“During the first three years, I allowed myself to become sinfully frustrated by this aspect of our church plant; it felt like I was trying to do college ministry while having to establish a local church. On one occasion, while venting my frustrations, a friend looked at me and said, “What are you complaining about? Think about foster care parents. At best they hope to love the kids they are entrusted with, move them on to a better home and never see them again.”

If you had told me 8 years ago that I would parachute plant a church in a small waterfront peninsula in Savannah, GA with a 40-70% military officer ratio at any given period, I would have thought you were crazy. I had no desire to plant a church–let alone one in a military community. I simply wanted to pastor an established church. When we finally began to gather a few families together to form a core group, 2 of the 7 or 8 initial families were military. As we grew to 20 families, 8 of them were military. Much of the operational needs of our church plant–nursery, music, set-up, greeting, etc.–have been met in part by military families. Over the past 6 1/2 years we have had close to 100 adults and children come through New Covenant for a short period before moving on to a new military base. It has felt a little bit like day trading–several family moving on and others coming in to help fill the gaps. I quickly came to realize that as long as the Army bases are here this will be the ongoing dynamic of the church.

During the first three years, I allowed myself to become sinfully frustrated by this aspect of our church plant; it felt like I was trying to do college ministry while having to establish a local church. On one occasion, while venting my frustrations, a friend looked at me and said, “What are you complaining about? Think about foster care parents. At best they hope to love the kids they are entrusted with, move them on to a better home and never see them again.” It was like getting hit in the face with a bag of bricks. That was a turning point for me. Instead of viewing the situation as something negative, I learned to view it from the perspective of a foster care parent. In addition to learning to change the perspective by which I viewed the situation, I began to realize all the benefits of ministering to a mobile community, such as the military. Here are 5 benefits about being in a place where you minister to the mobile military:

1. Quick Integration. Military families know that they are mobile, so the ones who come to a local church (as over against merely going to chapel on base) are willing to plug in quickly. I almost never have to wait to ask a new military family if they would like to serve in some capacity. They usually come to me very soon after committing to the church and ask how they can serve. Because they know that they only have a short time here, many will jump into the deep end of the pool right away.

2. High Level of Commitment. Though they are frequently traveling to visit family, military families understand the idea of commitment. Their whole lives are bound up in commitment to the military. They can’t just change jobs when things get tough. This results in a high level of commitment to the church. From my experience, most military families understand that commitment is key to progress.

3. Desire for Community. The military families who want to be away from the base as much as possible often open their homes to others most frequently. They long for community outside of the work environment and therefore want to help fuel the best community in the church. This is an enormous benefit.

4. Respectful Support. With few exceptions, military families understand the concept of respectful support. They have to follow leadership at work in way that our increasingly anti-authority age fights against. The military families that we have had have generally been supportive of the ministry and leadership. From the majority of military families that we have had, I have heard little to no complaining.

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