On July 3rd, a day after my 30th birthday, Tomas, my dear friend, and the pastor of our church that we have been serving with, said:  “I know this is unexpected, but Sisa and I have begun considering the possibility of moving to go plant a church in Bratislava earlier than we’ve been talking about.  I wanted to ask you to consider becoming the pastor here in the summer of 2018.”

Yes indeed, this was a pretty unexpected ask! Bold move, Tomas! That’s why I like him. But, like he said, that was indeed not the plan.

We had come to Nitra for a period of learning, listening, and language for approximately two years, with the open-handed plan of heading out to plant a church.

Two days before this big ask, a day before my 30th birthday, I had hiked up a mountain to an old castle ruin to spend the day in prayer reflecting on the last three decades and looking forward to the one ahead. I landed on a simple question that I meditated on as I considered the future: “Do I want to be famous or faithful?” In many ways that question encapsulated the journey of the last few years, especially our time in Tacoma.  An easy question to answer, maybe, but hard to live out.

After Tomas asked the big question, I remember telling Laurel that yes, this was an unexpected ask, but that I wasn’t taken back or surprised by it, because of my walk a few days before that. Or maybe our walk for the last few years. We were in a place where we could pray for and consider this.

After four+ months of praying… and difficult and exciting elder meetings, and difficult and exciting meetings with our missional community leaders, and many late night Skype calls with Soma and Acts 29 friends and mentors, we announced this decision to our church on the last Sunday in October!

This summer we will send Tomas and Sisa out to plant a church in Bratislava, where a core team has already begun forming.  In the spring, we will begin transferring the role of the visionary elder from Tomas to me.

We love this church. It’s a young church that’s been through a lot, and come out healthy on the other side. The question was raised whether our church is too small to be a church-planting church? I realized in this process that readiness for being a church planting-church is not measured in size but maturity. We are so thankful to be able to lead with some great elders and their wives and a solid crew of missional community leaders. They are rightfully mourning the sending of a dear family but at the same time excited that the vision of planting is coming to fruition and that the Joneses are here to stay for a while. (More, in Slovak, about our local church, the Efree denomination in Slovakia, and plant.sk, the indigenous church planting network we are a part of.)

Take a look at the pics from Sunday’s party when we made this announcement and scroll down past them to get a few more details of the “hows and whys” of this big news.

What this doesn’t change:

The vision of our local church.  For four years, ever since the leadership team started going through M4 and being in contact with me and Soma, our church has prayed about planting it’s first church and has had its eyes on Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia. The only thing that shifted was the timing.

Our vision. We moved here to cooperate in God’s story of seeing gospel-centered, missional churches planted in Slovakia and Eastern Europe.

To be more specific, that vision boils down to being called to, in this order:

1. serving and leading in a local church
2. serving and equipping churches to grow in the gospel, community, and mission
3. serving to see churches planted

That vision hasn’t changed! This is exactly what’s happening. One of my friends here in Slovakia said, “Many people in Europe are getting excited about church planting, but not many mother churches are.  We need good examples of healthy mother churches planting well.  I am glad you are saying yes to this.”

Serving from this local context will allow us to be a place of contextualized training for other teams and church leaders.  Though this is a small church, other churches are paying attention to and wanting to learn about missional communities, a flat leadership model, building a gospel culture, Christ-centered expository preaching…  We have much to learn, but others want to learn with us.

Finally, we do still anticipate being sent to plant a church at some point. But there is no timeframe on that now at this point.  We will be giving ourselves to this church and this city until we are released to go elsewhere.

Our support needs.  Taking on this role does not affect our support needs at this point.  Up until now, Tomas was functioning in this role alongside being a full time medical doctor. The ask to us was an ask to a commitment to a place and people, not an ask with a full time salary. I will be giving a portion of my week to this as I continue to network with, serve, and equip other churches in the country, and the Central and Eastern European region. We will continue to be fully funded by outside support, and eventually transition out of some of that as our church continues to mature.

What this does change:

Our assimilation period. A big chunk of Laurel’s weekdays are 4 hours of language study, while at the same time mothering two babies.  In January, Vivien starts preschool knowing no Slovak. Three year olds can be viscous without the language barrier. Lulu just learned to walk. Laurel is juggling language and babies, new relationships without language, and a strange to do list that includes learning how to not get yelled at at grocery stores and learning to drive a stick shift.

We don’t want to fast-track the cultural and language adjustment.  Some of my time goes to helping our family as Laurel continues to give 20 hours a week to language, and this will need to continue for the foreseeable future. Taking on this church as we send out the key family from our church will not be easy. Pray that we continue to pace well.

Our commitment to a church and a city.  Up until now Nitra was a stop on a journey.  When we were asked to consider serving here, initially it was an ask for a few year commitment before we hand over leadership to a church planting resident. We feel confident now that that is not the correct approach. We told our church here that our commitment to this people and city is indefinite. We will be here until we feel released from here.

We are very excited and feel completely right in this decision.  We have sensed direction and peace from the Holy Spirit the last few months. But honestly, we still feel nervous and at times, overwhelmed.  We love this church family and want to serve it well. I love my girls and want to serve them well. Please be praying with us for this transition until it happens in the summer, and then don’t stop!

Pray with us:

I’ve been praying 1 Corinthians 3:10 for a while now:

¹⁰ According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. ¹¹ For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Thank God that the foundation of our church is Jesus Christ.  Pray that we take care how we build upon the foundation that is laid.  Like a skilled master builder.

In Nitra, as it is in Heaven,

-Dawson