Cold Hard Facts On Church Planting, PART 11
24. The "exception to the rule" plants will make you feel like a total failure.
About right now in our current series we need to get real serious with each other. I'll be honest with you if you promise to do the same. Okay, here I go. I'm gonna tell you a secret. There have been a number of times, especially in the early days of our church, that I would get consumed with reading what was going on in another new church and then I would be totally discouraged as I would start asking myself why we weren't experiencing the same growth. It's an easy trap to fall into. I would find myself driving through town on Sunday's before our service and be jealous over a brand new church that was launching in a school and the parking lot was jammed full for TWO SERVICES. What? How could this be? It seemed to me like church planting was like a tornado. The wind would jump around and pick and choose what places to bless and what places to simply leave alone. It was frustrating and ultimately put me into a very depressive state of mind. I would start watching some unheard of guy come out of nowhere and in a year's time, he's averaging 1,000 people. Then I'd hear about another one. Pretty soon it seemed like everyone started in a living room and then grew overnight into a mega church. I felt like a failure. I began to question my calling, my methods and my dad-gum sanity. I kept telling myself, "It's about to happen here. I know it. I believe it." But then, our 75 seat store-front building wouldn't even be half full on a good Sunday. I couldn't help but take my frustrations out on my wife and kids. I was consumed with grow, grow, grow. "If some no name kid can do it, surely we can", I would keep telling myself. Then one day I had a convicting encounter with the Holy Spirit on the way to our church. I was grumbling in the car as I passed a very new church with a very full parking lot. They had signage par-excellance and parking attendants everywhere. People were pouring into a school building by the dozens. Here I was still leading the singing, preaching and holding everything else together. It was at that very moment that God dropped a bombshell into my spirit. It went something like this. "What if everything you want me to do at Global Vision is actually what I decide to do in the church across town? Can you be okay with that? Am I enough or do you have to be bigger, better and more noticed. Now walk into the store-front and faithfully preach the Bible like 2,500 people are there. Eventually the church will catch up to your vision." BOOM BABY! It was like a lightning bolt of God's grace swept over me in the car and I've not looked back. Now I've still wondered with amazement at the growth of others but I can rest easily in the fact that "Except the LORD build the house they labor in vain that build it." You'll notice in that verse that the house gets built both ways. Our way or God's way. Now here's what I mean by "exception to the rule" church plants. We never really know the back story of another church. Everyone launches differently. Some have an entire team of committed and gifted leaders from day one. Some acquire a building before the green light is given. Many these days, and it's a good thing, go through amazing church planting networks and are able to receive large "launch grants." Some groups are pulled out of one congregation and propelled into a brand new church. Regardless of how they started you can know that they all had great challenges. In our case, I had never heard of a church planting network, never had the sense to raise a dime, had no local church support, no building in mind, 12 interested people, 3 infant children, huge personal debt from evangelism, no pastoral experience but a massive amount of passion and focus. So, almost 7 years later here we are. Guess what? We're still learning as we go and perfecting as we grow. It's been an extraordinary journey. However, I don't believe I would have ever survived had I not been convicted by God to get my eyes off of the "other" churches.
Thank you Pastor Greg for sharing this. I'm in a similar situation "starting" a church. I work in the corporate world full time but have been given a commission by God to plant a church. I have no local church support, a few people interested (most will wait until we've started so that they can "check us out"), a wife and 2 kids (one of them with autism), but a true heart for ministry. 95% of what we've raised for our launch has been raised by us personally.
ReplyDeleteOften I stop and look at my peers and what they're doing through the church planting network I'm a part of. The network matches funds, but requires a minimum core group that I don't have. I don't have the church support so it's been pretty tough over the last 18 months we've been working on this. But gratefully we have all the equipment we need, a structure that God has ordained, and a location to launch from. We are praying for God to send the team we need to accomplish his will.
Thanks for your words of encouragement.
Just heard Unshackled and went out to check and see what God is doing in you life today. The church plant movement is not to be confused with a "move" of God (In my opinion). As I study our rewards for our days here on earth (which we will gladly lay back at Christ's feet) are not based on numbers. The man who is assigned to feed the sheep in a small ministry of a dozen sheep and faithfully studies the Word and feeds the sheep and invests his life into seeing that they grow and exercise their spiritual gifts will bring just as much glory to God (and I think more) than the guy up the street in the gymnasium marketing his way along with a "system" that can be applied to grow a business or a local body of people. You will find these start ups are often filled with those who often have been hurt by or simply have contempt toward the traditional church system that failed to love or fell asleep and lost sight of God. Of all places I gained an understanding of why this "new" model is drawing crowds was by watching an old BBC documentary on the "Century of Self"...it shows we Americans have been conditioned to navigate through our lives based on our feelings and not our brains...we both know the power that music has on a person...have you seen any of these new churches playing hymns? Is it the Holy Spirit that draws a young person to this music? Some of your blogging has a slight spirit of jealousy (which you probably picked up from your exposure to the old Fundamental camp) that indicates you ain't dead to Greg yet...Tozer would often say "The one thing you knew about a man walking out of town carrying a cross and that was he was never coming back"...dead men praise God for everything He does through whomever He does it through. Over the years in doing business deals, I would see a group of unsaved men sit at a table and work out a deal...everyone would get what they wanted financially from the deal; however, often the deal would go sideways because these men were not happy with how much the others at the table were getting in comparison to them (even when they got what they felt was fair). I would just shake my head and say how foolish these men were; however, I can catch myself doing the same thing in ministry...no doubts that Paul was right when he wrote "within me lies no good thing". Also, be careful Greg with reformed theology...I have seen the enemy create "movements" or "camps" where there was 80% truth and 20% error; however, because we love to "belong" we drink the 20% poison...reformed theology has become a replacement for the Holy Spirit (I think) because it gives a surge of adrenaline and a sense of getting a "handle" on God...this seems to feed our flesh with the same kick that intellectual elitists get from sitting about pontificating...also, if someone can take me to a Bible verse for limited atonement I would readily embrace it...until then I will abstract the truth from the reformers and junk the poison. Also, when reading the writings of mere "men" (I.e., reformers or even hard core dispensationalists) always look for the phrase of "It only stands to reason" prefacing a statement that can't be supported by scripture...if a doctrine must rest upon your or my sin cursed fallen reason and not the precious Word of God...jettison the idea.
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