October 1, 2013
Vince Donnachie
vince@readingcitychurch.com
Church planting in Reading, PA
Vince is a
church planter in Reading, PA. He
started off by saying that he always felt like he’d plant a church, but he
never really saw himself in a city like Reading, especially being from New
Jersey. Although it’s a smaller city,
it’s still a city. As of the 2010
census, it was the poorest city in the United States (below Detroit, Camden,
etc.). He half-heartedly prayed for the
city, but as he would go there, he developed a real burden for it. He loved talking to the people, picking up
trash, etc. After having a young adults
ministry part of Hopewell Christian Fellowship, it became a meeting place of 55
people in his basement, and eventually launched into his church plant in
October 2010 with the church’s blessing.
GETTING INTO MINISTRY
We next
shifted the conversation to life in the ministry. His brother was a pastor by the time he became
a Christian, and from seeing what his brother had to deal with, he didn’t want
to “subject himself” to that type of stuff.
He started a cleaning business with six employees that went well, and
did many ministries (children’s ministry, college, etc.). He did ministry, but it was on “his time” and
purposely didn’t want to become a pastor.
People had
told him that he was called, but didn’t want to be. The day after his pastor offered him a
full-time position, he lost two huge investments which was a huge blow to his
company which had been running for around four years. This is what he described as God “hitting me
over the head by a two-by-four.”
IN CHRIST ALONE
We next
talked about being a pastor and husband.
Vince said that going into ministry is a great way to have pride about
yourself in the church, especially as a young person. But this is unhealthy, and Vince stated that
the church “became my mistress.” He
ended up throwing himself fully into church, and wasn’t thinking about being a
husband. Eventually, he had a series of events
that began to “break him.” He realized
that his identity and sense of self-importance couldn’t come from his success
in ministry. “My identity has to be in Christ alone.” All ideas, passions, love, etc. has to come
from Christ alone.
Vince
defined discipleship as learning from Jesus how to live as members of God’s
Kingdom here and now. He stated that
there was a big difference about being ambitious for the Kingdom of God as His
Spirit leads us, and human ambition. A
lot of what we call “ministry” today is really human ambition, and is trying to
gratify self rather than glorify God.
Vince said
that his most productive times of ministry comes from being in God’s presence
for hours doing nothing else. When
you’re at a bad place, reading a book is not the answer. Coming to God is what we should do.
WHAT’S DIFFERENT
They still
do worship at his church, but stated that musical worship is weird to the
unchurched. They don’t pass offering
plates, but have an offering box in the back that they emphasize every
week. They believe it as a private
expression of worship before God, and will help make new people feel
comfortable. This also makes people more
intentional with their giving, and perhaps will help it happen faster for them
rather than if they simply passed the offering plate.
They do things with excellence, but
not with “polish” or “showmanship.” They
want to be as authentic as they can. He
said that people want real, thought out, Biblical reasons for what we believe,
so they have this in their preaching.
They don’t want to just sell them something in the preaching. They meet in an IMAX theater (which is not
what he wanted to do originally), but it has been working out great. They have an amazing deal with the theater.
They have done very little
advertising at all, including when they launched. Even for the church, he doesn’t “sell” events
by talking them up on social media or Sunday announcements. Basically, he is against the heart of “self-promoting,”
which is really a strong part of what he does. He says that a healthy church
led by God will see success!
MY THOUGHTS
Overall, I
thought that Vince had a very high view of God and a deep dependence on
Him. He constantly would come back to God
as the reason for everything they do at church.
He talked about how our opinions don’t influence the Kingdom of God,
which is why he isn’t very active on social media. He made it so clear that having a strong
connection with Jesus is central to everything!
I thought it was great having him come in and hearing him talk about
these issues.
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