I had the opportunity to sit down with Sean Sears, a local pastor who planted about three years ago.  Grace Church is one of the churches we visited on Sunday.  This was a spur of the moment meeting, but it was awesome and, I believe, God ordained.  We spent the afternoon together talking about the spiritual climate and need all around the area.  We then drove to an area of 4 towns with a large population and absolutely NO presence of churches presenting the gospel!

He shared some great insights and I left there convinced that this was the connection I traveled to Boston to make.  I look forward to seeing that relationship grow.

I want to recap several highlights and things we learned this week:

• Planting in Boston is an overwhelming challenge!
• It must be a calling…it cannot be a passion only!
• Boston is the most unlikely city in America you will encounter another believer!
• Many of the towns around Boston were chartered before the Declaration of Independence!
• There have been a lot of gifted individuals and organizations that have failed in their attempt to plant churches in Boston.
• God has given me an enormous vision for what can be accomplished in and around Boston.
• I believe this is the beginning of a church planting wave in New England.

God corrected – or at least made adjustments to my vision this week…I don’t believe God wants us to plant a church in Boston…I believe He wants us to plant 1000 churches in Boston!  Too bold?  Crazy?  You’re probably right!  And there is no way we can do it alone.  It will take amazing men like Sean Sears and Hank Wilson.  It will take the seasoned influence of men like Al Ridley.  More than any of that…it will take the unrelenting power of the Holy Spirit!

I will share in a later post how I think God might move to accomplish this.  Thanks for praying while we were gone!

The team spent yesterday afternoon and evening getting familiar with the city.  We rode the mass transit system (called the “T”) everywhere we went.  

We visited different areas of the city, toured Fenway Park, went down to Boston Commons, and made a pit stop by Cheers “Where everybody know your name”.  We ate at an authentic Boston seafood restaurant on Nantusket Beach and had some clam chowder.

We are going to look at a few more areas for potential locations and will be returning home tonight.  We will be traveling quite late, so please remember us in your prayers!

Al Ridley, a veteran church planter, and me

Saturday was another great day!  Al Ridley is the Director of Missions with the Greater Boston Baptist Association and a veteran church planter.  Al drove out to the house the team is staying at and spent a few hours with us Saturday morning.  

During the afternoon, our team went in two different directions and visited potential communities and location for the church plant.  We were very pleased with one and I hope I can give more information on that soon.

We learned a lot about the few churches that are in the area.  Here are some things we learned, along with some highlights of the day:

• There are about 95 English speaking churches spread over 6 million people
• It is estimated that only about .5% of those are Christ followers
• Church planting in Boston is a hard thing with many casualties
• Major groups like Willow Creek and Louis Giglio’s Passion have attempted to plant here and failed
• In New England, relationship trumps everything! (wait…that’s true everywhere!)
• Plymouth Rock is A LOT smaller than I expected!!!
• You can see that picture and others on the Flickr slideshow.
• We are definitely from the south!
• Favorite quote from the weekend: “Hey man, the people on the streets around here are like deer back home, jumping out in front of your car” – Chuck Morris
• We ate at a restaurant called 99 that was pretty good! Still have not had authentic New England Clam Chowder.
• I think we are going to try to get the chowder and maybe take in some history of the city after worship at two different churches Sunday morning.

If you have trouble with the link to Flickr for some reason, here is the full address where you can see some pictures from the weekend:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrislewisblog/show/

Thanks as always for the prayers!!

Hank Wilson and Chris Lewis @ Reunion Church

I just scarfed down a couple of pieces of pizza as the team got settled in our house.  Even though today was primarily a travel day, the meeting this afternoon was awesome!  I hope the rest of the trip is as productive and fun.

This afternoon our team sat down with Hank Wilson and some of his team at Reunion Christian Church. They are doing a great work and God has really blessed the mission He called them to.  They planted a little over 3 years ago. They are really reaching the unique demographic in the downtown Boston area.  Pray for Hank and his team!

We had a relatively easy travel schedule considering our first flight was delayed over an hour.  We made our connecting flight in Cincinnati and arrived in Boston about 1:00.  After getting the rental cars it was off to meet with Reunion and we finished up about 6:30.  They were very generous with their time and shared a lot of great information about the city.

We are having a few internet issues so I’m not posting a video today.  Hopefully that will be handled tomorrow!  Thanks for praying…

• Clarity on location
• Relationships with other Christ followers
• Insight from some other church plants
• Gain a clearer understanding of God’s timing in this

I am probably going to do some video updates to the blog to capture more of the excitement of the environment.  Thanks for praying!