If Brooklyn, New York, were an independent city, it would be the fourth largest in the United States. Culture creators, innovators and artists from around the world have now made it their home. I am the lead pastor at Kinetic Christian Center in Brooklyn, New York, and some have asked, “Why plant a new church in Brooklyn?” My answer is always this: there are not enough churches designed to reach the city’s diverse and rapidly changing communities.
Kinetic Christian Center is a multicultural arts-focused church dedicated to loving God, loving people and changing the world. Our mission is to radically impact Brooklyn for Jesus Christ by being a catalyst for spiritual growth and social transformation. We envision a church that reflects the racial and economic diversity of Brooklyn's neighborhoods; that confronts injustice and uses its resources for the needs of others, especially the poor; and that engages and impacts the innovators and culture creators who will impact the world.
One of the lessons I’ve learned, however, is that planting a church is not an event – it’s a process. It is a circular process that typically moves from planning, to implementing, to evaluating, and then back again as the cycle is repeated. The evaluation stage has been characterized as the “cocooning” phase. As the imagery suggests, it’s a period of time when the organism undergoes a significant change. After a period of internal reconfiguration, the re-formed organism must struggle to discard the very things that promoted its previous growth so it can emerge in a new form quite different from its initial form. This “cocooning” imagery accurately describes the evaluative process in church planting. We too are called upon to discard some things that were previously useful, as we embrace what God wants to do in the next phase of the church plant. In the “cocooning” phase, God works in our midst, re-forming us for increased effectiveness. The following excerpt from Leadership Prayers by Richard Kriegbaum reflects this sentiment: “God…Help us to let go of the present we worked so hard for, the present we asked you for, so that we may embrace a new and better future.”
Doing just about anything in New York City is very expensive. Planting a church is no exception. However, there are not many organizations whose mission is urban church planting. As a new Associate, I am therefore very excited about having World Impact as a strategic partner. World Impact is committed to resourcing urban church plants. World Impact’s financial support is allowing us to do a number of community outreach events in the lead up to the “hard launch” of our church. We are also looking forward to partnering with World Impact in initiatives that serve urban youth and formerly incarcerated individuals. World Impact has quite simply been a Godsend for our ministry!
