I have a bunch of church planters and some who have an interest in planting a church that follow my
blog. So I will periodically give some church planting advice that may be helpful to some of you.
1. You must know that you are called by God! Has God spoken to your heart to plant a church? Could you do anything else and be
fulfilled? As Bill
Hybles would say, is there a HOLY DISCONTENT inside of you and you know without a
shadow of a doubt that God is speaking to you to plant a church? Or does planting a church just seem like a cool, fun and good idea?
Bottom line, you better be called or you won't last long.
2. A good question to ask yourself is, “Have I been successful at starting or leading anything throughout my lifetime?” I was in
New York a little over a month ago speaking at a conference and the leader of the conference said something very interesting to me. He told me that in their state they find a lot of people who want to plant a church because every other ministry they've been a part of hasn't been too fruitful so they thought church planting was the route to go. Early on they allowed these people to plant churches, and none of them worked! If you're not seeing fruit and success where you are, you may not be called to be the lead planter. If you never started anything from beginning to end and saw some kind of success, you may not be a lead planter. If you've never been the leader over something or lead something successfully, you may not be called to be the lead planter. Please don't have this mentality, "Well, it hasn't worked out in youth ministry, so I'm called to plant a church." YIKES, I'm nervous for you if you think that!
If you have friends who are beginning a church plant or they're thinking about planting a church, let them know about this
blog.
MORE ON CHURCH PLANTING TOMORROW!
