“I was a Tide guy,” Matt Massey, Lead Pastor of Vineyard Cincinnati, explaining his approach to church planting. Now in his late fifties with several decades of full-time ministry under his belt, Massey still draws upon his first career in sales for Procter & Gamble. “I learned early on that if you sell Tide, we all win,” he said. “It’s the Big Rock, and if you go after the Big Rock, we all win.”
Before taking the helm of Vineyard Cincinnati in 2020, Massey led a church in Loveland, Ohio for almost two decades, and before that, he was a church planter out of Vineyard Cincinnati.
The “Big Rocks” analogy, popularized by Stephen Covey’s bestselling book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is a paradigm in which you visualize your life or work tasks as a jar being filled with large rocks (major priorities), pebbles (important but less critical tasks), and sand (less important, often trivial tasks). Oftentimes, the Big Rocks are important, but not necessarily urgent. That means that you have to strategically protect time for the Big Rocks so they don’t get lost in the smaller, urgent tasks constantly fighting for your attention.
Coming from the sales and marketing world, Massey found himself wondering what the “Big Rock” in the pastor’s journey might be. “I realized–it’s not growing bigger churches, it’s planting more churches.”
Now, as he leads a large church in Ohio, Massey isn’t focused on the expansion of his own congregation; his heart lies with multiplication. For Massey, engaging in strategic church planting is choosing to “think win-win”–another Covey principle. Instead of seeing a potential church planter as a threat to the size of his congregation, Massey recognizes that raising up promising young leaders is the most powerful legacy he can personally leave behind while also fulfilling Jesus’ call to reach all people with the gospel.
Massey emphasizes that he has experienced joy and fulfillment in his mature pastoral years by prioritizing mentoring disciple-makers. He meets with several cohorts on a weekly basis. Brandon Lute is one of the church planters who has emerged from the staff team at Vineyard Cincinnati, along with his wife Christina.
“When I first met Brandon five years ago, I was like, oh my goodness, you are a planter,” Massey remembers. “He was leading our facilities team, and it would have been very easy for me to think to myself, ‘How do we keep Brandon here? Because he would be great for us.”
Instead, Massey chose to steward his staff member’s giftings beyond his current role, inviting Lute into conversations about his dreams. “I want the Kingdom to thrive, not just Matt Massey’s little footprint,” he explained. “If we’re about the Kingdom, and we’re really about people first, then we’ll let them dream and go where they want to go.”
Instead of adopting a classic win-lose mindset–either seeing Brandon as a potential competitor or as an asset too valuable to lose–Massey took the opportunity to equip a talented young leader with the skills and resources needed to start a sister church. Choosing this win-win mindset takes both humility and courage, and ultimately it’s a Kingdom win.
“If I can get more pastors my age to think about the legacy they’ll leave that has nothing to do with their name–that legacy is going to be more powerful if they start planting churches,” Massey emphasized. “And young leaders who are around a leader who is open-handed and sets them free? They want to stay connected.”
Common Vision with Multiply Vineyard
This passion for prioritizing healthy church planting is where Massey and Multiply Vineyard found an opportunity to partner with each other. Multiply Vineyard’s mission is to plant healthy Vineyard churches everywhere and in every way; as Multiply Vineyard leadership continued conversations begun with Massey in 2023 by the Vineyard USA Development Team, they realized they could help Massey implement his vision of church planting across the entire metro Cincinnati region while also piloting a model they hoped to apply nationwide. So in 2024, Vineyard Cincinnati made a $450,000 investment in the work of Multiply Vineyard, with half of the gift committed to national growth and the other half to local church planting.
Massey understands a planter’s need for local support firsthand, having been sent out himself with the lone-ranger approach. “Twenty-five years ago when I planted, it was, ‘Hey, you’re great. Here’s $2,500. Good luck!’ So it took an uber-entrepreneurial personality to make it work,” Massey said. “But I’m not sure those entrepreneurs are great at actually staying with the church they plant for very long.”
Instead, Massey and the Multiply team believed church planters would have more success if they applied the small business incubator approach, by recruiting local churches to join regional church planting networks. These regional networks would function as ‘families’ that support emerging leaders with systems, resources, and relationships to ensure greater health and longevity in their church plants.
One much-needed resource was a Vineyard-specific training program for church planting. Vineyard Cincinnati gave $225,000 to Multiply Vineyard to catalyze a broader national approach, including establishing the Vineyard Church Launch School. Vineyard USA is already celebrating the fruits of this gift: fifteen participants from across the US ‘graduated’ from Multiply Vineyard’s inaugural Launch School in 2024, and one has already planted a church. The rest will launch in 2025.
In tandem, Vineyard Cincinnati designated an additional $225,000 toward its local church-planting initiatives: “campfires” and residencies.
There are now twelve Vineyard churches in the Cincinnati Church Planting Network who come together at bimonthly meetings called “Campfires” to strategize next steps and hold each other accountable for prioritizing the Big Rock of church planting. “The planters are part of our family,” Massey explained. “It’s the Cincinnati network’s church plant. We’re all going to bring something to the table to support them.”
The money also supports new church planter residencies at established churches. “Salary is often the biggest fear for a new leader,” Massey explained. “If a church can come up with a salary for a resident while training them to lead, that’s almost more valuable than providing money to plant.” As a result of this investment, three new churches will launch out of the Cincinnati Network in 2025, including Brandon Lute’s. And they will be launching on a firm foundation in every way.
Meeting weekly with several discipleship groups and a growing cohort of planters, Massey says he’s never felt more alive in ministry. “I’m having more fun, with more energy, and more purpose, than I’ve ever felt in my 30-plus years of ministry. Ever.” He hopes more veteran Vineyard pastors will be inspired to disciple church planters. “If you do,” he said, “There will be wind in your sails for the finish of your career.”
Interested in partnering with Vineyard USA to maximize your church’s impact? Visit our Development page for more information, or contact Jason George or Thelma Barnett.
