You Don't Have to Call Me "Mister," Mister.

A story about the joy and obstacles of a new church plant

I am not sure when I first met Sue and Tauras Liubinskas.  I know it was at Starbucks.  Starbucks and Panera are kind of my office space.  We joke that the Panera at Brannon Crossing was the unofficial GMC headquarters… one day, Jessie was working on registrar stuff; I was meeting with Ben Palmer; Mike Powers was there; and Jessica LaGrone was in a booth having a meeting.

Sue contacted me about church planting.  She and her husband Tauras are from Chicagoland originally, children of Lithuanian immigrants.  When we first met it was exploratory.  Sue was in the process of ordination in the UMC, and she was not sure how it would all transfer in the GMC, and she was intrigued by church planting, but not sure… which is a fairly common thing for those of us from a UMC background; the UMC had a cumbersome, obstacle-laden path to both ordination AND church planting.

Once we got to talking and I pointed her to some favorite books on church planting, she was in.  I recommended A.B. Bruce, “The Training of the Twelve;” Coleman’s “Master Plan of Evangelism;” Alan Hirsch’s “The Forgotten Ways,” and Steve Cordle’s “The Church in Many Houses.”  Maybe Dave Ferguson’s “Becoming Five,” I don’t recall.  What I do recall is… she read them all, quickly.  And knew more about the books than I remembered.  Then I was like, “oh yeah! She has a Ph.D. in New Testament…”

Her husband Tauras is a computer guru, and is blessed with the ability to work from anywhere.  That’s important.  I was really hoping we would have someone ready to plant here, but as they were discerning, as they were seeing the decentralized, open-ended church planting strategy we have, they felt they were being called back to the Chicago area.  I moped around a little bit until I realized this is what I always say I want: to encourage and resource people to go out and plant, wherever that may be!

A few weeks ago, she had an event where she presented her plan for church planting.  It is a very solid plan.  She gave an exposition of a great parable, the woman mixing yeast into dough, Luke 13:20-21.  By the time Sue was done, I wanted to move to Chicago to be part of the church.

Here’s maybe the coolest part… I was there when the she got the inspiration for it.  A bunch of us had gone to GMC Church Plant Training, north of Atlanta.  Check out the River Network and their church plant training [link].   If you want to plant a church, go to the training, and then go plant a church.  We were sitting around the table talking about what we had been learning, processing it all—it’s like drinking from a fire hose.  Jacob Wilson mentioned something about a discipleship program called Zume, which is the New Testament Greek word for “yeast.” That was it.  Sue apparently absolutely loves the parable of the woman mixing yeast into the dough, and in one of those Holy Spirit moments, it’s like God started downloading how this new church was going to get started!  I did not fully appreciate that moment until I head Sue speak so convincingly about the parable at the Info session for River of Grace Church that she and Tauras will be planting!

If you’re gonna plant a church, let me warn you, it’s a long, hard ride.  Or run, as the case is here. The devil cannot stand church planting.  Sue and Tauras went up to Chicago about a month ago, to meet with potential supporters and possible launch team members.  It was a big deal.  A lot of planning went into getting appointments set.  This was the big time. Taking the first big steps.

She left the hotel and went out for her morning run.  She is not sure what happened, but she had a hard fall.  She tripped and landed on the pavement, chin first.  She felt the thud and heard a crack.  She was bleeding from her mouth and, most concerningly, her ears.  She made her way back to the hotel, and went to the ER.  The hospital near where they were staying was worried they could not handle what they feared could be wrong, so she was sent downtown, to University of Chicago hospital.

Amazingly, nothing broken.  Doctors had worried that she may have fractured her skull. Nope.  They can’t explain how she did not break her jaw, nor how she did not even lose any teeth.

But all the appointments to get River of Grace started had to be cancelled.  It was a huge disappointment.  Praise the Lord, it has only strengthened her resolve; Satan tried to derail it, but God protected her from the worst of what the fall could have done.

Don’t let anything discourage you from following your call to planting a church.  There will be obstacles: fear, discouragement, weariness.

And remember, the point of this Substack newsletter is to recruit people to pray for multiplication—of disciples, leaders, and churches.  Remember to pray for Sue and Tauras Liubinskas, the planters of River Grace Church!