In March 2009—after a few years of talking about it—nine church planters gathered in a makeshift conference room in a Lutheran community church in Katy, Texas. (We know. Lutheran and community. Not sure how that works but one has to try.) Three of the guys couldn’t make it or there would have been twelve of us. We really wanted to go for the Old Testament and New Testament trifecta.

The twelve minus three were:

  • Greg Bearrs, (Lead Pastor, LakePointe, Hot Springs, AR, Mid-south District LCMS)
  • Bill Beyer (Pastor, Holy Cross, Clayton, NC, Southeast District LCMS)
  • Ben Griffin (Lead Pastor, theAlley, Cottage Grove, MN, Minnesota-South District, LCMS)
  • David Kim (Mission Director, LINC Houston, Houston, TX, Texas District LCMS)
  • Stéphane Kalonji (Pastor, Zion, Chicago, IL, Northern Illinois District LCMS)
  • Nate Schaus (Church Planter, Summit Community, Buckeye, AZ, PSW District LCMS)
  • Mark Junkans (Executive Director, LINC Houston, Houston, TX, Texas District LCMS)
  • Dr. Scott Rische (Executive Director, City Transformation Ministries, El Cajon, California, English District LCMS)
  • Bill Woolsey (Sr. Pastor/Executive Director, CrossPoint Community, Katy, TX, Texas District LCMS)

 

We brought in a high-powered vision guru, Will Mancini, and asked him to help us stop talking and start doing. He did.

After 24 hours of praying and dreaming and cigar smoking (not the entire time), we arrived at fivetwo. Actually, the name careened out from the doctored brain of Rische who deftly explained the community impact of the feeding of the five thousand, that everything the planter needs to feed his community is already in the community. It just needs to be brought to Jesus for blessing.

We all sat in silent awe. And we weren’t even in church.

Silence led to lightbulbs and a quick pregnancy happened: we would launch a church planting network specializing in the “personal how.” When it came to planting churches—immigrant, suburban, high cost, low cost, more traditional, crazily progressive—the three cubed knew how.

And we were sticklers for personal. To a man, we had all been encouraged, inspired and coached by someone. We each had a guy we could pick up the phone and call when we were disappointed or confused. Which happened often.

Great consensus broke out, and we whiteboarded the steps to launch a network that brought “personal” and “how” together for those front-line harvesters in the US and around the world.

 

  • Year one: Website. Not just any old website, but one that created connections unlike anything we had seen. And that brought the how-to in a real, engaging way.
  • Year two: Regional gatherings. As guys joined fivetwo on-line, we will enlist them to gather planters in their area for prayer, encouragement, and “how” sharing.
  • Year three: National gathering. Bring all the regional groups to one location for praying, dreaming, and cigar smoking (not the entire time). Personal to the nth degree.

 

Our 8 year goal? Grow fivetwo from the nine of us to a local presence in all 29 metro areas in the US and in five international locations by 2017.

That’s our big, hairy, audacious “Please, God” request.

Before packing up and flying away, everyone committed time and prayer. Some were able to commit dollars. Conference calls ensued. Much prayer. More time.

And here we are: the train has left the station, steam spewing from the stack, but slowly enough that you can leap on board at the next crossing. The more persons in the car, the more personal how we’ll have!