Every one has different expectations of what the Lead Pastor is supposed to do. In our church I could already spend all of my time pastoring the people we have. From day one I decided there were only a few things I would do as the pastor.
I would:
- Lead the staff where the could lead the church
- Teach on Sundays
- Cast vision and direction
- Mentor young leaders
And to keep me from dying to plant another church I will lead up any of our church planting efforts.
I think it is easy to as planters to try and do every thing for fear that it won’t get done. I decided from the start that if nothing else got done then that would be fine but I wasn’t going to bail everyone out everytime they couldn’t get something done.
Decide what are the best things you can do with your time and focus on those things.
People WILL step up and fill in the needs but if you are doing it all they won’t see the need.
I would love to hear from some of you planters about what you spend your time doing?
Okay, I am sick of everyone like Tally, Scott Hodge, Perry Noble, and Steve Dilla having cool banner thingys at the top of their blogs. For those of you who don’t know, I am a computer idiot but this week I am getting one of our guys to create me a banner. So my question is how do I get it at the top of my blog?
Help a brother out!!!!
There are some great bloggers out there in cyberspace. One of them is Tally Wilgis, who pastors Focal Point Church. Tally has a great post on raising up leaders that really convicted me. To read his thoughts, click here.
I think the one of the greatest mistakes church planters make is not enjoying the ride of church planting. In our first plant, I NEVER was able to enjoy what God was doing. I never enjoyed big days because there was a bigger day that needed to happen. I never enjoyed someone coming to know Christ because there were others that needed to know Him. I look back on that plant and I remember very few good times. That is a shame.
This time I purposed in my heart to enjoy every stop on the ride. I even put it in our mission statement: RSC exists to honor God by living the Adventure of a Lifetime…and have a blast doing it! This is not always easy but if I can’t enjoy doing it then it is time to move on.
Let me encourage all of you planters to enjoy the planting of your churches. It isn’t easy, it is frustrating, you are always striving for better results, and that is natural. But never get so caught up in the next step that you don’t enjoy it.
Planting a church is the extreme sport of ministy. Enjoy it!!!! It is like raising children, it will not be a plant one day and you will look back with regret that you didn’t enjoy it more.
I did the first time….I refuse to this time.
Man, I just found out today another church plant in our area is closing down. I was surprised at how it made me feel when I found out. It broke my heart and again made me realize how gracious God has been to us at RSC.
I started reading Worthwhile magazine when it started coming out a few months ago and I get more impressed every issue. To me it was Fast Company use to be. The latest issue has a great story on the President of GoDaddy and a great article on portable office spaces. I think (let me dodge the arrows) it is very important for planters to read business books and business magazines. Many things we go through are the exact same thing some of the great leaders went through in starting their companies. Why would we not want to learn from their mistakes and hear their stories?
If you haven’t checked out Worthwhile pick up the latest issue and tell me what you think.
They even have a blog.
I got a surprise call yesterday from Greg Rohlinger. He was in town and we got to hang out until about midnight. Greg is the church planter and pastor of Palm Valley Community Church in Arizona. Greg was one of the guys who was there for me when we were going throuh hell in our first church plant. He is one of the few true church planters I know that is truly blowing the doors off. PVCC is about 5 years old and running over 2,000 a week. The amazing thing is Greg started with nothing.
It was great to sit and talk to someone who has already been where we are now. He has fought the same battles and gone through the same junk. I left the meeting with my head so full and so excited to get RSC to the next level. It is so important for church planters to have guys around them that are doing more. If all we do is hang with guys doing what we are doing, there is no stretching going on. I want to be in groups where we are doing the least. Being around those type of guys gets me refueled.
I want to post more about what we talked about but I think I’ll wait until Monday and make them me “cool church plant of the week.”
I came across The Missional Group today. Could end up being an interesting blog, so if you get a chance, check it out.
The Christian Index just did a story on church planting in Georgia and Ridge Stone was mentioned and there is even a picture of yours truly in there. To read the article, click here.
Wouldn’t it be cool if this was the way the established churches in our communities truly felt about us church planters coming to town?
On second thought, what fun would that be?
