didn’t necessarily come down to systems (the what) but to vision (the why).

A few days before that, I happened to be standing near the Next Steps table at the campus where my family attends. A new-ish couple approached, asking about a small group and how they could get involved. As we’d normally do, I encouraged them to first attend our upcoming event for newcomers. I pulled up the information on the iPad so that they could register, but the event was nowhere to be found on the website.

Three scenarios. Three tensions. Three signals of an invisible friction that our people feel, even if they can’t necessarily name.

This is not a problem relegated to multi-site churches. Where two or more are gathered, there is going to be misalignment. Married couples, work teams, ad-hoc committees, rural congregations, and suburban megachurches all experience it.

And again, that misalignment – that friction – is felt, even if the source can’t be articulated.

But in multi-site, it’s especially felt. This might be best manifested in the old “central vs. campus” frictions:

• The church website says one thing, but campus announcements say another
• Language used by volunteers differs from one campus to the next
• Worship has one expression at one location, and a completely different expression at the rest
• The quality standards of one spot are dramatically different than the campus down the road
• Volunteer onboarding works differently according to the team, the campus, or the leader

None of these are necessarily deal breakers. In an autonomous church, we’d probably celebrate them as expressions of local context and local leadership. But when systems compete among campuses in a multi-site church, when volunteer teams or staff members or Sunday School classes are pulling in different directions in a more traditional single-site church, when the 8:00 service dons the choir robes but the 9:30 breaks out the drums, well…you may not be able to name it, but you can certainly feel it.

So what’s the solution? What was my response in the three scenarios I introduced above? We have to start by acknowledging it. If it can be felt, it has to be named.

Then we seek to understand it: what’s the actual situation we’re dealing with? Is it a broken system? A competing vision? A centralized process failing to make it to the front lines?

Then comes the hard part: we either fix it or allow it. Refusing to do the former automatically chooses the latter. But understanding it helps us to determine whether it’s a problem to solve or a difference to embrace. That takes wisdom. Conversations. Time.

You might choose to ignore it. But that doesn’t mean your people don’t feel it. And like all frictions, it will result in one of three things: heat (something’s gonna blow if we don’t take care of it), wear (one ministry or person will erode or deform), or sound (insert your own “squeaky wheel” illustration here).

Of course, not all friction is bad. Friction also creates increased grip or control: your shoes experience friction in order to keep you upright. Your coffee cup experiences friction when you’re holding onto it while driving. The question here is, is the increased grip for the good of the organization, or a wrestling for control by an individual?

The goal isn’t lockstep uniformity, but intentional alignment. Every single team and church and organization has points of friction. If we’re healthy, we talk about them, but we don’t pretend they don’t exist.

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A few weeks ago, a local charter school used our facility for their high school graduation. 51 seniors and their families filled our parking lot and crammed into our auditorium.

I was the on-site staff representative that day, part of which meant that during the ceremony I was posted in the lobby to deal with any issues that arose.

At one point towards the end of the ceremony, I noticed a car enter our parking lot and begin to circle. After a couple of passes around the building, a young man parked, got out, and walked up to the back door of our lobby. (As an aside: I could spot his nervousness from across the lot.)

I opened the door for him, and the following conversation ensued:

Me: Hi! Are you here for the graduation?

Him: Uh…no? Isn’t this a church?

Me: This is a church. We’re just hosting a graduation ceremony for a local school. Is there anything I can help you with?

Him: Uh. Maybe. Is there a Father here I can speak with?

Me: It ain’t that kind of church. (I didn’t say it. But I thought it.) Well, I’m one of the pastors here, and I’d be happy to talk to you. The graduation is actually ending in just a few minutes, so I need to wait until the building clears out. If you’re good to stick around for a bit, I can talk then.

He said he was fine to wait. I introduced myself. He told me his name was Eric. I offered to let him sit in a secluded room to avoid a lobby full of strangers, but he said he’d rather wait on a bench in the lobby.

And let’s just fast-forward the story at this point:

He was not, in fact, fine to wait on a bench in the lobby.

The ceremony let out, and the floodgates opened. Over 500 people streamed into the lobby, hugging necks and high-fiving and grabbing pictures with their grads. It was one of those “tuck your elbows” moments where the space suddenly felt too small for the people inside it.

I lost sight of Eric, and at some point over the next 20 minutes, I can only assume that he lost hope that the crowd would ever die down. Someone saw him walk to his car and leave.

He didn’t come back.

Later that night as I was setting the auditorium back in order for Sunday, I prayed that Eric would have the courage to return. Maybe the next day during office hours, maybe the following Sunday for a church service. I even passed along a description to a few campus staff members so they could keep an eye out for him.

But that particular scenario led me down a rabbit hole of thinking:

There’s a hidden danger in a friendly church.

Think with me: our building was filled with people there for a common purpose: to watch their child or grandchild or niece or friend graduate. They were there in a common spirit: everyone was overjoyed for a milestone accomplished, a goal met. They were there with a common posture: people were engaged and excited and in a celebratory mood.

But in the midst of the common purpose and posture, in spite of a jubilant spirit in the lobby, few noticed the young man sitting by himself on a bench in the lobby. He was an outsider. He wasn’t part of the celebration. He had nothing in common with those who seemed to have – at least for one night – everything in common.

Think of the courage it took for Eric to drive up to an unfamiliar building, walk up to an unfamiliar door, talk to an unfamiliar man, and ask an uncomfortable question. Then think of him sitting in a lobby with a party going on around him. At some point, the sense of overwhelm must have crushed him. The awkwardness he felt must have overtaken the hope he was seeking.

I want to be fair: the purpose of a graduation ceremony in a borrowed building is not necessarily to keep an eye towards the outsider. But how many Sundays do we see the same happen? How many Erics sit on how many benches, studying how many friendly faces to see which might take a moment to talk?

A church that is friendly does not equal a church that’s intentional.

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I first read Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft almost eight years ago. It was an odd choice for me, seeing as I’d never read an actual book by the famed writer of horror.

Still, a friend told me it was a fascinating book for writers of any genre. While King deals primarily in fiction, I picked up a lot of good advice on his own mastery of the craft.

Here are my top ten favorite quotes:

• When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. (quoting David Gould)

• …whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s someone who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference.

• You must not come lightly to the blank page.

• Use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and useful.

• Fear is at the root of most bad writing.

• If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

• Teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows.

• Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine ’til noon or seven ’til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he’ll start showing up, chomping his cigar and making his magic.

• I don’t believe a story or a novel should be allowed outside the door of your study or writing room unless you feel confident that it’s reasonably reader-friendly.

• …if you’re brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.

Order On Writing

See all posts in the Top Ten Quotes series.

See all the Top Ten Quotes books on Amazon:

Disclaimer: FTC watchdogs will probably want you to know that the authors represented did not ask for this endorsement, nor did they provide me with free swag in order to do so (unless specifically mentioned otherwise). I’m just a really satisfied customer who wants to let you know where you can get some great products. So there. Further, if you order a resource from a link on any “Top Ten Quotes” page, I may receive a small affiliate commission from Amazon. If that bugs you, feel free to bypass my link and buy from a vendor of your choice. But still: buy it. I only promote books that have benefitted me and that I believe will benefit you.

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Research shows that over 40% of churches kick off their fiscal year during the summer or early fall, which means that right now a lot of you are in budget planning crunch season. You’re mapping out ministry initiatives and replacement supplies and new staffing positions, but I’d encourage you to remember the component that will help your team move forward: staff and volunteer training.

Every year our team offers three tiers of training for your team, and as you’re planning for your upcoming fiscal, it might be helpful to know our dates and deadlines:

Guest Services Weekenders

• What they are: a Thursday evening event on site at The Summit Church, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at our Guest Services Team training, a glimpse of our team in action, and plenty of time to debrief and ask questions. 
• Who they’re for: Weekenders are perfect for church staff and volunteers who are responsible for guest services or first impressions. Weekenders are limited to 30 people per event.
• Remaining 2026 dates: August 20, November 12 (2027 dates will be announced later this fall.)
• Cost: Totally free…all you have to do is get here.
• More information / RSVP here.

One-Day Workshops

• What they are: we take one full day and dive deep into one single topic. We talk about the philosophy, theology, and practicality behind Guest Services; how to recruit, train, celebrate, and develop your people in Volunteer Culture, and how to create a hospitality culture in every crevice of your organization in Guest Services 2.0.
• Who they’re for: Workshops are designed for teams, so we encourage you to load up the van with staff or volunteers. Our Workshops are designed for 40-80 people per event.
• 2026 dates: October 6-8.
• Cost: Early bird registration of $99 runs through July 15, then $129 through September 16, then $149 through September 28. (Groups of five or more are $99 through 9/16.)
• More information / RSVP here.

Connections Confab

• What it is: the Confab is a coaching network that includes three on-site visits to the Summit over the course of January to May. We intentionally keep the numbers small so we can keep the conversation deep. We drill down on your issues with guest services, volunteer culture, assimilation, leadership development, multi-site, and more.
• Who it’s for: Confab is best for church staff members who are primarily responsible for guest services or volunteers, but our alumni include lead pastors, exec pastors, communications directors, worship directors, next gen staff, and even the occasional intern. Each year’s Confab is capped at 15 people.
• 2027 dates will go live in October, but are tentatively scheduled for February, April, and early June. (If you’d like to inquire further, email me.)
• Cost: $1,500 per person includes all meals and experiences on site, a ton of resources, and way more. (It’s a lot of bang for your buck, and 1/3 of the cost of similar coaching networks.)
• Timeline: applications will open in October, final selections will be made in early December, payment is due by early January.
• More information: dfranks.com/confab

Can’t make the trip?

If travel to North Carolina is not in the works for you this year, let me offer up two other options:

• My Church Staff: I’ve partnered with the Church Answers team to create the My Church Staff Guest Services Channel, a completely virtual training option that delivers video content and application guides to your inbox each month. More information.

• Training at your place: each year I work with a limited number of churches and associations for staff and volunteer training, undercover guest visits, volunteer celebration nights, and modified One-Day Workshops. Reach out if you’d like to talk more.

Not sure where to start?

I get it: juggling a budget and deciding between training options is enough to make you pull out your hair (or so I’ve been told. It’s been a while since I’ve had hair to pull.). I’m happy to jump on a brief phone call to talk you through the pros and cons of the options above. No pressure, no bait-and-switch, just real-time answers on what would be best for your situation. Let’s set up a time to talk.

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This is the next installment in our ongoing “Large Church” series, which looks at guest services through the lens of the larger congregation: those with an average attendance of 800 or more. While any church can deal with these issues, they seem to especially be true of larger churches.

See the entire series here.

I’ve talked to thousands upon thousands of church staff and volunteers over the years. I’ve dug into their calling, their passion for ministry, and how they arrived in their current role. Never once have I heard someone say, “When I was a little girl, I dreamed of reordering Kleenex boxes so that my fellow church members could blow their noses with reckless abandon.”

And yet.

And yet for those of us in church world, restocking the Kleenex boxes and communion wafers and ink pens and info cards and table covers and a-frame inserts and parking radios and name tags and breath mints and coffee creamer and feather banners and coloring sheets and summer interns* are all part and parcel of the job.

So how do you keep up with the onslaught of the supply closet that always seems to be empty? How do you deal with front line supply problems when you’re not always on the front lines? How do you make sure that your volunteers have the supplies they need, when they need them?

Here are a few practical suggestions:

1. Keep an updated Master Purchase List.

I went into a tremendous amount of detail on this post, but an MPL will save time, sanity, and money while adding consistency. Knowing where the Kleenex has historically been the cheapest (and the fastest to arrive) is the gift you never knew you needed.

2. Have a dedicated “space and pace” for your supplies.

I get it: giving a church a storage closet is like putting the youth pastor in charge of Sunday announcements: eventually something very bad is going to happen.

But whenever possible, you need a spot where specific supplies live for specific teams. In the words of Pastor Oprah, “Kids Ministry gets a closet!” “Student Ministry gets a closet!” “Guest Services gets a closet!”

The space keeps everything corralled where you can see it. The pace answers the question: “How fast do we go through these things?”

For example, we order communion supplies every single month. We know the order is going to happen. We know roughly how much we use. But we always ask campus leaders to weigh in on whether they need a touch more or a touch less than normal. Because the elements are perishable, we order just enough and just in time.

But we order first-time guest gifts only once or twice per year. We order them far in advance (because of the lead time on printing and shipping) and way more than enough (so we can maximize quantity discounts).

The pace on each of these items is different. Kleenex gets here in two days from Amazon. If we break open the final box this Sunday, we’ll have it all restocked by next Sunday. But if we break open the final box of cups this Sunday, we’re looking at a month with no first-time guest gifts.

The point: every item has a pace. Know what it is.

3. Provide a “quick reorder” option.

Years ago, Amazon created the “Dash Button,” an ingenious little device that you could keep next to your paper towels, laundry detergent, or toddler Pull-Ups. And anytime you ran low on paper towels, laundry detergent, or toddler Pull-Ups, you simply pushed the button and that item showed up the following day. Easy peasy.

We’ve sought to create a similar experience for our Guest Services Campus Directors and Team Leads: the people on the front lines who know when supplies are running low. One of our central team members created a simple Asana form that all Directors have access to. A few keystrokes and they can re-up what they need for the following weekend.

My friend Jess Magee of North Metro Church has taken this concept to the next level. She said, “We started a Notion board with built-in budget code drop downs, hyperlinks to websites for easy reordering, vendor contact information, and status bar updates to keep up with a monthly inventory. This is essential in enabling other people to go ahead and order and code an invoice.”

You can also experiment with anything from QR codes or NFC tags on inventory shelves to a simple piece of paper on a clipboard where vols can write down what’s running low. Just give them some sort of option.

4. Don’t let it lag.

The bigger idea behind points #1-3 is that whatever system you use, make sure you use it. Supplies are not people, but they do serve people. Whether it’s gifts for your first-time guests or vests for your parking team or Kleenex for your sniffly members, getting those items to people on time, every time, speaks highly of your care for them.

*Just making sure you’re paying attention. We know that summer interns are irreplaceable. (I’m lookin’ at you, Intern #371B.)

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Memorial Day has passed, school is out, graduations have wrapped, and we’ve officially hit summer vacation season.

For those of us in church world, we’re in the months where the pace is slower*, weekend attendance is thinner, and quality standards might feel lighter.

The summer months always expose certain things in our lives: You should’ve given those white legs a test run before going all-in on shorts in public; You missed a spot while rubbing in sunscreen, Lobster Boy.

And the same summer months expose things in our ministry teams. Because the pace is slower, attendance is thinner, and standards feel lighter, summer is a great time to step back, look around, and figure out what seems to work during the school year that doesn’t actually work.

Here are three things summer exposes:

1. Volunteer numbers ≠ volunteer culture

During the school year, it can be relatively easy to get volunteers to show up, at least compared to the summer months. School is in session, families are around, vacations are infrequent, so vols are more likely to step up.

And that’s a good thing. A strong roster makes for a strong Sunday. But a strong roster doesn’t necessarily mean a strong culture. Summer not only exposes a volunteer’s commitment to show up, it will reveal how they feel about the importance of showing up. If a volunteer disappears for weeks with no communication, that’s an indicator that they don’t view their role or their team as valuable to the church as a whole.

2. “What we do” ≠ “Why we do it”

I’m all for a slower pace in the summer. Staff and volunteers and – yes, even our guests – intuitively expect a slower pace where we take our collective feet off the gas for a natural rhythm of rest.

But when standards drop precipitously, that can be a sign that we know what to do, but we’ve lost the heart for why we do it. If we shut down the first-time guest tent for the summer because it’s a little toasty, it says more about how we feel about our comfort than that of our guests.

If our standards disappear the moment our rosters dip, they may not have been standards at all.

3. Caring about guests ≠ caring about volunteers

Let me circle around to point #1 above, because even though I knew this point #3 was coming, I still felt a bit icky writing that one.

I’m all for planning for the summer months and scheduling volunteers appropriately. I believe that vols should be responsible to let you know when they’ll be away. I think that we should maintain high standards for our guests even during the slower summer months.

But that does not mean that we elevate the experience of our guests over the long-term health of our volunteers. The two are not mutually exclusive. You should expect and encourage time off for your volunteers and your staff. They should hear you say “Have a great week at the beach!” with no underlying bitterness. They should not be guilted into cutting their vacation short to cover you on a low Sunday.

Leaders, summer exposure happens. Summer doesn’t create these issues, but it does reveal them. We don’t need to fear it, but we do need to prepare for it, watch for it, and respond to it.

Have a great summer, y’all.

*Except for you, NextGen staff member who is about to subsist on Uncrustables and Glacier Freeze Gatorade while sleeping on a hard bunk with a questionable odor for the next 97 weeks at summer camp. We see you. We’re glad we ain’t you, but we see you.

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Some personal news today.

Since 2002, our family has been part of a church with missions at its core. In the earliest days of our arrival, we heard of families relocating to unreached places, small groups living strategically in their neighborhoods, and members giving up vacation days to serve on short-term trips.

Over the years, that missions culture has coalesced into a few sticky phrases: We want to make it hard to go to hell from Durham. We’re called to plant 1,000 churches in our generation. We want to be the most multiplying church in America.

We send our best.

That last one serves as the basis for one of our church’s four foundational values. That phrase – and the heart behind it – became the background soundtrack of our kids’ lives. They were raised in Summit Kids and Summit Students programming where the literal environment was decorated to look like an airport terminal, planting seeds for missions work. They’ve heard “You are sent” at the end of every worship service for almost two decades. All four have been a part of a short-term overseas trip or trips – anywhere from a few days to a full month. Most have served in multiple stateside opportunities.

So it should come as no surprise that one of them eventually put their yes on the table – and God answered with a resounding “Go.”

This weekend, our oldest son Jacob, our daughter-in-law Summer, our granddaughter Haddie Nell, and our sixth grandchild (coming in late July) will pack their last few belongings in their minivan and move to Charlotte to be a part of the Summit’s Oasis Church plant.

They’ll be four of around 80 who will serve as part of the Oasis launch team, many of whom are being sent out from the Summit, selling houses and transferring jobs and leaving family to start a new work of the gospel for those who have not yet heard.

Over the last few months I’ve told many people that this “we send our best” idea is all fun and games until grandchildren get involved, and then it just seems dumb.

I’m joking, obviously – and perhaps I’m in whatever stage of grief that involves empty sarcasm – but their journey has forced Merriem and I to reckon with what we really believe about sending our best. Through the years we’ve sympathized with parents who hold the rope for children or grandchildren who move across the country or around the world. Sympathized, yes, but not really felt it.

Now we have a better sense of it.

And I get it: we’re talking Charlotte, North Carolina. It’ll be less that two hours from our driveway to theirs. That’s a there and back day trip. Our “sacrifice” – if you can even call it that – pales in comparison to how other parents and grandparents have sent out their own…sent out their hearts…sent out their best. So yes, I’ll spare you the sympathy on our behalf, because in the grand scheme of things, this is not really a big deal.

(Except to us, and to them, and to the whole family…it’s kind of a big deal.)

Another popular sending culture / Summit saying is “Do what you do for the glory of God, and do it somewhere strategically for the mission of God.”

Since he was 16, Jacob has been a part of the Chick-fil-A world. He cut his teeth in the cow suit, worked his way up to drive-through director, and when Matt Rice, his General Manager, left to become owner-operator of his own store in … wait for it … Charlotte in 2020, Jacob stepped into his old role.

Maybe you can see where this is going.

Fast forward to this spring. Summer approached Jacob with a statement: “Hey. I’ve been thinking about some things, and they’re both a little weird.”

Jacob: “Interesting. I’ve also been thinking about some things, and they’re also a little weird.”

You guessed it: they were the same two things:

1. We should be a part of the Oasis plant. And 2. Maybe call Matt about getting the band back together.

And that, as they say, was that. Matt was in the process of opening a brand-new store, and he brought Jacob on as his #2 just in time for an early-May grand opening. He’s been splitting his time between Charlotte and Durham as the store gets off the ground, and will move full-time when the move happens. As Executive Director, Jacob will get to lean into his passions and giftings as a leader of people, a creator of systems, and a shaver of seconds in line. He’ll get to do what he does for the glory of God, and do it somewhere strategic for the mission of God.

(A side note is in order: the new store is located on Dale Earnhardt Boulevard, and I’ve offered the tagline “Where every meal is a #3 meal.” Chick-fil-A marketing team: call me.)

As a pastor, I’ve spent almost a quarter of a century in a church where we send out co-workers and friends and small group members and serving team volunteers across town and across the globe for the sake of missions. When we say We send our best, we mean it. Some of those sendings have been painful. But every one of them has been worth it.

(Ironically, one of those particularly painful plants sent a couple of my team members to Wilmington…where a girl from across the state would attend UNCW…where she would find a church home in the very church we planted (#13 out of 1,000)…where one of those former team members would eventually introduce her to my son…and now they’re full-circle in the middle of their own sent story, helping to plant #109 out of 1,000. Win-win? Okay, fine.)

As a Dad, I’m embarking on a new adventure. That’s watching my kids take the call to church planting seriously.

As a Pops, I’ve prayed for each of my grandchildren to live sent lives from the moment I first held them. While Haddie Nell and her baby sister don’t yet have a category for what’s happening, I’m getting to watch real-time as the Lord answers that prayer.

Is it hard? Yes. Is it worth it? 100%. I have no greater joy than to see my children walking in truth.

To my beloveds – to Jacob, Summer, Haddie Nell, and grandbaby #6 – I may say it through tears, but I say it with full faith, unwavering support, and a joyful heart:

You are sent.