How mean are you?

I am very blessed to have some great planters who have invested in my life and ministry with great wisdom. One of these men was Shawn Lovejoy, the pastor of Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, Ga. Shawn truly has a heart for church planters and has been a great ear for me on a couple of occasions.

Before we started Ridge Stone, we were taking our core group to visit other churches where they could get a vibe for what we were doing. I will never forget when we visited MLC because Shawn said something that I never forgot and have clung too a lot lately.

He looked at me in front of my core team and said, “Gary, the best advice I can give you is to be mean about your vision. Do not compromise even if these people here with you today want you too. Be mean.”

As of this week we have lost almost our entire core team since we started. It hurt and I love these people but one by one they have left. Our church has not noticed and we have continued to grow at a rapid rate but nevertheless it is frustrating that after a year of planning and 8 months of doing it, that they didn’t get it.

They never got the fact that it wasn’t about them. They said they wanted to reach unchurched but that wasn’t true. These people were my friends and we dreamed together but when they wanted the vision to change, I remembered those words that were spoken to me by Shawn.

It hasn’t been easy, but I have chosen to be mean about the vision here. I think that is another reason we have seen success.

I think church planters tell people what they want to hear and when those people start trying to get you to change to fit their needs for a church, we are so afraid of losing them, that we change the vision to keep them. That never works.

If God called you to plant, be mean about the vision God has given you. Don’t change it, don’t compromise it, be mean about it and God will bless it.