Jeremy Yancey is lead pastor of Timber Creek Church in Lufkin, Texas. This church just celebrated its 90th year and is preparing to launch a second campus this September in rural Nacogdoches.

Influence: What was your driving vision for the church when you became pastor?
Jeremy Yancey: Two years ago when I accepted the position, I spent two days alone with God in a retreat setting. Part of that time was reading through the Book of Genesis. When I got to the story of Sarah, I realized that Timber Creek shared her story. She was 90 years old when she had her first child, just two years older than our church was at that time.

God showed me that the longer we’ve been around, the more active we should be. As the church grows older, it has to be focused on growing younger. A big part of that involves the church reproducing itself.

What is unique about Timber Creek Church that other multisite churches don’t share?
Lufkin is a community of 35,000 people, but Timber Creek has a large reach. Plenty of church planters are ready to launch in large metropolitan areas, but you don’t have a long line of ministers wanting to start out in smaller, rural towns.

“The Lord will not plant a vision in your heart without surrounding you with the people who can make it happen.” — Jeremy Yancey

But people in small town America feel they’re as much a part of the world around them as those in big cities. And God is as interested in the souls of Nacogdoches as He is Dallas. These areas are fertile for church growth.

How did you present your vision of a multisite church to an established congregation?
Getting the vision off the ground takes a lot of hard work. And much of that is repeating the vision over and over again. Over-communicating on the front end is much better than trying to explain the vision after the fact. I spent many nights and weekends repeating the vision to our people. But in the end, I knew they were all in.

We have plenty of room to expand and grow in our present location. And we have attenders who are willing to drive 30 to 40 miles each week to be a part of this church. The problem with this is their unchurched friends aren’t as willing to make the trip just to try us out. If they can’t come to the church, we want to take the church to them.

A big part of our vision goes beyond the walls of our church. Our first satellite campus will launch in September, but by Easter 2018 we expect to have three more locations, whether it’s an active prison ministry, college outreach or presence in an assisted living home.

What advice would you give a pastor who wants to do something similar to Timber Creek Church but may be thinking, “We can’t do that”?
If you think you can’t, then I’m sure you’re right. But I think you’re underestimating what humble, yet powerful leadership can do. The Lord will not plant a vision in your heart without surrounding you with the people who can make it happen.

This article originally appeared in the June/July 2017 edition of Influence magazine.