Pastor Vince Donnachie

      Vince Donnachie came to our class on October 1 and shared his experiences in ministry and thoughts on discipleship. He is currently a church planter in Reading, and felt that specific burden and call on his life about three years ago. At that point, he had over fifteen years of ministry experience in the church and was working in the central NJ area. At this point, God started to give him a heart for Reading and he began praying and walking through the city, circling it in prayer. He’d never seen himself in a city like Reading. The poorest city in the country in 2010, it’s a small city with a huge need. Once God gave him a burden for the area, and after praying, he got permission from his church leaders to move his already-existing young adults ministry twenty minutes away to meet in an arts center in Reading.

      Fast-forward back: at age 22, he challenged God with seven things he would see if it was God speaking, and all those things happened (ex. Having an ease into ministry, a significant impact for youth, etc.). In the meantime, he committed himself into full-time ministry. And from there, God orchestrated a series of events that brought him from ministry to another.

      Pastor Donnachie spoke a lot about the struggles he experiences in his role as a pastor. The main problem was that he didn’t know how to be a pastor and a husband at the same time. Throwing yourself to be a pastor can be very easy, and it’s just as easy to have your ministry become a source of pride when everything is going well. But when it comes to relationships, it’s not that easy. We’d rather put ourselves in environments where we receives accolades, rather than those that are challenging, and when we neglect those responsibilities, mainly the family, that’s where the problem starts. “The church can easily become a mistress.” Pastor Vince was very transparent to us all about the obstacles he and his wife had to overcome in their marriage that came as a result of that pride. What helped him through that? It wasn’t easy. It was a series of sufferings, such as a cancer and other struggles that humbled him and put his focus in the right places. As he said, “What really matters in life is me not having to justify what it means to be in ministry. Our identity has to be in Christ alone. All of our everything has to come from our relationship in Christ.” His motivation has changed everything and made for a healthy family and healthy church. Once we realize that all we do is for His glory, it affects everything- how we live, how we preach, how we plant a church… every details about our lives! There’s also a big difference between being ambitious for the Kingdom of God and it’s being led and empowered by God, not human ambition. We have to bring it all back to Jesus. The problem is we try to sell Him, but we don’t trust Him to change people’s lives.

     He had some interesting things to say about how he runs his church. He doesn’t believe in “selling” the church. If a church is healthy, they are going to want to spend time together. If it’s not healthy, nothing we can do can force that! They don’t focus on programs, but on fruit. Their entire focus is Christ and building relationships. He even eliminated the traditional offering basket and replaced it with a box in the corner of the room to eliminate awkwardness for new visitors. The services are very welcoming to new believers, but there is absolutely no compromise in the Word. They don’t dumb down the message. It’s just very relaxed, but at the same time, conservative biblically. It’s aimed to reach people in a way they understand. People want intelligence of the Truth and not the selling of the Scriptures.

     Before he finished, he explained his ministry in his IMAX theatre church plant in Reading as well as his discipleship process. They are very intentional about bringing people to a place of discipleship and very open about it. They do a lot of one-on-one ministry and use Daniel McNoughton’s Follow book as a resource. To them, it’s not about trying to get people to verbalize the right things, but about coming to the realization that Christ’s love for them is real and tangible in their life. Being a disciple means we’re always in a place of learning.

    This is a man who really love and knows Jesus and wants to introduce lost people to Him. His passion for reaching lost souls was evident in everything He said, and I was really grateful that he shared his testimony and discipleship process. The advice he gave about balancing ministry and family life was particularly important for me to hear, and I was encouraged to see how God stepped in and saved a seemingly hopeless situation. A lot of things he talked about really caused me to think about practical things I can apply to ministry, and I’m definitely going to be praying about his new church plant!