Launch: Called?

I'm gonna do a few series kind of interacting with and starting discussions about themes in some books on church planting. This series comes out of the book Launch by Nelson Searcy.

“Your call to start a church is the most critical factor to the church’s success.” So says Nelson Searcy in Launch. Is he right? Maybe so. One thing I know for sure is that if you’re going to start a church, you better feel called. I tell guys that if there’s anything else you can do besides start a church, go do that. Why? Because church planting is incredibly difficult and you’ll be tempted to quit over and over. So if there’s anything else you can do, you’ll end up quitting and you’ll go do that. But if there’s nothing else you can do, you can revisit your calling when things get tough.

So … potential planters: Are you feeling called? Is there nothing else you can do?

Searcy lists four calls of a church planter: (1) Your call to start a church; (2) Your call to understand your spouse’s call; (3) Your call to a place; (4) Your call to a people.

Perhaps the most destructive of those to be lacking is your spouse’s call. If someone told me he could only have three out of the four, but still wanted to be successful, so which one could he be missing, I would say, “Dude, your wife better be on board!” I know guys who drug their wives into it and that is a recipe for disaster.

So … potential planters: Is your wife down with your plan? If not, push pause. Don’t just continue down the path like everything is going to be okay. It isn’t. And, a little inside information: My wife has a blog for church planting wives, and she gets comments and e-mails from ladies who say, “My husband is basically forcing me to do this. Help me!” … Any chance that’s your wife?

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Good Company!

Many of you may be aware that back in October the Virginia Beach newspaper did a front-page story on our church in which I was referred to as "husky." (I have lost some weight since October, but I digress). The story was then picked up by the Washington Times and other papers around the country, thereby sealing my fate as the "husky pastor."

Well, I was just reading the same paper's review of the new movie, "What Happens in Vegas..." starting Ashton Kutcher. In said review the movie commentator writes, "Who knew that Kutcher could be such a likable clown? He has been known primarily as the boy toy of an older woman, Demi Moore. Husky Kutcher, though, proves that he can handle facial expressions that illustrate the plight of a beer-guzzling guy who is falling for the wrong girl."

Wow!

I think Ashton Kutcher is a pretty good looking dude. So ... either I have a future starring in big romantic comedy movies OR maybe this newspaper just has a very limited thesaurus. (In which case "husky" wasn't the best choice of words to describe me. Let me suggest a few better options from my thesaurus: stunning, gorgeous, sexy, or 'a face that makes women break out into a sweat'.)

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Quote This

Are you like me? Do you love the good quotes? Well, love this:

"People fear the responsibility of being free. It is easier to let others made the decisions or to rely upon the letter of the law. Some people want to be slaves."
- Brennan Manning

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Bootcamp

Hey future church planters: Have you considered going to church planter bootcamp? It's an intensive time of teaching and working out a plan for starting your church. I know for a lot of people, it's been an invaluable experience.

Interested?

I'm speaking at a great one in June. Check out the details here.

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Church Planting Posts

I love what Bob Roberts is saying on his blog today about local church planting.

By the way, do you know why we so desperately need more new effectively evangelistic new churches? Check out this post and you also may want to see this graph.

And, by the way, the point of church planting is that it is the most effective way to reach large numbers of lost people.

And, by the way, the point of reaching lost people is God's heart. It beats for His children who are far from Him, that's why He sent His Son to bleed for them. The reason we want to reach lost people is because we love God.

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A Horse & Carriage (7 of 7)

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

Okay, last post in this series on a church planter’s spouse and marriage and I want to talk about BOUNDARIES and encourage you to establish some very clear, well defined, strong ones.

First, you need boundaries between your family and your church. Yeah, yeah, I know, your church is your family and we love them and we want to be available all the time. And there is truth in all that, but in other ways, it is not true. Your family is your family, and you need to love them most of all, and be available to them. And if you’re constantly answering the phone or checking your e-mail or setting up appointments on your day off, your family will suffer. You will have a wife and kids who resent you and resent the church. Hopefully they won’t resent God, but chances are they’ll do that too. So you need some boundaries. You need (at least) a day off each week where you are unavailable to your church unless someone dies or strikes oil. You need to not answer the phone or touch your computer at night when you’re hanging with your kids, or when you’re on a date with your spouse. Seriously, don’t just nod your head, do it.

Second, you need boundaries between you and other women. You need to protect your wife from having to ever have a doubt about you, or from experiencing the pain of your adultery, or from even the hint or appearance of something immoral. So set up boundaries that will prevent all that. I don’t mean with women alone, even out in public. If I have to talk to a lady in my office (which almost never happens) I have a big glass wall and an open door so everyone can see what’s going on. I don’t ride in a car if it’s just me and a lady. If I were to show up early for a small group and the only person in the house was a female, I’d sit out on the porch till someone else arrives. I won’t even open the front door of our house to a female if my wife isn’t home. That may sound silly, but I want to guard against even the appearance of immorality. And so if my wife’s friend is dropping off at Tupperwear container, and I open the door, take it, and she walks away – but my neighbor drives up right then and sees me closing the door and this lady walking down my driveway, and notices my wife’s not home – what is my neighbor going to think?

People have made fun of me for how serious I am about the boundaries I’ve put up, and that feels a little weird for me. But not as weird as it would feel to have to explain to my kids and church that I’m getting divorced... I'll take the boundaries anyday.

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 6)

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

We're nearing the end of this series, and my advice for today: Date your spouse. Again, everyone says that, and it seems like common sense, it’s just not very common. And there are all kinds of excuses: “We don’t have the time.” “We don’t have a babysitter.” “We don’t have the money.” “American Idol is on tonight.” But there is a theological response to each of those objections: Bullcrap! None of that is a good enough reason to not date your spouse.

When you first met and started dating you both showed each other your best sides, you pursued each other, you made sure you have fun together. Then you got married, went into ministry, maybe had a kid … and your marriage feels boring and your wife isn’t exciting and other women seem more alluring. The theological response to that is: Duh! Of course that’s going to happen, because you’ve stopped pursuing each other.

My wife and I totally went through this. When we were first married we made fun of couples who had a “date night” because we had a “date life.” Then ministry and kids happened, and suddenly we didn’t have a date anything. We went to counseling and the guy asked us if things were ever great in our marriage. We said yes and told him about how things were when we were first married. He said, “Well, if you want things the way they were, you need to do what you did.” (Again, duh!)

So we started clearing our schedules to talk or play games several nights a week, and made sure to go on a few dates a month. At first it felt kind of awkward, but pretty soon we were almost back to when things were really good.

So are things boring or even bad in your marriage? Then do the things you used to do. Or if things were never great, you’ll have to do things you never did to get something you’ve never had. Now stop reading this stupid blog, call your wife, and set up a freakin’ date.

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Crazy Love

One of my favorite preachers to listen to is Francis Chan, who is one intense dude - and his intensity is all directed towards Jesus - which is where I want mine to be!

Chan's first book, Crazy Love, just came out. I read it last week and highly recommend it. You know how sometimes people will say, "It was like drinking from a fire hydrant"? Well, this book is like drinking from a baseball bat. It's like Chan holds you down with one hand and beats you with a baseball bat held in the other. And I mean that in the best possible way.

The book is about the greatness of God, but even more about how we should respond to a God that amazing. Chan holds up the standards for true discipleship of Jesus, rather than of the modern-day American church. It's scorching, again in the best possible way.

Go out and get this book, it's challenged me in a way that no other book has in awhile.

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 5)

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

Here’s another thing I feel strongly about and I think protects your wife: Don’t have expectations for her beyond what you would have for any other mature Christian.

Now if you’re a mature Christian and you attend Forefront, I have certain expectations for you. You’ll practice spiritual disciplines, live in community with other believers, serve, lead, tithe, develop relationships with people who are far from God and invite them to meet Him. Those expectations come from God and His Word. And if my wife isn’t living up to those basic expectations, she has a problem, and I am going to lovingly challenge her on that, just like I would with anyone else.

What I try not to do is have higher expectations for her than I do for everyone else. She’s a mature Christian, so she should live like one, but she’s not a Superwoman – so I shouldn’t expect her to live like one. Of course she’ll probably be more invested in the church than anyone but me, but she’s not me. God didn’t call her to be me, or to be the Lead Pastor of this joint. And it’s not fair for me to expect her to be Superwoman, or to be me.

I also don’t have specific expectations for her, as far as her ministry role. Just because she’s the pastor’s wife doesn’t mean she has to play the piano. (Forefront doesn’t have a piano, so this one is actually pretty easy.) Just because some other pastor’s wife volunteers in the Children’s Ministry, doesn’t mean she has to. Some other pastor’s wives may be real up-front types, but that might not be what God created her to be.

If you’re planting a church, or even if you’re leading an established one, it’s going to be difficult enough on your wife. She doesn’t need any extra pressures, so don’t put higher or more specific expectations on her than what God has for her. Let God be her God, you be her supportive husband.

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Multiplying Church Discussion

Remember a couple weeks ago I did a series of posts on Bob Robert's book The Multiplying Church? Well, someone with even more knowledge and authority on Bob Robert's book is doing a series of posts on that book ... Bob Robert's himself. Want to check it out? You should! Go here to do so...

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 4)

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

This one is especially for church planters (though it may apply equally to pastors of established churches): I really encourage spouses to be on different emotional journeys. What I mean is that if you’re both fully living and dying with exactly the same things - that is going to be a crazy emotional roller coaster that I personally wouldn’t want to be on. So, for instance, if you’re both totally focused on the attendance, or the offering, and it’s bad this week, you’re both going to be out on the ledge, with no one to talk you down. I’m not saying your wife shouldn’t care about how the church is doing, of course she will, but I am saying that things will likely go better if she’s more concerned with aspects of the church that you’re not so focused on. Maybe she’s really into the Student Ministry, and on the week the offering stinks things with the Student Ministry are rocking, and vice versa, so you can encourage each other.

On a related note: I’m a fan of not telling your wife everything. As a pastor you’re going to deal with a lot of stuff, and a lot of it will be about people. I try to tell my wife as little as possible. If it doesn’t impact her, I don’t tell her, unless it’s HUGE and I feel like I have to. Why? Well, first, it’s not necessarily any of her business. Second, it’s usually depressing enough for me to have to deal with, why should she have to as well? Third, I don’t want her to have negative opinions of people on staff or in the church. --- So, usually if something has me down and she asks what it is, my answer is, “You don’t want to know. Don’t worry about it. It will be fine.”

You may disagree with my philosophy on all this, but it’s worked well for us for ten years now, kept us off the roller coaster, and allowed each of us to have the other to talk us off the ledge.

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You Might Be A Redneck If...

Know that whole, "You might be a redneck if ..." ("You think 'loading the dishwasher' means getting your wife drunk" "You were shooting pool when any of your kids was born") schtick?

Well, today I had a, "You might have a great church if ..." kind of morning:

• You might have a great church if ... you've been gone two weeks and you find out one of the new people coming is the owner and premiere artist at the hot local tatoo shop.
• You might have a great church if ... you find out that the guy started coming because one of his customers invited him to come see her get baptized at Forefront.
• You might have a great church if ... your service opens with your band absolutely rocking "King Nothing" by Metallica.
• You might have a great church if ... you play an interactive, audience participation game called, "Name That King!" which has people screaming, "King Kong!" "Hank Hill!" "Michael Jackson!" "I have no idea!"
• You have a time where Children's Ministry volunteers are honored and the importance of raising up the next generation of radical love God, love people Christians is highlighted.
• You might have a great church if your sermon bumper/introduction video looks like this:
  
  
  

• You might have a great church if ... you preach a "kick people in the teeth" kind of message about making Jesus the king of our lives, and how He won't allow us to follow Him (and we can't call ourselves followers) because God opposes the proud ... and then seeing people take off the crowns they had been given on the way in, and hearing people sniffling in the prayer time that followed.
• You might have a great church if ... so many people help with breakdown that you end up getting done and leaving way early.

So ... we can check off all those today. The best thing is that Jesus was totally help up as being great and the only thing worth giving our lives to - which He is. And anything great about our church is totally because of Him.

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Survey Saturday!!!

Yes, call your grandma and release the monkeys, it's another Survey Saturday!

Today's question: What's the best book you've read in 2008? And what makes it so great?

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Quote This

Are you like me? Do you love the good quotes? Well, love this:

"Love changes us... Spiritual formation, a term used to describe the process of being changed into the image of Christ, doesn't happen by following disciplines. It happens by falling in love. When we fall in love with Jesus, all the other loves in our life fall into place. ... Everything in our life finds its proper value once we have properly valued him."
- Ken Gire

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A Horse & Carriage? (Part 3)

Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…

Your wife comes before your church. I know you’ve heard that before, and it may even sound like a cliché to you, but if its such common sense, why isn’t it more common? And, more personally, are you actually living it or is it just a cliché you agree with? Or, more pointedly, if I asked your wife if she knows that she’s more important to you than your ministry and church, would she say yes? Would she hesitate?

There are all kinds of insane statistics about how bad ministry is for marriage, and how unhappy pastor’s wives are, and how many pastors are looking at pornography or having affairs. And I’ve never seen a statistic on how many pastor’s wives fantasize about men who aren’t their husbands, but my guess is that it’s more than the amount of husbands who look at porn.

So what’s the answer for all this crap? Well, part of it is you making sure you put your wife before your church. Seriously. Listen, your church can get another pastor and will someday, your wife shouldn’t have to get another husband and hopefully won’t someday.

If you want more (and better) thoughts on this, read Andy Stanley’s book, “Choosing to Cheat.”

If your marriage is currently so strained that you can’t picture putting your wife first, go to counseling, go directly to counseling, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Yes, I’m serious. Yes, my wife and I have done it. Yes, it totally helped us. Stop making stupid excuses, just do it.

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