Church Planting - Lesson 2

No matter where you are on the church-model spectrum few would argue that growing a congregation is something most church planters keep their eyes on. From your initial “public service” to the attendance ebb and flow of the year, emotions (and unfortunately esteem and worth) can easily rise and fall with how many more plastic, “easily stackable” blue seats you’ve put out on the rented elementary school’s “cafetorium” floor than when you first began. Far from being unspiritual as some might have you believe (see book of Acts), growing numerically is a chief concern for a planter. That is if he desires to add staff, meet monthly church expenses, increase ministry resources, not to mention paying a home mortgage, supporting his family and continuing to eat. I’m sure there may be a few more reasons that have slipped my mind. Needless to say, having a newly planted church gaining in attendance is a big factor in said church staying in existence.

However a caution must be issued and a suggestion extended. Before you build a crowd you should first build an army.

Many planters know this but several dismiss it in pursuit of adding to their membership roll way too soon. The idea is simply that until you do anything to really promote or market your church, you first build into a core group who “lock, stock and barrel” buy into your vision, values and ministry model. These men and women will go to the wall for you. They’ll defend you even if they don’t have all the information. They’re loyal, committed and put their service where their mouth is. Usually armies like this aren’t assembled, they’re forged – with your blood, sweat and tears being the catalytic mixture. In other words, forging takes intensity and time…a lot of it. You can’t build an army at an “established church”-pastor’s pace. You’re a church planter which means an insanely inordinate amount of front-end work to get your core to where they need to be – a lot of dinners in the homes of others, grabbing breakfast with a different collection of guys at the local Denny’s every other day and a bunch of work in between. Tiring? Yes, but remember you’re building an army not a crowd.

Think of your core group as your church’s antibodies. The more you have the less exposed your congregation is to the illnesses of renegade lay leaders who want to change the church’s mission, pockets of “hobby horse” groups who bring disunity over what the pastor (and his team) haven’t done ministry-wise and a whole host of other malignant attacks church plants usually suffer. Remember that when you’re about to explode from eating out so much, or when you forget what day it is due to the breakneck pace of the last seven days (or was it the last fourteen?) or when you find yourself in a message-prep “cram session” on Saturday night because important meetings filled up most of the day, you are doing the hard work now so when potential congregation-destroying “germs” hit your church during its fragile infancy you’ll come out the other side intact and focused on your mission because you’ve given it a robust immunity system. Don’t worry, you’ll likely have enough examples of how church planters didn’t do this well – they’ll either painfully meander the ecclesiastical desert of strip malls with about 100 people for years, raise the white flag and merge with another church or just close up shop altogether.

I would also encourage the church’s first public service (and maybe even the next couple following weekends) to be dedicated to extolling and explaining the mission and vision of the church. Set the tone early for those who’ve just shone up and are wondering if they want to pitch in with the rest. Tell the people who you are AND who you are not. The message should both attract and repel - it should aim at inspiring the people who will stack hands on the church's mission and push away those who want something different from you and the church. This kind of sermon (or sermon series) will also galvanize your army even further as they see that all the leadership you’ve given to this point wasn’t just smoke and mirrors but truly the DNA of the lead pastor (and by association…the church he is beginning). By the way, I hope you like giving these kind of messages because you’ll be preaching them to the congregation for the rest of your life with the church. At least you will if you’re a good leader.

So remember, fight the idea of building a crowd in lieu of an army. It’s not worth it. The penalty may be far more congregational fires than you are willing, or even able, to put out. Don’t prematurely shoot the starting pistol until you’ve done all you can to forge a group who will be willing to cross the line in the sand for the church’s mission and your leadership in it.

Build an army before a crowd.

Church Planting - Lesson 1

One of the earliest lessons learned when starting a church is that while a lead pastor (and his staff) may have a big vision, usually the resources at the church’s disposal to match that vision aren’t quite so extensive. That hard truth rears its head quite early and often in the daily ins and outs of the church leader…

• “Man, what we really need is that HD video screen to run our Sunday morning slides. Can we get one?”
  
• “Hey Pastor, I think we need to do a Singles’ Outreach Concert. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
  
• “If we’re going to go to the next level as a children’s ministry we definitely need another staff person.”
  
• I could go on ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
  

A good leader should constantly be mindful of two circles (one inside the other) – the vision circle and the resources circle – and how your vision should always determine the focus and intensity of the resources circle. Vision is always larger. Pastors usually have tons of vision. Ask them about their vision and they should be able to spout “vision” all day and night. The needle for vision is often past the F on the tank of a pastor’s heart. But vision is also cheap. It doesn’t cost anything to think of what you want to be, where you want to go or what you want to do. Resources? Well, that’s another story.

Resources by definition are limited. And for some who are beginning a new congregation, “limited” can be putting it modestly. I would guess planters are limited in time, money and people probably more in the seminal years of the church than any other season. That’s why it’s critical to understand the two circles very early in the game.

Think of your vision as the bigger outer circle (and really the furthest edge of the circle is our concern) and your current resources as the inner circle. [See fig. 1] In a perfect world our resource circle matches, if not exceeds, the size of the vision circle. If we see it we can do it. Ah, what a nice world in which to live! When you arrive tell me how it feels because I’m nowhere close. I don’t think any of us are. Most of us have ever-increasing vision. Our resources, on the other hand, for the most part are fixed in size. Yes, we want them to grow and hopefully they will but it’s so incremental that for all intents and purposes the inner circle we draw is normally much smaller.

Question: What happens to your resources as you try to move them toward your vision? The circle flattens out a bit – more oval than circle.


This should help us see that in order for us to “resource the vision” other things which don’t serve your particular vision (possibly new ministries, additional but not essential staff, etc.) may need to be taken off the table financially speaking. This sometimes tough leadership call is critical or you’ll find yourself throwing time, money and people at distracting endeavors that will keep you from meeting your vision. You may be doing a lot of things as a result, but rarely will you be doing the best things – things that move you down the road toward your vision. In the end you wind up with the same circle you began with because it's stretching toward every direction trying to meet everyone else’s passion, focus and vision.

The most effective churches I know are led by those who work hard at moving the resource circle to the right vision and fighting off attempts to do anything less.

So how do you best stretch the resource circle? Here are a few ideas:

1. Know your vision. Know your vision. Know your vision. If you can’t articulate your vision in a heart-inspiring, troop-rallying, dig-in-for-the-long-haul fashion, you better fix that quickly! If you didn't learn this in Church Planting 101 you may need to go back to school. Seriously, if you need help you might check out Acts 29 Network. These guys are solid.
   
2. Learn to say “No” early and often. You don’t have to be a jerk but you do have to be “graciously tenacious” in redirecting the gaze of those you lead to better paths. This is where your ability to communicate the vision will come in handy! It takes hard work to shepherd (and not manipulate or domineer, cf., 2 Cor. 1:24) people to your spot on the vision circle.
   
3. Work at enlarging the resource circle. Teach giving early and with regularity. Don’t be apologetic or embarrassed when you’re in the pulpit. It’s biblical. Get over it. If you can’t muster the courage, don’t complain when your resource circle hasn’t kept up with the congregation’s spiritual growth in other areas. I appeal to you that it is for Western Christians just as much about discipleship as anything else.
4. Regularly evaluate how you’ve done. Does your spending overlap well with your vision? Have the financial, staffing and other leadership decisions you’ve made recently stretched the resource circle or pulled it back to its ineffective roundness in an attempt to meet additional (read:lesser) visions? Ask the hard questions. Get the brutal facts. Then, like a great football team at halftime, make the right adjustments.

Lessons Learned on Church-Planting

I'm not a church planter. I came to the church I presently serve when it was 4 1/2 years old. It is now 14 years old. While I did contemplate planting a church prior to coming, the young age of the church was motivation enough for me to join the team as Teaching Pastor. I knew I could still be someone who could influence the direction of the church in a strategically foundational way - something which for me was a deep thirst whose slaking was non-negotiable.

To keep the story short, let me just say that's exactly what happened (and by God's grace continues to happen).

Over the next few posts I'd like to share some lessons learned about being a part of a church plant. I don't promise anything earth-shattering or even insightful. These are ideas and thoughts that helped me and my team. With that being said, please know I'm not sure how many of these lessons are mine and how many belong to others on our team. Time and teamwork have wonderfully blurred the lines. No matter where they originated (as if anything is original) they are beliefs, ideas and insights that have shaped our church, honed the leadership quotient of our team - one which I believe rivals any around - and continue to guide us in many respects.

As I have the opportunity to counsel (and be counseled) by those who, like me, have been given the great honor and responsibility to shepherd relatively new congregations, these lessons continue to resurface in my conversations. So I thought I'd put them down...for better or worse.

Stay tuned...