Hearing and following the call to plant churches

By Pamela Meeks

EDITOR's NOTE: This is the next installment in our "Into Harvest Series" where we are meeting and getting to know members of the Great Commission Committee of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, learning more about who they are and why they are committed to the mission of church planting. 

In the 1990’s, my husband and I heard a call to live and minister in Turkey before we even met each other. When we did meet and our hearts were joined together, we knew that God had some special calling for us in this new country. We were newlyweds when we arrived in Istanbul to begin language learning and culture learning. But the truth is: we did not have a clear sense of what God had prepared for us to do with any specificity. Perhaps that sounds unusual given the finances we had to raise and the plans that we had to make to get us to this point in ministry, but this is actually not so uncommon.

By no means everyone, but some of us arrived in another country with a vision that was ready to evolve. My husband and I had a clear call to be involved in evangelism and discipleship but it wasn’t obvious how we were to proceed. Our reasons for some vagueness were on purpose. We knew that people and their ideas change when they are in another country. Our own views and vision needed to be fleshed out with the realities on the ground. We were there to discover more specifically how we were to be used by God. Actually being in the country with some flexibility allowed us a chance to approach ministry with some humility and in a learner posture. Although flexibility and humility can set people on the path of being cooperative with others, it is a clear drag on folks like me who like to plan ahead!

Our early years were set aside for learning the language and learning the culture. We always had the goal in mind that we would want to attain a level of Turkish mastery to be able to preach in Turkish. The goal of cultural adjustment was equally important. As we spent time, and were involved in modest evangelistic and discipling relationships, we had a growing conviction that church planting was the specificity that we were looking for. Individuals might be converted, but without the church, someone would not be able to grow and thrive in the long term. We decided to move to a city on the coast of the Mediterranean to meet together with others interested in starting a new church.

As we worked together with another teammate from Germany, we began to learn the ropes of church planting. Our team had many decisions to make, and some of them were significant and consequential. We were always weighing different options. At the time we were not confirmed in a denomination so we were working with those from a non-denominational background. Our little church met in a home and we were deeply involved in people’s lives.

Our hearts for Turkish believers grew exponentially and this little fellowship lasted 8 or so years before they decided to fold into a larger church in the city. We did run into some problems as we looked at the role of women in the church and it was then that our family pulled up roots and moved to a city on the Black Sea. We helped join together a church planting team with local believers. We took our experiences, confidence and convictions with us to this new endeavor. This time we put ourselves under the authority of a Turkish pastor in another city and that was definitely a good decision. Like many church plants, this little fellowship weathered some difficult relational issues and in the end we only spent three years in this new city.

After we came back to the United States and finished degrees in seminary at Trinity School for Ministry, we moved to Northern Virginia. I was ordained an Anglican priest in January  2010. Naturally, I was drawn to church planting again and enjoyed serving with Rev. Jack Grubbs at Potomac Falls Anglican. In 2009 I was asked to join the GCC where I have continued to enjoy being a part of new work that is begun around the diocese.

The Rev. Pamela Meeks is the Associate Rector of Church of the Epiphany Anglican in Herndon, VA. She also serves as a member of the Great Commission Committee.