 You may have heard it said before that church planters are most effective when they work within their affinity group People who look and live like they do and while there may be an element of truth to that I don't believe it's the most important thing when it comes to planting a church see church planters are Incarnational that means we make our home right alongside of the people who God's called us to be a ministry with We show an investment in communities schools and workplaces and we watch to see what God can do to transform Those places through the work of the church in 2014 my family was called to come to a church in Melissa, Texas It was a young church that had been meeting for about a year and it got enough to a bit of a rocky start Everybody was kind of uncertain about what the future might hold for this church And yet we believed in God's possibility for its future in a growing community So my family sold our home in a nearby community and we moved to Melissa We made a home here right alongside of neighbors and friends that went to church with us that shared our schools And that believe the best in what God could do here in hindsight It didn't seem like a very big decision at the time It just felt like the next natural step for what it meant to be a church planting family But as we look back we realize now that this was a huge leap of faith to believe in something That was a little bit uncertain which future was unseen and to believe in it So strongly that we would move everything to be here right alongside of folks See incarnational ministry gives people the idea that you are invested in the community because you are It reminds folks that not only do they believe in what's best for the world around them But that you believe in it strongly enough that you might come make a home right alongside of them It's one of the most important characteristics of a church planter that we don't live in other places and come in to do Ministry as an outsider, but that we walk right alongside of folks. We share life. We share schools We share restaurants. We share meals together. We do all of the things that we read about in the book of Acts After all, incarnational ministry making a home alongside of people isn't that exactly what Jesus did?