The Oak Tree Church

“It takes God 6 hours to grow a mushroom, but it takes him 60 years to grow an Oak Tree. Mushrooms spring up overnight and are gone the next day, but oak trees last for hundreds of years. Children play in them, couples get married under them, and people build their lives around them. Do you want your church to be a mushroom or an oak tree?” – Rick Warren

At T.E.N., we want our churches to be like Oak Trees. It’s not about size, but about legacy. We want to build churches that will last. Congregations that will last for hundreds of years. Families can build their lives around our congregations. People can discover and build their legacies. We want churches that develop leaders and those leaders transform cities for the glory of God.

We are not trying to be mush rooms. We’re not trying to grow fast so we can say, “We have butts in the seats and a big budget!” No, we want to take our time and build a future. We want to build a Legacy of multiplying disciples around the world! This just may take us the next 60 years, but it will be worth it!

It takes time to build a movement. It takes time to do things right. To develop the right leaders and apprentices. This is not a quick, overnight work. This is a lifetime. We don’t want impatient people trying to get us to hurry up and get the “American Dream Church”. No, we only want the “Kingdom of God Dream Church”.

This is a network of churches where we spend time training, teaching, serving, evangelizing, planting, reproducing, innovating, and the list goes on. You can’t rush a movement. You have to take your time and get the proper structures and people in place. This takes years. Why? Because times change and people leave! You have to keep developing new paradigms (models) and systems for the future and replacing new leaders and disciples for the future.

We are an Oak Tree Network. Be patient, we are building not just for now but for future generations.