Out of Ur… the call to church planting

Post by: Tiffany Presten

We have often wondered how to discern God’s calling on our lives. We know that God’s greater calling to all believers is to proclaim His name and make disciples of all nations. But what does this look like specifically for us?

God saved both Ben and myself in 2004, our junior year at the University of Georgia. We both immediately had a passion to teach and see others come to know the Lord. At Passion 2006 God told Ben that he would one day be a pastor. At the time, Ben had a paralyzing fear of public speaking, but he surrendered this to the Lord. Not long after, he had a dream in which he was preaching at a candle light service with hundreds of people seated on a hill. When he awoke he knew that this was not an ordinary dream, but that it was from the Lord. In the meantime, we both graduated, began working and got married. Ben was building houses and I was teaching. We had really good, comfortable jobs. But we couldn’t shake the sense that one day we would go into “full time” ministry. We got involved and started serving at a local church and the pastor began discipling Ben.

By early 2008 Ben expressed to his father that he would soon step down from the family business of building houses and begin to pursue pastoral ministry. Ben’s desire to preach and lead young adults was increasing. So in August we started a college and singles ministry at our church. It was really exciting and grew quickly. People came to know the Lord and several that already knew him decided to go into ministry themselves. However, this did not turn into a paid position and Ben’s convictions to provide for his family outweighed his passion for preaching. We did a lot of dreaming about moving to Athens, GA where we attended UGA and starting a church there, but no doors ever opened. We contacted people, tried to sell our house, and spent way too many hours looking for a home there! I became pregnant with our second baby boy and Ben got a job with the fire department. Daniel was born in March of 2009. In June, roughly a year after we began the college ministry Ben stepped down as the college pastor. Ben’s fire and EMS training was becoming more and more intense and we had a newborn baby at home.

Training for the fire department started in April and ended nearly 9 months later in December of 2009. In January 2010 the Lord started lighting a fire under us. We were both immersing ourselves in the Word and renewed vision started welling up inside us.  God totally set both of us on fire for him and gave us an unquenchable desire for his Word. The call and desire to pastor a church became stronger and stronger. We spoke often of what our church would look like and jotted notes of the things we saw as being crucial. We even talked of just starting a church right then in our home! We had always said we were willing to do anything for the Lord and the gospel, but during this season of life that really became true. We were ready for God to do something dramatic. It wasn’t just words anymore, the desire to live in total abandon and forsake the American dream was from the heart. I began praying for God to do something radical with us. In February we felt the Lord pulling us away from our church to pursue more training. We had felt this before, but this time it was strong and urgent. We started praying hard and specifically for the Lord to confirm this. In March we knew it was time to go; we just weren’t sure where. At this point, we knew the Lord was telling us that church planting was in our future, but we also knew we needed to be prepared by seasoned church planters. Leaving our church was very hard. We had served at this church for almost four years and were very close to the pastor. It was hard and confusing to tell someone that you need to leave, but you don’t know where you are going.

Another local church was planting a church about 20 minutes down the road from us, so we thought it made sense to get involved there. We started to visit this church and really liked the people and their passion for the Lord. But after about two months of trying to get involved we realized that we weren’t really needed. The church was very large and already had tons of people on board for the church plant. So, we were back to square one. We start praying that the Lord would show us where he wanted us, “anywhere in the world,” we would pray. We were really seeking direction. After a time of prayer and surrender together, Ben looked at me with confused eyes. He said he thought the Lord impressed a place on his heart… “Vermont”.  What?! I said, “Okay… I’m willing to do whatever but that seems random”. So we start doing a little research and found out that Vermont is the least churched state in the nation. It ranks 50th in people likely to attend church. So Vermont started to make more sense. We had both always loved the New England states because it’s beautiful and I’m a huge history nerd, but this day the Lord really started to give us compassion for these people. Still, after a full day of research we moved on. We were confused and didn’t understand what the Lord was doing in us. We decided to visit a church that is less than five minutes from our home and loved it! After the service we both had a strange sense that we could do ministry there. This was the main thing that brought us back. By now the desire for church planting was consuming and we knew we needed to be somewhere that we could serve and lead as we learned whatever it was that God wanted to teach us before he sent us out.

We met with the executive pastor, Jim, and shared our testimonies and our heart for church planting. We learned a lot about the church and discovered that we have very similar theology and methodology. But the most encouraging thing we learned  out of that meeting was that the head pastor’s vision for the church is to be a launching pad for church planters! We were sold. So, we met with the head pastor, Jonathan. We shared our testimonies with him and our background in ministry. He shared his heart and vision for the church. The meeting went on for hours. He told us of his vision to have a church planting internship at Graystone. This would raise up leadership and provide people an opportunity to be trained for full time ministry. We were fully on board. By the end of the meeting he told us that if we felt called to plant a church, Graystone was behind us! We left floating. To top it off, the next Sunday we met his wife Jennifer and she said that Jonathan had come home and told her about us and that he’s been praying for church planters and we just might be the ones he’s been praying for! We felt we were really starting to see God’s plan for us unfold and were unbelievably excited! Plans were put in place for me to be mentored by Jennifer, and for Ben to be discipled by Jonathan. We also signed up to lead a small group  wanting to serve in any way the Lord led us. Ben became the church planting intern at the church and underwent an intense church planter assessment process led by international church planting expert, John Worcester. Ben’s calling was confirmed and the training began.

On August 12th something incredible happened. I was in the kitchen and Ben called me over to the computer to read a blog on theResurgence.com. I didn’t think anything of this because it’s a blog we regularly read. As I was walking over I saw the title of the blog…  “New England”. I’m paralyzed. I can’t think or move or talk. I can’t even explain what’s happening, but I know it’s the presence of the holy spirit. I made my way to the computer and slowly sat down to begin reading the article, but I couldn’t. My eyes hadn’t left the title. My stomach was in my throat and I had the strangest feeling. I turned my head to look at Ben and  saw that he was crying. I just smiled. I started to read the article, but began to weep. The article explained that the New England states have become almost entirely pagan. Less than 3% of the population would even claim to be protestant Christians and the majority of the churches left are embracing liberal theology such as universalism and homosexuality. At this point we were both staring at the computer crying. We gained a little composure and continued reading. Then we both started laughing out of pure joy! We were both crying and laughing at the same time. It was the most surreal moment. We knew the Holy Spirit was THERE, in our midst, affecting change in our hearts! I felt the strangest mix of emotions, and it was the most joyful feeling in the world!  We both finished reading and looked at each other. We knew without a doubt that we were supposed to one day go to New England. All the memories from a couple months before came flooding back and made sense. We immediately got on our faces and submitted to the Lord. We confessed our fears and hesitations and God gave us an amazing peace and excitement and faith.

This tells the story of how God called us into the journey church planting. However there is much more to our story. Four months later, God would give us a very specific calling to a remote town in a valley. We will tell this portion of our story very soon. We hope it will be an encouragement to you!

~Tiffany

Part 2 of our story