Giving Church Planting Some Thought: Theology in Action

Tony Caffey: Welcome back to Theology in Action. My name is Tony Caffey. I'm the pastor of Verse By Verse Fellowship, and I'm here with my good friend Daniel Molinkoff from San Antonio. Hey Daniel, good to see you

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Daniel Molinkoff: Thanks for having me

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Tony Caffey: You are a co-laborer here in San Antonio. You pastor Redeemer Community Church here. And I guess I'll start with this, you know, we both pastor churches in San Antonio. You went to Texas A&M, yep. I grew up in Austin and I love the Longhorns. You went to Southwestern Seminary. I went to Moody Bible Institute, and we both pastor on the north side of San Antonio, reformed-ish churches. We should be like not friends, but that's not true. We are friends, and we even have a group of pastors that we connect with regularly that we encourage one another. So why is that? Why, why are we friends even though maybe in some settings people would say, "Well, your competitors in this area, the church planting and church leadership"

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Daniel Molinkoff: Yeah, well, I think the number one reason why we can be friends is that we're united in Christ, and so all the other things you mentioned are really secondary. I do love the Aggies, and no offense to my Longhorn friends, but I love when they lose, uh, is it true Aggie? Nevertheless, in Christ, what we have in common is way more important than those differences. Also just, even just as long as I've been a pastor, I've wanted to view other churches not as competitors in any way, but as fellow laborers. And it can be hard sometimes because you literally have people tell you that they're coming and visiting Redeemer Community Church, and they're also visiting Verse By Verse Fellowship, and you know, some of the other churches we're friends with, and like you want them to come to your church, but I mean, I've actually encouraged people to go to other churches. There was a guy who was about to, he was looking for a church. He's about to leave town with the military, and his wife has, I think, a child, another one on the way, and we were like 40 minutes away from them. I said, "You know, we'd love to have you, please don't take this anything other than an encouragement, but you might check out this other church that's like 10 minutes from where you're staying, you live"

. And they're probably for a wife with two young children or a child and another one on the way, like probably a healthier option for y'all, and they did end up going there. And so we do want people to come to our church, we want to grow, but, but we're not competitors

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Tony Caffey: Yeah, thanks for that Daniel, I appreciate your heart in that, and I've seen that in you and our interactions. So we do Simeon Trust together, we have our group of pastors that we connect with, and that aspect of your heart really shines through. And I guess we should say too, there are, there maybe without naming names, there probably are some churches that we might steer people away from. Certainly, I could name, I'm just kidding, I'm not gonna name anything. So it's good to have like-minded churches who we know, you know, preaching the gospel, preaching God's Word, those are important things, and we don't feel like we're the only one in town doing that. So yeah, good. So you're married Daniel to Michelle. How long you all been married

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Daniel Molinkoff: Uh, it'll be 19 years this June, so we're glad for that. Two kids, yep, about to be 17, about to be 14, and they keep us on our toes

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Tony Caffey: Good brother, well let me ask you this because you planted a church here in San Antonio, you grew up here. I grew up here, I went to Texas A&M. I was in Houston for 10 years, I was at the same church for those 10 years, and Founders Baptist Church in Spring, North Houston. Okay. And then, along that way, I felt, I was an accountant when I moved there, along the way I felt called into ministry. Started serving in their youth group on the side, that started serving full-time and doing seminary, and then in 2010 I started looking into the idea of church planting. Were you thinking San Antonio right off the bat, or were you thinking Texas, or

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Daniel Molinkoff: Well, we had some friends that invited us to consider doing a church plant with them. Uh, it just, we went and visited, it just wasn't a good fit, and that was in 2010, but that's when for the first time I really started thinking about church planting at all, like it just was not on my radar prior to that. And so I got involved in a church planting network in Houston and just started realizing what an important part of the body of Christ the church planting is, and so decided I'd like to. And then I grew up here in San Antonio and my family was still here, my parents anyway, we're still here

. Yeah, I thought, "Oh, you know, if it ever worked out, it'd be nice to go back to San Antonio." At the time, I think we were the seventh largest metroplex in the United States, something like that. I imagine we've probably not changed from that much in the last 10 years, but I mean a large city, and yeah, at the time there were, I think, less than five reformed churches, definitely less than five reformed and Baptistic churches. You know, our PCA brothers who I love were here, yeah, right. Um, but they, uh, we have some significant differences with them on baptism and a few other issues. So, um, there just weren't many reformed churches in San Antonio, so I thought, "Well, that's a place where there's a wide open field." Um, and, uh, yeah, and then in 2012, there were families that were interested in planting, uh, the from Believers Fellowship where I grew up, and we had the permission of the Believers Fellowship Elders to plant a church, and so we connected with those families and we decided to plant in Northwest San Antonio, sort of distinctly the opposite side of town from Believers Fellowship. I just, they're more Northeast

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Tony Caffey: They're Northeast, yeah. We're about 25 minutes from each other, so it feels like we're drawing from a different area of town entirely. Yeah, I'm curious how you answered that question, or if you even got that question, because that comes a lot with church planting. I love church planning, planning a church, I planted church helped in Illinois, and then we were a church plant, uh, when I got here, uh, that was three years old. Um, so, and inevitably the question comes up, "Why do we need another church in San Antonio?" So, did you field that question, and how if you did, how did you answer it

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Daniel Molinkoff: I'd say a few things. One, just the church in general across the world is growing, right? Christ is growing his church, and so as the church grows, individual churches that are growing have the option of either just trying to build up internally and continue growing, or to plant a church and, and continue that growth maybe in a slightly different area or some other reason for logistically starting another church. And you know, neither is inherently right or wrong, but Peter told the pastors to shepherd the flock of God that is among you. And I know people, pastors that, that shepherd very large churches, but personally I just can't imagine being responsible to shepherd someone who I really have no idea who they are. And so as you plant churches, you're, you're bringing your numbers down again, and then you have at least a chance of knowing all the people in your church. Um, and it's not the one pastor shepherding everybody in the church equally, but if I have no idea who they are, I just feel like I'm not shepherding them at all. So that's another aspect of the planting is just the need in my view, first, generally smaller churches compared to larger. Again, no offense to my brothers in Christ who pastor larger churches, they probably are just better shepherds than I am

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Tony Caffey: Yeah, there's no shortage of lost people either, yeah, even in a place like San Antonio, you would know you grew up here, so yeah. Um, I would say too that, you know, I planted a church and a part of Illinois that wasn't growing, actually was shrinking, but there in our community was a shortage of what I would call Bible teaching churches, and so that gave us a niche. But also that's part of my conviction on what the church should do. But I mean, that doesn't apply to San Antonio, we're, this is a booming part of the country. And so really, to keep pace with the population growth, we need to plant churches. Agree, you disagree, what do you think

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Daniel Molinkoff: Yeah, I think that probably we have fewer churches per capita now than we did 10 years ago when we planted. Okay. Um, I don't think that church planting has caught up with church growth here. I mean, I, they were estimating we would add a million people between, in the last 10 years, and I don't know if it quite worked out to that, but it's a lot. You see the growth in the development everywhere. And so yeah, as, as the population grows, we need more churches to be able to reach out to those people and share the gospel. And some churches are closing. So that's, you've got a few different issues in play there that necessitate, I think, uh, church planting. So good. Um, are people called to be pastors, Daniel? Let me ask you this before I ask you that question, do people call you Pastor Daniel, Pastor Molinkoff

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Daniel Molinkoff: Uh, some people do, yeah. Um, when we first started there were some, some had a view that very much wanted to emphasize the plurality of elders, and so like we've very much tried to emphasize the, the, all the elders are equal, but sort of inevitably the person who's preaching, like the nickname they get is Pastor, right? You know, and you do the funerals and the weddings and those things, yes, exactly. That's almost kind of socially people start thinking, "Oh, it's Pastor, you know, he's, he, it's an endearing term, really." Yeah. So are people called to be pastors, Daniel

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Daniel Molinkoff: Uh, in my view, yes, paraphrasing borrowing from, from Spurgeon, uh, there's different aspects to what would make up a call. There's sort of a personal call, like I, I feel like God is calling me to ministry, but that in and of itself isn't sufficient. There's a lot of people who have felt called who clearly have no gifting or external call. And that would be the second would be the external call, that a church actually calls you to the ministry. Um, and then within that, there must be gifting and then qualifications for leadership. Gifting for pastoring, yes. Uh, the, the gifting to be a proclaimer of the Gospel. Um, I, I think leadership is part of that, and same thing with preaching. I mean, not every preacher is equally gifted, not every preacher is equally gifted at leadership, right? Uh, but, but the gifting enough that the, a congregation recognizes and believes that you are called to that ministry. Um, so, so personal call, an outward call and gifting, a qualification that you're able to serve

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Tony Caffey: I like the inward-outward thing. Uh, I didn't know that came from Spurgeon, but that makes sense. It was a, is it lectures? I think it's from Lectures to My Students. So, because I, you know, one of it is one of those is subjective in a way, you know, like, how do I know if I'm called? I'm trying to kind of internalize what the Holy Spirit's leading me to, but then that needs to be affirmed by the Holy Spirit, uh, you know, empowered leaders of the church. And, you know, you can't, you can't just call yourself, that doesn't really work that way, right? And the way in which God has organized his churches, so that's helpful. Good. Uh, what about church planting? Are, so you planted a church, I've been involved in church planting, would love to plant churches in my lifetime, you know, to raise up pastors even here Verse By Verse to go and plant in the growing area of San Antonio and beyond. Uh, are we called to that? Is that a special calling, subset of pastoring

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Daniel Molinkoff: I wouldn't say that exactly, but I, I would say that ultimately I believe God is sovereign over all things, and his providence extends even into whatever career we have, and that whatever job someone has, their vocation is something that is a gift to them from God to be, um, stewarded well. Uh, in that sense, I would say, sure, I was called to be a church planter. I, I don't feel today like I'm called to be a new church planter, although like you, I would love if Redeemer Community Church was planting other churches, if there are other churches being planted that we would support them in some ways. Um, so I wouldn't say I see at least biblically a specific call of church planter, but, but it fits within the call of pastor, and some pastors will either may feel personally like they're called or may have those opportunities that they end up pursuing

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Tony Caffey: It's a perfectly reformed answer to my question, well done Daniel. Spurgeon would be proud of you. What's your, you've been pastoring for 10 years now

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Daniel Molinkoff: Uh, yeah, 10 years. I was a youth director before that, so I was, you know, pastoring in many ways, but I wasn't an elder at the church, they didn't consider me a pastor formally

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Tony Caffey: Okay, so you've been in ministry for how long

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Daniel Molinkoff: Um, about 14 years full-time and 17 years total

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Tony Caffey: Okay, and then a church 10 years? 10 years as a senior pastor? Yeah, do you use that term senior pastor or

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Daniel Molinkoff: Uh, I do where it's helpful to people, but at the church I'm just pastoral

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Tony Caffey: Okay. Uh, what's your greatest joy as a pastor, Daniel? What's, what's the thing that you really get, get energized doing

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Daniel Molinkoff: Ah man, there's lots of options. Um, I love to preach, I love to proclaim the gospel. What are you preaching right now? We're preaching through Isaiah right now

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Tony Caffey: Oh, wow, which has been awesome. Good job out of you. Incredibly challenging. You know, a lot of people who do expositional preaching either cover Isaiah in five sermons or in like 70 sermons, and I just cut it right in the middle, and we're doing 20 sermons. So five sermons in Isaiah, goodness gracious, that's, uh, yeah, it's big chunks. You're really just hitting the, the key transitions and themes when you do that, but

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Daniel Molinkoff: But literally when I was looking at other sermons and how people broke it up, there's a lot in the five category and then there's a lot in the 70 plus category, and I did 22 or something kind of right in the middle. So we're moving at a pretty brisk pace, but at the same time, you know, the, the themes of God's judgment and restoration and renewal, like they just keep coming through. So, uh, I'm glad for the pace we're going, but it, but it is challenging every week. It's like, "All right, we, how are we going to grasp this passage? See how God is revealing himself to us, reeling ourselves to us, showing sin, how the Spirit's working to bring"

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Tony Caffey: Do you like the preparation process or the delivery process, or both

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Daniel Molinkoff: I like them both. Um, I do enjoy studying a lot, but I enjoy preaching and seeing people respond to God's Word. Um, but I enjoy preaching, but I love counseling people as well. I love discipling people, just to see individual people grow in their walk with Christ, to become more like Christ, is a great joy as well. And you know, you hear about that from preaching, like as people tell you, "I was really encouraged, I've been blessed," but sort of discipling one-on-one is when you really see people grow and change

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Tony Caffey: So cool. I see that in you when we, you know, meet for Simeon Trust and stuff like doing kind of workshopping our, our craft, so I can tell that you, you enjoy it, you want to continue to improve at what you're doing. So if preaching was up there, is there another aspect of pastoring that you, you really love

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Daniel Molinkoff: Well, the discipling counselor, I was saying as well. Um, yeah, those are probably the two biggest ones. Um, there's other things that are great and challenging about pastoring

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Tony Caffey: I love, I'm gonna answer my own question, I don't know if that's a faux pas or not. I love baby dedications

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Daniel Molinkoff: Ah, okay

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Tony Caffey: I love, and I love baptisms. I love baby dedication more than baptisms because as a Credo Baptist, it's less pressure with the baby dedication. You don't have to like interview the baby ahead of time to make sure they're saved, you know, right? Okay, so, uh, but I, I really enjoy kind of, uh, conveying to the church the importance of the next generation and raising our young people, discipling them

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Daniel Molinkoff: Okay. Um, yeah, baptisms have, I don't know if you want to call it some kind of unique Holy Spirit power, but there's just, there's, I'll use this term, this sounds horrible, but there's a juice that's part of the service when you baptize, it just, man, people get amped up about it. And I love being a part of that, even if I'm not the one baptizing. You know, we have other elders have participated, just, man, I want to celebrate whenever that happens at church, that's great

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Tony Caffey: You knew this question was coming, so what, what are some of the kind of challenging parts about pastoring

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Daniel Molinkoff: Oh man, there's so many challenging parts about pastoring, and I say that sort of in jest, the, the blessings are way, way greater than the challenges. You know, every week you deliver a sermon, and every week you feel like, "Oh, I could have done better." Like, you know, I could have, could

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Tony Caffey: Could you feel that on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning

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Daniel Molinkoff: Oh, normally Sunday, like two-thirds of the way through the sermon, I'm like, "This could have been better." Um, and I've prepared like I've manuscripted my sermons, so I've put all my thoughts in there, but I just, I'm always thinking, "Yeah, I could have communicated this better or organized it better or something." Um, but, uh, but so there's sort of the personal critique of, you know, well, the church, the sermon didn't go as well as I wanted, or the church isn't going as well as I wanted, and well, at some level, I'm kind of heavily responsible for that, and obviously I believe the Holy Spirit is 100% responsible for what happens to the church, but God uses people, right? Uses means. And so, you know, as the preaching elder of the church, like a lot of that weight falls on me. So that there's those sorts of things. You probably haven't experienced this, but sometimes people are disappointed in the pastor and how things have gone

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Tony Caffey: No idea what you're talking about, yeah, I didn't think you would

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Daniel Molinkoff: Um, so there's just that challenge of being criticized. There's that relational challenge with, within that, there's people, you know, who are not walking with Christ, and so, um, there's just the weight of wishing you could cause them to change. Uh, you know, marriage problems and just personal sins, uh, that, that's hard. Um, I mean, I enjoy trying to help people

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Tony Caffey: Yeah, right, that's the discipling side of things, shepherding, yes, but

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Daniel Molinkoff: Um, people don't always want to be shepherded. Um, and, and yeah, that, that's a heavy weight as well. Um, and then there's just the general weight that we're responsible for people's souls, right? That that's how we'll be judged as pastors, as, as people who are watching over these souls. Uh, that's a heavy weight to bear. Uh, this is a few of the challenges, and unlike the other elders, we don't come off rotation. I don't, I don't know, do you all have elders like, uh, I forget the term, like in perpetuity

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Tony Caffey: Yeah, we do. Um, I don't feel strongly doctrinally about that, but the way our constitution was written, uh, it specifically says that scripture does not specifically call for any sort of rotation off, and so we don't do it

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Daniel Molinkoff: Fair enough

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Tony Caffey: Um, so that, that's, so I can't use that excuse at your church. I can at my church, I don't get to come off rotation like you guys

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Daniel Molinkoff: Yeah, well, and that said, I actually am taking a sabbatical this summer

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Tony Caffey: Okay, for the first time, uh, so, you know, been there a little over 10 years now, and good for you, Daniel

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Daniel Molinkoff: Just thought it would be helpful for my soul to have a little time away from the weight and the responsibility, uh, sort of refocus on some things

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Tony Caffey: And I find the challenge, I'm gonna answer my own question again, um, the demand for omnicompetence as a pastor seems to increase. And so I feel it in two categories. I'm 44. You're a little, you're around my age, yeah. Um, 45. Some of that involves like technology. You got to stay on top of technology, and that's not my best thing. It might be, you're probably better than I am. So I just feel like, man, the technology is always moving, I've got to stay on top of that. I, you know, praise the Lord, I have people who can help me here at Verse By Verse, but that's kind of a burdensome thing that, you know, pastors of old didn't have to worry about. I kind of, you know, am wistful about the days when I could, you know, go and just worry about preaching. Um, the other thing is, and this is kind of the COVID, the effects of COVID, like I remember going through all of that a few years ago, and like now I got to be a scientist, you know, like I don't even know what's happening, you know, politically, scientifically, I'm trying to process this biblically. And, and that wasn't just on me, that was on all of us as elders, we had the longest, most difficult elders meetings trying to discern what we're going to do in this period. So these are new complexities that make the pastoring job, I think, even harder

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Daniel Molinkoff: Agree. Agree 100%. Yeah, when COVID hit and all that, we had to decide following that and decisions that were out of our hands. That was an incredibly challenging time. And, um, I don't know that we made all the right decisions necessarily, but, you know, there's that again, that weight that people were looking to us and, um, questioning sometimes whether we're making the right decisions. We have, uh, security issues too that we have to deal with in San Antonio that, you know, weren't as big a concern in days of yore, yeah, even five years ago weren't as big of a concern. So I mean that this is kind of my mea culpa here, I'm trying to explain all the things that makes it hard to be a pastor. Uh, there's certain financial, good thing you're an accountant. I have a finance degree, my wife's an accountant, that helps. But because you got to, you got to know that stuff. You're going to be able to read a budget sheet and you got to be able to interact with your other elders and your treasurer intelligently, content. And there's no, there's no seminary class on that, or maybe you had one

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Tony Caffey: No, no, there were no classes on that. Yeah, I mean, and I, if there was, I probably wouldn't take it. I'd take another exegesis class on, you know, a New Testament right book. But yeah

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Daniel Molinkoff: Well, let me ask you this, and we'll kind of finish up with this. Thanks for that. Thanks for kind of disclosing some of that. I think that that'll be helpful to people, even not just people who are supporting and encouraging their pastors, but people who are discerning their call, yeah. You know, because, um, we're not going to live forever, you and I, and, um, we do need church plants and church planters and pastors raised up within the church. Here's a question that I like to ask pastors, because you are viewed by many as like disciple of Jesus Christ par excellence in the church, but neither of us have arrived, we're works in progress, right? Um, so how do you as a pastor continue to grow as a disciple even while you're discipling and teaching and ministering to others

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Tony Caffey: Yeah, um, you know, Paul tells Timothy to study to show himself approved and he talks about the importance of being a pure vessel, purified vessels, or useful vessels. Um, and yet, like you said, uh, we know that we have not arrived

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Daniel Molinkoff: So there's many things. I think first and foremost is that you have to remember for whatever it is that you are studying in scripture, um, that this is not for the people in the chairs first and foremost. Uh, this is for you, right? It's like as I'm studying to preach, like I need to be impacted by what I'm studying, right? The Spirit has to be working in my heart

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Tony Caffey: Good, uh, first and foremost, and so that's the preaching more powerful too anyway

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Daniel Molinkoff: Yes, absolutely. Um, so I'm growing and changing in part through my regular study, but but also just like I'm a sheep before I'm a shepherd. And so if I'm thinking of myself as, you know, the spiritual benefactor or the spiritual person par excellence, like then I'm already failing to recognize, you know, my own deepest need, which is that I am a sinner saved by grace, and that I need to be growing. So I need to be recognizing that I need to grow. I need to be focusing my study on my own growth, not just on what can I deliver to other people

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Tony Caffey: Good, on Sunday morning or whatever other studies that you might have

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Daniel Molinkoff: Um, a lot of prayer, I think. No, I, I need to pray more than I do, just like, just, just to be transparent to everybody who watches your podcast here, I, I should pray more. Um, that's probably true of most pastors, I would say. Um, but prayer, right? I mean, the Spirit is the one who's bringing change to us. Uh, it's so easy to just rely on our flesh, like I work harder, I try harder, study harder. Um, and we should be doing all those things, which, but, but we do it in reliance on the Spirit, and one of the ways we demonstrate that is through prayer and asking for help

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Tony Caffey: Yeah, I don't know how to categorize this, but part of my desire for spiritual growth comes from the cautionary tales that we've lived through, we've seen, yeah, way too many pastors fall or destroy their ministries by their bad behavior, by, um, maybe thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think. And so that in my heart propels me to never stop growing as a disciple, maturing, Tony, don't reach a place where you, you feel like, "I'm done or I've arrived." That's, yeah, take heed lest you fall, right? Yeah. One, one kind of like tag-on question, do you for devotions, is, is do you make sermon preparation separate from that, or is that wrapped up in kind of your own spiritual discipline of time in God's Word

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Daniel Molinkoff: Uh, I've actually done that both ways. So a lot of the time in my ministry, it's my, there's been no distinction between sermon prep and personal devotion. Um, lately I've felt like, um, that hasn't been, I don't know if sufficient is the right word, but it just hasn't felt as helpful. Um, so, um, I focused a little bit more on trying to do some whole scripture reading. I got a listening app this year, so I'm, I'm listening to scripture in the morning. I make coffee and listen to it, and, um, going through the M'Cheyne plan, which is, uh, yeah, kind of a broad cross-section of scripture, yeah, each day. And, uh, just kind of doing that and then trying to pray afterwards, uh, and set that as its own focused time as opposed to combining them. Um, right now I feel like that's working better, but I don't know that there's a right or wrong per se, so much as just I felt like, I don't know, I needed some separation from, from just the preaching text that I was working through

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Tony Caffey: Yeah, I've felt that pretty much throughout my ministry career. So if I'm preaching in the New Testament, typically I'll read in the Old Testament or vice versa, but it is, I mean it is hard to turn off the "Oh, this would be great on Sunday" kind of instinct that you have as a preacher, yes. So, uh, yeah, even when you're reading, you know, to kind of just, just read for the benefit of spending time with God and not make it like, you know, something you're trying to log away for the future. Yeah, well, thank you, Daniel. Uh, tell everybody the church website if you could, and how they can learn more about Redeemer

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Daniel Molinkoff: Uh, thank you very much, Tony. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Uh, Redeemer Community Church is our name, and our website is redeemercommunitychurch.org. Now, if you want the shorter version, you can do rccsa.org, which is just those initials plus the San Antonio initials. Uh, either of those will work, and that's probably the best way to find out more information about our church as well

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Tony Caffey: Good Daniel, thanks for this. Well, thanks for being a part of Theology in Action. You can listen to more podcasts like this at vbvf.org, as well as live stream our Wednesday night and Sunday morning service. Until next time, we'll have more Theology in Action, see you then