Church Planter Conversation: Nathan Smith
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast - where our aim is to connect our global family of sovereign race churches with our executive director. Mark, we are together.
Mark Prater:
Yet again.
Benjamin Kreps:
If the earlier podcast we just recorded drops before this, guys will know that we're together because we're at the Northeast Regional Assembly of Elders in Glen Mills, at Covenant Fellowship Church. We’re enjoying a strengthening, edifying, and equipping weekend together as pastors in Sovereign Grace and we are joined by Nathan Smith.
Nathan Smith:
Hello!
Benjamin Kreps:
Thank you for joining us, Nathan. Nathan, why don't you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about your family and your history in Sovereign Grace, including the fact (we're going to talk about church planting) that this isn't your first church plant.
Nathan Smith:
Right? Yeah, so hi everyone. My name's Nathan. I'm married to Claire. We have six children - Ben, Jack, and Ethan who are triplets at 21 years old.
Benjamin Kreps:
Are there any other triplets in Sovereign Grace?
Nathan Smith:
Oh, good question. There's another family in Covenant Fellowship. And then two daughters, Maddie (19), Izzy (16) and then a son who is 11. As you can tell from my accent, I'm not from the US. I’m from the great and glorious Great Britain. And like you say, I'm going to be planting a church, so I'm serving here at Covenant Fellowship right now and I'll be planting a church, but it's not my first rodeo. I planted a church back in England in September of 2002. I went to the pastor's college in 2000 back when it was in black and white, and then went back to the sending church, which was Christ Church Newport at the time. Planted a church in September, 2002 in Bristol and was a pastor there for 19 years.
Mark Prater:
That's 19 years. Yeah, that's wonderful experience. I planted church a million years ago, Nathan in Pittsburgh, and we didn't have a pastor's college at the time, I had little pastoral experience, so I'm so glad we don't plant churches that way anymore. But in planting the church, I made a lot of mistakes. I could write the book on how not to plant a church very easily. So my question to you is born out of my own curiosity because I would do things differently if I were planting now. So what did you learn from planting in Bristol that will now inform your planting in Coatesville, Pennsylvania?
Nathan Smith:
Yeah, well, I think I could probably co-write that book with you.
Mark Prater:
All right - We'll do it, man.
Benjamin Kreps:
I look forward to this book.
Mark Prater:
It'll be a bestseller.
Nathan Smith:
Yeah, I mean, I learned a lot, mostly through my mistakes as well. I was young, I was 24 years old when I planted the church. We had a team of 13 adults and nine kids - I think it was. And by whatever metric you measure, I was either the youngest adult or the oldest child in the group. So I had no prior pastoral experience. I think I never led a small group. I think I preached once.
So, a lot of it was learning on the job and of course then you'd learn by trial and error, and it's a lot of mistakes. People were very gracious. But going into this one now, some things that I take with me are being just aware that the decisions you make, even though they may be good decisions in the time, can have unintended consequences that you just need to more carefully think through. Be more intentional about how we do things.
That's one lesson. I think being older and seasoned, you need to learn to have thick skin to plant the church and try not to take everything personally because although it's very difficult, because you're the church planter, everybody thinks, and to some degree they're right that these are your ideas and this is your way of doing things. And if they don't like it, it's like - well, they don't like me. And actually sometimes you just have to be prepared to realize people will come and people will go and people will criticize and people will misunderstand. But what we're called to do is to be faithful to what God is calling us to do in his word.
I think a couple of other things, like the importance of prayer and perseverance. I don't think I prayed enough during that first plant, and I really want to pray more, which prayer is that expression of deep dependence upon God and deep confidence in him. I want to have more time for prayer.
And lastly, the importance of evangelism, building that in right from the beginning into the DNA of the church, that evangelism is not just something that we do as an add-on to our already busy lives, but it's kind of who we are. We want to be passionate about Jesus and using every opportunity that he provides to tell people about him and the good news that the gospel.
Mark Prater:
Really well said.
Benjamin Kreps:
Wonderful! It's wonderful to hear about how God has given you these years of experience when it comes to planting and pastoring. You've been in states for a couple years now, also serving as well. But not only are those things important when it comes to preparing you for this next plant, but also, we have some really helpful ways of helping guys move into a plant in Sovereign Grace including the church planting cohort - which is a group of whoever's currently getting ready to plant, gathering together for fellowship and equipping and so forth with the church planning group. How did the church planning cohort help you prepare for this church plant?
Nathan Smith:
Great question. First of all, I'd like to say it's not just the cohort - the cohort is a piece of the jigsaw. The church planning experience in Sovereign Grace is so much broader than that. I benefited from the whole pipeline experience; from the national assessment, to the cohort, the regular coaching that I get from Mike Seaver and all of those things have just been really, really helpful in terms of just helping me. Although I have all of this experience, I've never planted a church in the US before, and so there is differences.
I want to avail myself of all of the means of grace that are available. When I did it the first time, we didn't have all of these things, but now we do. I want to make sure that I'm exercising all of those benefits that we have as a family of churches. It’s just been so wonderful to be apart of the cohort - the guys, the camaraderie, the love we have for one another, the ideas that we're able to exchange, the faith that is built as we hear other guys' stories and what they're doing and the joy of being able to call these brothers lifelong ministry friends, that we can cheer one another from the sidelines in what they're doing. It's one of the things you've often said Mark - our family of churches is built relationally and the cohort strengthens those relationships so that there's a genuine partnership between us.
Mark Prater:
Which continues to strengthen what we want to be, continue to want to be, is truly a family of churches. So tell us a little bit about your vision for this church plant in the Coatesville area.
Nathan Smith:
We are planted a church in Coatesville, which is in Pennsylvania - southeast Pennsylvania.
The church is going to be called Emmanuel Church taken from Matthew chapter 1 - where the angel says to Joseph - when Mary's going to have a son – you are going to call his name Jesus, he will save his people from the sins. He's Emmanuel, he's God with us. The kind of vision I have is he came down from heaven to earth to bring us into relationship with him and into the joy of knowing him. And I want to build a church where people experience the nearness and the grace and the fellowship of being united to Jesus and the union with him.
Mark Prater:
Well said.
Nathan Smith:
A catchy kind of pithy statement is Emmanuel Church exists to spread the joy of Jesus to Coatesville and beyond. And that's really what we're, that's really what's aiming to do. So that's not my original idea. I think I stole it from Eric Turbedsky.
Benjamin Kreps:
Wise pastors steal from Eric Turbedsky. One thing I've learned over the years. That's some good thinking and good strategy on your part. Tell us more about the plant though, your church planting team. Tell us about Coatesville, where you're going to be planting.
Nathan Smith:
Coatesville is an interesting place because it has a rich history. It was built around the steel mill. It was once part of that kind of industrial backbone of Pennsylvania. But like all kinds of rust cities, it fell into sharp decline in the 80’s, 90’s as the industry kind of shriveled. So there's been massive decline in employment, in wealth, in opportunity and so forth. It's a real needy place. It's very diverse. There's the city of Coatesville, which is about 15,000 people. And then there's the wider area, which is defined by the Coatesville Area School District. It's about 100,000 people in the school district. And there's been over the last maybe five years, a real kind of push towards regeneration, towards new investment, new opportunities, new families moving into the area. It's a significantly cheaper area than around Covenant Fellowship, Glen Mills or West Chester. It's about 45 minutes from where we are now. We have members who live out there from Covenant. But part of the draw is there's just real gospel need and real gospel opportunity. There's not too many like-minded, good solid gospel churches that are serving those a hundred thousand people.
And you often find people have to drive 30 or 40 minutes away from the area to find somewhere that they can call home and engaged the word through faithful preaching of the word, evangelism and the joy of knowing Jesus. So we feel like this great opportunity. The Lord has been kind to put together a team of, I think on the last count, we are 29 adults and about 15 kids and teenagers with about half a dozen or so more people who are still trying to discern what the Lord's will is for them. And we’re really excited about the opportunity. Claire and I just moved up to the area last month, so we are living there, meeting the neighbors, getting to know the pizza shop and the supermarket. It’s great to be there. It just is like another tangible step towards this church plant. And so we're really excited and we're aiming for September 21st as our launch Sunday.
Mark Prater:
Excellent. Alright. So if someone listen to his podcast, Nathan lives in the Coatesville area or maybe knows of family and friends that live in the Coatesville, Pennsylvania area. How would they find out where you meet? Do you have a website?
Nathan Smith:
So yeah, we're still in the negotiation phase to find a venue or to secure a venue. So the best way to do that is to find the website, emmanuelpa.org
Mark Prater:
That's great. Most American pastors listening to you now hear the British accent and they say, well, that's an advantage, an unfair advantage. How do you plan to use that unfair advantage in the Coatesville area?
Nathan Smith:
Well, I feel like I bring authenticity to it. The spurgeon quotes that Sovereign Grace pastors often bring. There’s no one else who can quite speak a Spurgeon quote, I think like me. So maybe that'll be an advantage. But I feel like the things that make me British, the Britishness that I bring is unimportant. What unites us is not our nationalities, it's Jesus. He’s the same in Britain, he's the same in the US, he's the same in Australia and around the world. As we hold him out, I'm trusting that the church will grow and it won't be built on personality or accent, novelty, but it'll be built on Jesus.
Benjamin Kreps:
So wonderful, wonderful. Well, did take note a little bit earlier before we started recording that you're moving a little from tea to coffee. We're winning. America's happening slowly at the Smith House.
Nathan Smith:
Slowly.
Benjamin Kreps:
At least when it comes to beverages of choice.
Nathan Smith:
Coffee is a great gift, but I do enjoy a cup of tea.
Benjamin Kreps:
Of course. Well, Nathan, how can we be praying for you? Folks who check out this podcast, pray for all kinds of issues that we talk about. So how can we be praying for you?
Nathan Smith:
In a number of different ways:
Pray for unity as a team - that we will be united in mission and vision for what we're about. We have a great team, it's a diverse team, different ethnicities, different ages, but just pray for real unity and faith that as people step into something new and it's unknown, that they will have the faith to trust Jesus in what he's doing.
Pray for open doors in the area - that people will hear about the church, more importantly, hear about Jesus and respond to the gospel - pray for open doors and opportunities.
Pray for spiritual strength and protection. When you step out in a new venture, there's always opposition. We want to just make sure that with throwing ourselves upon guard for his protection and his grace and his help.
Pray for gospel fruit - we do this not to build a better church than the church down the road, but to see people who don’t know Jesus and come to know him. We want to pray for fruit that the gospel that is powerful, the power of God unto salvation is really fruitful in the air of Coatesville. So pray for those things. That'd be great.
Benjamin Kreps:
Wonderful. We'll be praying for you. We recorded with Eric Huber to talk about his church plant and something similar in that both of you have been pastors for many years and are planting after being seasoned in decades of pastoral ministry, which I think is a wonderful example to the rest of us and I hope inspiring.
Mark Prater:
I do too.
Benjamin Kreps:
To some men who maybe they've been serving for decades and haven't even really thought about planting, but God has a plan for them to take a different path in ministry. And so, thank you for your example.
Mark Prater:
Yes, thank you Nathan.
Benjamin Kreps:
And thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here, Lord willing next week. Bye for now.