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How PLL Came to Be |
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It was September of 2004 that we launched our very first Promised Land Living group which completed in April the following year, 2005.
In June, we held our 2nd annual in person conference we call CPAK (Coach Presenter Annual Kickoff). The intention is to inspire, encourage and show appreciation to our front line workers, our Coach Presenters (CPs). Check out the highlight real from the event. Team members from 14 states attended, including 80% of our CPs and 100% of the Board. Several of those people, including Jen Day, Paula Anderson and Rebecca Camplejohn, have been part of the ministry for 15 years or longer!
My Board is encouraging me to tell our story this year. There are so many aspects to it! For our July Partner Update, I would like to share about our humble beginnings and how the ministry emerged into its current form. I’ve attempted to segment the story into chapters to make the reading more enjoyable. I have not received feedback that the letters are too long; however, if I do, I will begin to shorten these. Thank you for your patience with my growing skills in communicating with you!
PLL begins with a request from Pastor
I still remember it like it was yesterday…
In 2001, my Senior Pastor, Chuck Milian, asked me to duplicate myself as a leader. He was passionate about discipleship and wanted to see people mature in Christ. While I didn’t quite understand what he was asking, I was intrigued by the request. With Tom’s support (having a 8 and 6 year old at home), I launched a women’s Saturday morning discipleship group. |
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We had our Bible. We had our lives and its struggles. We had each other. During that year, I took notes on the relationships, the questions, the pinch points with God, with one another and even with themselves. I put all these seemingly random thoughts, scriptures, metaphors and stories into a shoe box. I didn’t know what I was doing, yet I felt like I was being carried somehow through the process. Little did I know that these were the early years of PLL’s formation. One of the women in that group wound up taking over the women’s ministry about 20 years later, tremendously influenced by those early years of investment.
One day, in 2004, shortly after I had my PICC line removed after being treated for late stage neurological Lyme disease, it felt like it was time to “give birth” to whatever this was that was forming inside me.
I called my best friend whom I had run the women’s ministry with prior and said I was ready for our first Promised Land Living discipleship group. She shouldered tapped 12 ladies; we secured the Kairos conference room at the church. This group of women met for 3 hours on Saturday morning for 12 weeks (meeting bi-weekly). We had no handouts, no workbook. All we had was our hunger, a white board and the Bible. And the results were significant: Just about all the women were emerging leaders in the church and became strong leaders afterwards. |
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The Shoe Box
For three years we ran these groups and then it seemed time to formalize what we were doing. I felt like I needed to get away to write the curriculum. In 2007, Tom happened to be taking a business trip to Tampa. I asked if I could join him so I’d have a hotel room to myself. Friends agreed to watch our two boys. Although still battling remnants of Lyme, I felt strong enough to travel. I took my shoe box full of seemingly random thoughts/observations and began the mysterious journey of sorting through all of my experiences with discipleship. By the end of two days, the Promised Land Living (PLL) curriculum was born. Mary Margaret (see photo of us below) was a significant part of those early years, converting my thoughts into a more formal workbook. The curriculum still looks very much the same as it did 17 years ago, even with many edits and rewrites over the years to make the material more digestible and accessible to people!
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PLL’s First Attempts at Multiplication
Several years later, the ministry expanded to include the men and once again, many of the volunteer leaders at the church were somehow involved with PLL.
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More people were hungry for the group discipleship experience. We began to try to expand the number of people who could go through PLL at one time (see photos below). In fact, it was during that phase of PLL that Kimberly Perry, my trusted Executive Assistant for the last ten years, went through PLL. I am still in contact with just about everyone who was part of that phase of PLL, and many of them are still directly involved with the ministry. PLL was creating some form of stickiness that I still did not understand but knew to be real. People were hungry and they were getting fed. I learned through this experience that you tend to want to hang out in places where you are getting fed. |
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The church then asked if I would bring this to the students. We had a fantastic year-long journey with them through the Promised Land Living curriculum. But I felt my heart tugging me in a different direction.
(see photos below of young men's and young women's breakout sessions)
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PLL Goes Virtual in 2014
Eventually, I came to understand that PLL needed to become a virtual ministry, but would it still work? We were one of the early adopters of Zoom (long before COVID). The leadership team (see below - this was the meeting we made the decision to go virtual!) was concerned about ensuring the genuineness of the relationships and the potential for transformation we were seeing would not be compromised with the shift in delivery platforms from in person to virtual. After a six month discussion, we took the plunge.
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Going virtual opened new challenges and opportunities for the ministry. Pam Mertz, from Minnesota, went through PLL as a participant. A natural leader and passionate about discipleship, she agreed to be trained by me to deliver groups. Our first official Coach Presenter was trained! Things were changing rapidly leading to more stretching for me as a leader.
PLL Becomes a Non-Profit in 2018
In 2018, it became clear that PLL was to become a nonprofit. I was hesitant, but after a year of prayer, talking to advisors, and studying the scriptures, I became confident that we were to make this change. Within three years of becoming a Non-Profit, we had Coach Presenters able to deliver groups in 10 states and many more on the way.
Through our first generation of eight Coach Presenters we learned much. These brave pioneers grabbed hold of the vision of PLL and helped us shape the ministry to ease the replication of the role of Coach Presenter, so we could bring PLL to many more people. 80% of these "beta" coaches are still with the ministry today, continuing to help shape the work of making disciples.
PLL Prepares to Celebrate Its 20th Year
Now, in 2024, we have over 30 trained Coach Presenters and anticipate delivering 14 groups this year. We have launched PLL Marriage. We are partnering with not one, but two churches and a para church ministry called Every Man’s Ministry. The work of discipleship is fanning out from its tiny little beginning in the Kairos room at Crossroads Fellowship with 12 women in 2004. PLL has directly discipled over 500 people, however, many more of us are now comfortable with discipling others after their PLL experience.
- One participant in a recent group was in the Czech Republic and created bookmark copies of the 7 Step Shift and began handing them out!
- Another participant recently went on a mission’s trip to London while she was still going through her own PLL journey. She shared the shift process with a person she just met because she recognized that the person was "locked" in a lie.
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A fire is burning in people’s bellies to walk in God's truth! And we get to be part of this work! An unexpected development has occurred as well. Many alumni now feel compelled to help others walk in the truth as well and the 7 Step Shift process empowers them to assist others. We are making disciples who are helping to make disciples!
Closing Reflection on the Past 20 Years
Over the course of the next year, I hope to share more of our story including the meaning behind the logo, the longer term impact we are seeking the Lord to achieve, how my own personal discipleship experience shaped my passion for it and so much more.
Twenty years… I see so many faces of lives transformed and some that chose to say “no thanks” which is also part of the process and journey! I invite you into the pre-celebration with me by simply offering you my gratitude for how you are playing a vital part in the growing impact, not of PLL per se, but of intentionally making disciples of Christ.
We remind ourselves at every meeting, we are not trying to grow a large ministry. Rather, we are partnering with the Holy Spirit to expand the kingdom of God in the hearts of His people. The impact is beyond our ability measure already...
And, there is much more glorious work for us to do!
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Cheryl Scanlan
Founder and Executive Director
Promised Land Living |
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