By the Rev. Drew Crowson, Church Planter in Celina.

If you didn’t know, your diocese (which means you, really) is planting a church in Celina, Texas. Celina is the bleeding edge of the northward expansion of the metroplex, somewhere between Plano and Ontario, where the tollway ends and people still circle big Friday night football games on their calendars. The past few months, my family and I have been embedding ourselves in this town, falling in love with the people and the places.

Church planting isn’t like opening a 7-11. You can’t just get an old grocery store, put “the Episcopal Church Welcomes You” out front and expect people to walk in the door. Relationships have to be made and the slow work of introducing yourself to locals and getting them to care about your vision isn’t something that can be rushed. It’s an every day process. I don’t just go to the grocery store, I go looking to meet one person. I talk to the guy changing my oil differently than I normally would because I am not clocking out just because I am not in the office, or wearing a collar. I have a sign next to my desk that says “What are You Doing Today to Put a Church in Celina, TX?” and that question keeps me motivated to stay with the process, not looking too far ahead of myself, and not trying to take shortcuts.

Currently, the diocese is looking at various pieces of property, and I have driven by my share of former goat farms and future hot corners where roads that haven’t even been cut yet will one day bustle with activity as the fastest growing city in the country expands from 30,000 to 130,000 inhabitants. That is the exciting work—dreaming of creating a place where one day the Gospel can be proclaimed, marriages restored, babies baptized, and lives put back together as Christ establishes His Church. The rest of my time here is spent asking three questions while I exegete my mission field?

1. Who are they? There are unique characteristics that define the type of person who lives in Celina, the type of person who either moved here recently for work or the type of person who is the fourth generation of their name living in this town. Both of these groups are here, both have dreams and desires and both need Jesus. Whether I find myself to be alike or different from them doesn’t really matter, what matters is can I understand them, can I love them, and can I know them. If I can’t do those, then we need to pack it in. This process has been highly introspective. I have spent a lot of time in prayer, asking God to give me a heart for this place.

2. Where are they? I can’t plant a church from my office. I have been going to the downtown coffee shop each week at the same time, meeting the regulars, posting on facebook that I want to meet more people, and building relationships with the people I meet each week for coffee. People in Celina love this town. They wear orange Celina Bobcats shirts even if they don’t have a kid at the school, because that shirt doesn’t show they love the football team— they love Celina. I’ve joined the football booster club and each Thursday morning at 5:30 we have breakfast overlooking the stadium, watching highlights of last week’s victory. This is an early investment in the lifeblood of this community, getting my name on the “credit” side and not the “debit,” knowing one day this will pay off. Included in this, is working on a morerobust theology of place. Learning how place and our relation to one another can be the ‘seat of relations’ between God and the world, to quote theologian John Inge.

3. How is the Gospel good news to them? The Gospel is good news to everybody, but it isn’t the same good news in the same way for everybody. There’s something about Jesus that these people need in a way that people in a different town, a different culture, or a different context need. Learning how to hold the gem up and turn it in such a way that the light catches their eye like it never has before, that the Holy Spirit—who has been working on them all along—can be heard over the noise of their lives, that they find themselves compelled to drop their nets and follow Jesus, that’s the job. This is the question I have spent a long time with my church planting coach working through, because I know it’s the one that unlocks everything we are trying to do.

I want to encourage you that I feel your prayers in this. We are planting this church together. The diocese sent me, but each parishioner of each congregation in the diocese can play a role through prayer. We are on the first pages of this story and I cannot wait to see what Jesus, the main character, does in the next few chapters.