HOW DID I GET MYSELF INTO THIS MESS? (The Origins Story)
My name is Thien Doan and I'm a pastor, church planter, and lately, a pastor to pastors.
I've been in ministry for over two decades. In that time, I planted and led three churches and have helped to plant over a dozen more.
While I love being a pastor to my local church, I am called to help equip leaders for God's kingdom. I love helping pastors and leaders become more effective in service to God's Kingdom. Over the years, I've had the honor to train, mentor, and encourage thousands of leaders and pastors.
Are you impressed?
Don't be. None of that prepared me for 2020. Like everyone else, the COVID-19 global pandemic brought life to a screeching halt for me. The pandemic affected business, commerce, school, entertainment, politics, relationships, and even the church. And that includes my own local ministry.
The church I lead in Orange County, CA is still young and doesn't own a building. We've been meeting in a rented community center owned by our city government. Like every other church, we had to stop our public gatherings. This forced us to do ministry 100% online. We figured out how to use Zoom and Facebook Live to take care of our people. Things worked out better than I imagined.
James Emery White said:
"I think the pandemic may have just saved the church in many ways. It got us out of a Sunday-centric approach. It forced us online and into social media, it also made us open to change, being creative when we were not creative before, and open to innovation. It also got us back down to raw mission - what is our mission? You add all of that up, and it is dangerously close to an awakening."
I agree. In only a few months, COVID-19 forced the Church to shift from Gutenberg to Google. It's been a challenge. But we had no choice but to transition from analog to digital ministry.
Most pastors have been discussing plans to reopen their churches. But I’ve been asking different questions.
What is God doing?
How is God going to use this?
Where does He want us to go next?
What is He preparing us for?
How can we leverage this season for growth?
Before COVID-19, our church was already preparing for a big shift in ministry. We were planning to transition away from a Sunday-centric ministry approach. We're moving towards becoming a dispersed network of Simple Churches. Easter 2020 was going to be our final Sunday Service. Then we planned to take our people through an intensive training process. The training was going to take six to nine months.
Then COVID-19 hit. We had to hustle to keep our church afloat. I forgot all about the vision for a network of Simple Churches. Now that the ministry has stabilized, I realized that I have to get back to our plan. I need to equip and mobilize leaders to launch and lead these Simple Churches.
That's where I hit a wall. I was stuck. Here’s the question that made me scratch my head and rethink all my plans.
How could we train people if we can't even meet together in person?
I've been blessed to know and learn from some amazing movement leaders. I've learned so much from Ying Kai, Steve Addison, Jeff Sundell, Chuck Wood, Troy Cooper, and others. I adapted the training process from the No Place Left Coalition for our people. I was so excited to roll out this training process.
But now, we can't even meet in person. How can I train and equip them to become intentional disciple makers if we can't even meet in the same room?
As I was thinking through the options, I looked on my bookshelf and pulled something down. It was my nemesis. It was 239 spiral-bound pages of a research project that I wrote. This research project became my dissertation and was the culmination of six years of my life. It helped me earn a Doctors of Ministry degree at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.
I felt like an idiot. Somehow, I forgot what I studied. I must have purged it from my memory. I guess I spent so much time and effort on that research project that I needed some time away from the topic.
As I leafed through my own research, it all came flooding back to me.
"Aha! I know exactly what to do!"
Providentially, and semi-ironically, I already had the answers I was looking for. This was the exact subject of my doctoral research project. For my research project, I designed an online training platform. I tested it with participants from four different churches. I wanted quantifiable data on the effectiveness of online-based training processes. Many surveys, tests, and interviews later, I know exactly what is effective and what is not.
That's the origins of the Barnabas Academy.
Here's the vision of the Barnabas Academy:
"To catalyze a Gospel Movement by helping ordinary Christians become intentional disciple makers."
I’m not sure yet, but I’m playing around with the following tagline:
“Changing the World by Helping You Change Yours.”
What do you think? Do you like that tagline?
If you're interested in becoming an intentional disciple maker, I’d love to help. Click the link to be added to the waiting list:
Let's change the world together.