enlarging our family - Citylight Church

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

In my previous post, Envisioning Citylight, I reflected on our initial discernment to move to Roanoke, Virginia — the “Star City of the South” — to plant Citylight Church.

It was now August 2006. We were now back in our hometown with our three young sons. We were across town from both sets of parents. And we were here to plant a church. However, we had not come with a launch team from a “mother church.” We did not have a core group of friends. Rather, we were starting with just our family, that is, pioneer, parachute planting. These descriptors can sound like an adventure for thrill-seekers, but it is dangerous to go into the wild. It can be deadly to jump out of a plane. And so I often had doubts, wondering to what hazards I was now exposing my young family in this approach to church planting.

In the first two years of planting Citylight, 2006-2008, Stacy and I worked flexible jobs to make a simple living. She worked part-time, per diem as a pediatric nurse at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, and I was a substitute teacher in the middle and high schools of Roanoke City. The LORD was so faithful to us in those days, truly giving us our “daily bread.”

During these first months and years in Roanoke, I was being coached by Pastor Bill Finley of then Evergreen Community Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our relationship began when I contacted him out of the blue to learn more about church planting. He and I had both graduated from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and this was the conversation starter that started our friendship. As fellow parachute planters, Bill and his wife, Cindy, loved us well — coaching, cheerleading, and counseling us in these first years.

In November 2006, Stacy and I traveled to First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Maryland for church planting assessment with TeAmerica and the Baptist General Conference. In preparation for this time, we had completed a battery of personal surveys, faith questionnaires, and psychological profiles. These four days were an intensive time under the microscope with several other applicant couples. Everything we did was being observed, noted and evaluated by the assessors — mini-sermons, ministry presentations, counseling sessions, group projects and even conversations over meals. The culminating assignment was a church planting strategy group exercise in which we had to develop a comprehensive, phased plan for an imaginary city and then make a formal presentation of it. However, this exercise was less about the plan and more about how we teamed together in pressure situations, personality differences, and conflicting views. By the end of these exhausting days, each couple anxiously awaited their assessment report. Stacy and I received a conditional recommendation. Our gifting and calling was affirmed, but we were given several conditions for further training to complete in the next months.

Through that winter and spring, we traveled and met with several other church planters. I began to compose a church planting plan for Citylight. I completed my two-year Arrow Leadership program. And we began a monthly newsletter to family and friends. One of these letters landed in the mailbox of one of my cousins whom I had not seen for years since the last family reunion. While we were writing contacts for prayer and financial support, my cousin was looking for a Christian home for her three granddaughters of whom she had recently taken custody. She contacted me and explained the difficult circumstances of the past months and years. After a couple phone calls and without long deliberation, I told her that we would love to meet them and consider welcoming them into our home.

On Sunday, July 29, 2007, I preached that morning in a church in Broadway, Virginia, and then we traveled to my cousin’s mountainside home outside Luray. There that afternoon our lives were forever changes as our hearts swelled with sudden love. There we met three adorable girls, all in matching Dora the Explorer outfits. The three year old identical twins bounced around in curiosity (and a cute, country accent). The eighteenth month old shyly kept her distance with her short blonde curls. After several hours of first meeting, we arranged to have the girls in our home a few weekends in August. They were already moving into our hearts, and in mid-September, they permanently moved into our home.

We were now a family of eight with five kids four and younger. Life was now full with sweet blessings, unique challenges and new uncertainties. But what about planting Citylight Church? Honestly, we did not care about a vision for church planting in that season. This was a time for us to acclimate as a larger family. Church planting was on hold as God took hold of our hearts and home.

Looking back, we still did not know what we were doing and what was before us. Nevertheless, God continued to give faith and grace for each step of the way. As we ready to celebrate ten years as a church, I will write several more reflections in these next weeks to tell the story of Citylight.

awed by God’s grace, Derek Lam

We never had an “Alice the housekeeper” for the center square, but our bunch has been loved well by family and friends.