I'm gonna do a few series kind of interacting with and starting discussions about themes in some books on church planting. This first series comes out of the The Multiplying Church.
Bob Roberts doesn’t just write books about church planting, his church actually plants churches. They have multiple church planting interns each year. Bob describes the seven “processors” they have their interns work through before going off to plant.
- Call: You better feel called! If not, you’ll be tempted to quit when the going gets tough
- Values: What are the values you practice without thinking? Know your values, you can’t adopt someone else’s!
- Purpose: What is your purpose? What is the purpose of the church you’re starting?
- Vision: Must start with you, then spread. (George Barna: “Vision has no force, power or impact unless it spreads.”)
- Strategy: Whom are you going to reach and how will you reach them? What will you do with them once you reach them?
- Leadership: Bob writes:“In a new church, start with turning outsiders into insiders. Do this as quickly as possible as people come on board. They have to feel as though they are part of something larger than the Sunday event. The next step is to turn converts into disciples, through what I’ve described as creating a culture for transformation that changes people’s behavior, not merely passes along information. The final step is turning disciples into ministers. This is where you practice mobilization through spiritual gifts. Identify the reliable men and women in your church and their giftings. Entrust responsibilities to them and educate them through mentoring so that they can emulate what they have seen you do.”
- Evaluation: How will your church evaluate how you’re doing?
Here are some landmines I see with a lot of church plants. (1) Guys who are planting because they want to be the leader and do their own thing rather than feeling called. If that’s you, you’ll quit. (2) Guys who steal someone else’s values because their church is successful, “so maybe we can capture some of their mojo!” (3) Guys whose purpose is to start a “cool church” rather than win lost people to Christ and glorify God. (4) Guys who have a vision but don’t share it concisely, passionately, and consistently. (5) Guys who have no strategy. They have a vision, maybe they pray, and they just hope/assume it’s gonna happen. (6) Guys who do it all rather than developing layers of leadership in the church. (7) Guys who don’t evaluate how they’re doing. Mayybe the worst thing that can happen is early success because it can lull us, if we don’t do evaluation, into complacency.
What do you think? What are the necessary processors? What are the landmines that can kill us along the path?
- featured on newchurches.com
3 comments:
I like the list of processors--reflecting on the post, I've learned most of them the hard way through experience.
I would add these to the list of landmines:
1. Guys who trust in themselves (their skills, knowledge, process, etc.) instead of trusting God.
2. Guys who make their plans and ask God to bless them instead of following God's leading, allowing Him to shape their plans, vision, strategy, etc.
I am learning these right now as I undertake a Church Planting Internship. Here is my personal response to these processors. I tried to be honest with where I am at.
These suggested "landmines" come from a lay person. I'm not in ministry, but my husband has served as an elder and both of us have held various "leadership" roles within the church over the past ten years.
1) Surrounding yourself only with people who agree with everything you say, think or do. You need someone to tell you you're acting like a schmuck if you are, in fact, acting like one. Don't hand pick your elders and deacons and then pretend that you've actually got some accountibility.
2) Being impressed by money to the point where you're hesitant to confront or counsel a member because you're afraid to lose financial support.
3) Spending too much time with staff and other pastors. Don't preach about living in community with one another then excuse yourself from being part of a small group. You lose all credibility. Actually, if you only spend time with staff and other pastors, you probably should just get out of ministry all together because you're not ministering to anyone. You're just giving a 30 minute speech once a week.
4) This one's the biggie on my list: Trying to grow a church. That's not your job. Your job is to cultivate the proper environment so that GOD can grow it. I know that sounds good, but do you really believe that? Not all churches can be megachurches. If God were to speak to your heart and tell you that He wanted a body of 200 people or less who are fully devoted disciples, are you going to be okay with that? As Grandmaster Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren says, "It's not about you."
And finally,
5) Not making your wife and family your first and most important ministry.
I've been deeply involved in a handful of ministries over the past 10 years. In all that time, the only one I felt brought me closer and more connected to God was the praise/worship team. It wasn't the role of the team that drew me in, it was the leadership. This pastor has since left the church, went back to school, and I am happy to say is on the verge of planting a new church. He and his wife make me want to be more like Jesus. They had a cordial relationship with the rest of the staff, but never really fit the "role". In other words, they're freaks like me! And I would crawl across broken glass naked in a snowstorm for them.
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