Or, TEC - The Teen Years (Pt 2)
Scripture: Selected Scriptures
Date: November 16, 2025
Speaker: Sean Higgins
We’re going to talk about some fruit we want to pursue as a church in the next five years. Even calling it “fruit” is meant to remind us that this is what we want if the Lord wills. Planning for today and tomorrow without the Lord is arrogance (James 4:11-16). Unless the Lord builds the house we labor in vain (Psalm 127:1-2). And also God has willed for His church to mature; what does more maturity look like for us?
Fruit only comes when the branches abide in the vine. Jesus told His disciples:
As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5).
And then:
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples. (John 15:8)
What is this fruit that Jesus refers to? It’s at least the fruit of answers to prayers (whatever you ask), the fruit of obedience (any kind), the fruit of joy (overflowing), as well as the fruit of love for others (unto sacrifice). And all of this connects with the fruit of witness (all the way down in verse 27). The fruit is a life of all-inclusive, on display dependence on Jesus.
It is not wrong to see the application of this for individual disciples, but Jesus’ concern is with the disciples considered as a group. A single disciple can’t be complete in Christ without the “anothers” in the one anothers. “Love one another,” mutually obeyed among the many, makes a bigger point.
It’s also a reason that the world hates us more (John 15:18).
The order is vital: abide first, fruit follows. There will be no fruit without abiding. Whatever more fruit we’re pursuing will not happen apart from abiding in Christ. Jesus loves for us to abide in His love (verse 9), and He wants our fruit to abide (verse 16), not just be a comet quickly fading. Durable fruit comes from dependent branches.
What God has given us at TEC is great, and also, we want to excel still more. There are five “mores” of fruit, individual pieces that also build on each other; there are aspects that are parallel and others that are sequential. Imagine in five years, by God’s grace, if we had more of the following.
Being a pastor is not, by itself, a sign of spiritual maturity. But if we want more spiritual maturity from the many we could use more pastors to equip the saints.
Paul commanded Timothy to entrust the truth to faithful men who would be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:1-2). This is part of making disciples and building the body (Ephesians 4:11-16). It thinks not just in terms of extending geographical reach but also generational reach.
When the pastors asked our L2L leaders last summer what they thought were front burner issues for our church, many observed that identifying and equipping more elders (another word for pastors in our understanding) is critical. There is no doubt about it.
Every year TEC goes through an annual affirmation cycle for elders and deacons, in which the entire flock is asked to recommend men they think should be considered for those offices. We have not received any new names for elders given to us over the last couple years, which is fine, but we need to fix it.
For sake of the current work of shepherding and discipling, for sake of recognizing the fact that some of our current elders are getting older, for sake of desiring to scale to serve more members, we plan, Lord willing, to add at least two pastors in the next five years. This does not mean adding paid staff, it means affirming men to help shepherd the flock.
Along with more pastors, we are aiming to make sure that the pastors are “devoting [themselves] to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). There is no work that is below an elder. And as we’ve been trying to emphasize at TEC for 15 years, the work of a pastor isn’t inherently more precious or automatically more pleasing to God.
That said, as God has blessed us to build some complementary institutions, and while God has blessed us with a property and building to call our own, there are many necessary things to be done that don’t always require an elder’s hands. This is not special, this is sharing of responsibility.
This need has also been an issue observed by others. The elders have already started the process of defining the principles of what we need to care about, so that elders as elders can focus on the flock not facilities, while enabling others to make progress. We will share more as we nail it down, but we are working on it.
Some movement seems slow because what’s done isn’t center of sight, some movement is slow because we don’t have money, but we, as pastors, don’t want to be the bottleneck of other progress.
Part of the reason for better partition is to be able to provide even more teaching and resources for our people. This includes conversations, but it also includes resources that are available and obvious and consumable any time. We will get the Parenting Roundtables going again. There is talk of starting some Marriage Roundtables. We’ve talked about some ways to package and curate and plug some of the things we’ve already taught, that are still relevant, but that maybe people don’t know are available.
Many of you are hungry for good material; you are consuming a lot of material, some good and some maybe not straight from the pit, but bounced off a couple satellites. The common grace of modern media allows for the distribution of edifying and equipping teaching. It’s not for sake of a brand, but for sake of building the body. Already we’ve got good stuff on marriage and membership, on parenting and Proverbs and prayer. Plus we have a number of members, not just pastors, making some good podcast stuff. Let’s fill the city with good teaching (as they were accused of doing in Acts 5:28).
Potency is another word for power. This means we want to see the power of life in the fruit of disciples (and families) and the church overall. We want the opposite of those who have the appearance of godliness, but deny its power (2 Timothy 3:5).
We want the pastors not just to be responsive to problems, we want every member not just to be concerned with what is wrong, but all pursuing the maturity of Christlikeness.
We think this includes Christians being more (and this on Jealousable Households expands further):
I’ll have some more to say about what this sort of person/household looks like in the next message.
As a church we will pray about and pursue having more presence in the city/community.
This presence would include more service. Let’s invite our campus neighbors to something and show some hospitality. Let’s identify some public service/outreach projects. We’re going to ask the deacons to investigate at least one project in the next year that, as a flock, we could do or join.
Presence would involve more event participation. We will organize another June Life Jubilee and invite other churches to join, earlier and more of a big deal. We are also already investigating the possibility of having a booth or some setup at a city thing, such as during the Strawberry Festival.
We are trying to network with other Christians/churches. In terms of a high overlap of likemindedness, there is a church that meets in Battle Ground, WA, and we had started to coordinate a combined family retreat next summer, but that event won’t work out. That said, those kind of connections are important, even for our youth and seeing that what we have is special and also not a cult.
Have you heard the concept of “owned space”? It’s visible, tangible properties and businesses. These are NOT TEC-owned, but TEC-people-owned, with encouragement and support from each other. We already have some of this in Marysville, and, why not more? What about a coffee shop, a bookstore, more? Places that are worth getting out of your car for, places where you can get some things you can’t get just ordering from your computer.
For sake of TEC, I am not the only wondering this, but I will wonder out loud for all of us. Should we purchase Totem Middle School as a church and school? It is five times the price of our current property. But it would provide more than five times the space, usable (and move visible) space for events, and of course it would be closer to Comeford Park and city hall and 3rd Street, and Taco Bell.
We would have a whole new set of neighbors to bless, or annoy. It’s no good at all without the Lord’s blessing. It’s no good at all unless we keep confessing our sin and abiding in Christ. But what a place that would be for our fruit to on display.
Not every “more” needs to resonate with you the same way. For that matter, these are just starting points. In ten years, can we be ready to plant another church? These things aren’t just for the elders to figure out, even if we are responsible to plant the flag. Will you pray about what you can do? Will you consider how you can help, and by helping I mean more than telling other people how they’re doing it wrong?
Lord willing, we will keep maturing and have more problems.
The Father is the vinedresser and, just like a gardener would, of course He is glad to see more fruit on the branches. More light. More salt. More reviling. More blessing.
A company shares bread together. A company goes into the battle together. So, as a company of disciples, abide in the vine of Christ, abide in His love, let His words abide in you, ask for His strength, and bear much fruit for the glory of the Father.
[May you be] strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (Colossians 1:11–12 ESV)