The Houston Church Planting Network is a fully funded residency that is giving seven men the time with key leaders and pastors in the city during the week to speak into things they need help in and has a system of soul care for church planters that often gets overlooked in the church planting process, preparing them to plant churches in Houston. I am glad to be part of this year’s group. That has been my life in the past 5 months.

Eager to plant a new church, we met for the first time together with our residency director in September, ready to get to work. Since then, we have met every week, to learn how to plant churches, to learn what to be aware of in the mission field, to grow in our character as well as in our preaching and a whole bunch of other things.

Two days of the week, we get together as a Cohort and meet with pastors, church planters and other people who help us plant churches with their insight. From confession of sin to preaching and from marriage nights with our wives to fundraising, we have been encouraged by faithful pastors and church planters. We cannot get enough of these days. For seven men who are entrepreneurial, ministry minded and feel like they are ready to start a new church, this residency has slowed us down (in a good way) and made us check some things in our hearts. That is a good thing. Something I have benefited from a lot.

There is much to be said about the willingness and availability of these pastors who have come and spent some time with us. They have gone before us, experienced ministry like we never have and I sometimes wonder if they think we are crazy when we talk about our big dreams. They have helped us keep our feet on the ground while at the same time encouraged us to move in faith to whatever God has called us to do. I feel so privileged whenever we meet with a pastor/church planter who has given up his morning or afternoon to come and pour wisdom into us. I am so thankful to be able to get together with exceptional men who meet with us every week to challenge us, lead us, pray for us, teach us, and make us confront issues that we need to face in order to go forward in this work.

We have grown together as a group, prayed for one another and encouraged each other. For the next few days coming up, I’d like to highlight these men and let you know who they are, so that you can pray for them and the work of ministry that they are doing as they prepare to start new churches in Houston.