CHURCH PLANTING

CHURCH PLANTING

 EXCERPTS FOR GOSPEL MINISTERS AND CHURCH PLANTERS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0    What is Church Planting?

1.1    God’s collaboration in Church Planting

1.2    God exists in Togetherness

1.3    Dancing Together with God

2.0    Why plant Churches?

2.1    Why should we care about Church Planting?

2.2    God’s math is often different than our math

3.0    How does Church Planting benefit the sending Church?

3.1    Send the Best

3.2    How does Church Planting bless the sending Church?

3.3    Church Multiplication Challenge

3.4    Sobering Realities

3.5    Addition, Reproduction and Multiplication

3.6    The Call to your Church

3.7    A Declaration of Multiplication

4.0    Types of Churches

4.1    5 types of churches

4.2    How your Church can get the Ball Rolling on Planting

4.3    Steps your Church can take at the Beginning stages of Planting

4.4    Prioritize Life and Eternity over Personal Opinions

5.0    The Don’ts in Church Planting

5.1    8 Things not to do in Church Planting

5.2    Errors in thinking that stunt Church Growth

6.0    How to Build a Church Planting Culture

6.1    Sending People Out

6.2    Planting Patterns

6.3    Sacrifice

7.0    The No. 1 Threat to Pastor

7.1    The Names and Faces of Pride

7.2    Pride in Israel’s Leaders

8.0    Symptoms of trying to live the Christian Life

8.1    Symptoms of trying

9.0    How to keep your Church Appealing to Young People

9.1    These 7 practices will help you stay ahead of the Church

9.2    The Birth of a New Church is Inspiring

9.3    How the Leader in you can help the teacher in you

9.4    3 Clearing Church Growth Trends

9.5    Eight Qualities of Successful Church Planters

9.6    How does Church Planter Organizes their time

1.0 What is CHURCH PLANTING?

The idea of sending people or resources into new areas in the hopes of starting a new church is, of course, what we now refer to as church planting.

Church Planting is a process that results in a new (local) Christian Church being established. It should be distinguished from church development, where a new service, new worship center or fresh expression is created that is integrated into an already established congregation. The church is God’s creation. Jesus has said that He will build His church (Math.16:18), and he is continually going about the work of strengthening and spreading his church.

When thought of from this perspective, the church should be seed as universal. It is the community of all believers across the world-past, present and future.

The way Jesus builds this is through the reproduction of local churches.

1.1 GOD’S COLLABORATION IN CHURCH PLANTING.

What is missing from many of our efforts and strategies? Doing it Together! We are all very familiar with the Great Commission and the challenge to “Go.” There has been much taught on the Great Commandment and the need to go with “Love.” But it is the last part of Jesus’ mission – which was Jesus’ final prayer – that we have forgotten. It’s the Great Collaboration – that we are to go in love Together!

“…that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me…” John 17:22-23

God himself is better together.

Seems like an odd statement, but this is a simple, yet crucial theological truth. It explains why the Great Collaboration is so important. It also explains why we are better together. Let me say it again so that it sinks in: God himself is better together.

Most of what I’m about to share with you has come from people smarter than I am, who influenced my understanding of a relational God. Make sure you’re fully caffeinated—you may need it. But read every word and, if necessary, read it slowly. This will give you the theological foundation for the Great Collaboration and also further explain why we are better together.

1.2 GOD EXISTS IN TOGETHERNESS

At the very start of Scripture—literally the first verse of Genesis—we’re told that the God who created us and in whose image we are created has existed in togetherness from the beginning of time. And that this same God who has always existed in togetherness invites us to do life together with him. To understand better, let’s go back to the very beginning.

We see the “togetherness” in the first three verses of Genesis:

Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning was God …

Genesis was originally written in Hebrew, and the word used for God is Elohim, a grammatically plural noun. Why is it plural?

Genesis 1:2 – … the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters …

In the next verse, Scripture tells us that the Spirit of Elohim is hovering over the face of the waters. So Elohim also has a Spirit.

Genesis 1:3 – And God said …

Then in verse 3, Elohim speaks and Elohim has words.

Throughout the rest of the chapter, God creates. And everything that God, the Spirit of God and the Word of God create is “good.” It’s all good.

And then God reveals more of himself to us.

Genesis 1:26 – Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness …”

“Us?”

“Our?”

That may sound weird to us, but like I told you, the “us” and “our” fit because the word Elohim is plural. But Elohim doesn’t mean “Gods,” because the verb tenses and adjectives that refer to Elohim are all singular, referring to one being.

Genesis 1 isn’t the only place in Scripture where we see this; we also find it in John 1:1: In the beginning (sound familiar?) was the Word … Remember that in Genesis 1 God speaks and in John 1 we learn, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

This Word is not on it; the Word in these scriptures is a he. He was with God in the beginning, through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people … Then a few verses later: … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us … This Word that was with God and was God from the beginning becomes a human being, dwells among us and took on the name of Jesus.

God has existed from the beginning as one and yet three. Before you get stuck on how it doesn’t add up, please get what these Scriptures are telling us about God: Though God is one, he has always existed in togetherness; and it was in togetherness that he created a perfect world.

While we absolutely need to understand our triune God, we also need to understand how God related in togetherness. For this key understanding, let’s go back to the Gospel of John, beginning with 16:14, which tells us that the Spirit glorifies the Son. A few verses later, John 17:4 says the Son glorifies the Father. And in the next verse, John tells us the Father glorifies the Son and that this glorifying has been going on for all eternity.

To “glorify” something or someone means to praise, enjoy, to direct attention to them, and most of all to delight in them. To glorify someone, you must serve or defer to him or her. So from all eternity, before the beginning, the Father, Son and Spirit have been glorifying each other. They have this un-self-centered relationship in which they revolve around each other. None makes the others revolve around himself. Instead, each person in the Trinity loves, adores, defers to, and rejoices in the others. That gives us a beautiful picture: God existing in a community of persons who know and love each other. Throughout all eternity, their relationship is this dynamic, pulsating, dance of joy and love. God in togetherness.

Some of the earliest Christ-followers had a word for this dance, perichoresis. It comes from the same Greek word that gives us the word “choreography.” Perichoresis means to dance or flow around each other. Imagine a beautiful dance of endless, creative, self-giving love where the other dancers are drawing the attention away from themselves toward the other. Can you see it? The Trinity explains why we believe that “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

This is so, so important. Because when God says, …let us make man in our own image in Genesis 1, he tells us that we are to be a reflection, an image of who he is. Just as the God of the universe is a dance of love, our lives are also meant to join in the dance of self-giving love.

1.3 DANCING TOGETHER WITH GOD

Several years ago, I had the privilege of attending a spiritual retreat led by author Brennan Manning. He was a brilliant writer and speaker. The retreat was very simple, but life changing. Manning would speak, and then asked us to go off by ourselves and journal about what we were experiencing with God. After being on our own, we came back and sat in groups to share our experiences.

He told a story from one summer retreat in Iowa City. A nun was one of the participants and when it was time for her to share in her group what she’d experienced, she said, “I got nothing. I’m not hearing anything. I’m not feeling anything. I must be doing something wrong.” Manning had a way of comforting people. He quickly assured her, “No, no, no, it’s ok, it’s just different for you. It’ll come.” They went through the whole weekend. Each time when it was her turn to share, she’d say, “I got nothing.”

Then the last day he spoke and everybody went off to journal. But this time, Christine got something.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” she shared. “It was like a dream. I was asking God to show me and help me understand what I’m missing; and suddenly it was like I was transported into this huge dance hall. It was like a ballroom, and everybody was dressed very elegantly. All around me, everyone was dancing, beautiful dances, perfectly, nobody missing a single step. I went over and stood against the wall. I stood there through a couple of songs all by myself. Then this gentleman came up to me. I don’t know if he’d been there all along, but he had on this striking black tux with a red flower. He came up to me, extended his hand and said, ‘Can we dance?’ I told him, ‘I’m not very good,’ and he said, ‘It’s ok. I’ll lead the way.’

“Next, he took me by the hand out on the dance floor and we began to dance. And I’ve never danced like that. We spun. We dipped. It was amazing. As we danced, everyone else stopped dancing and just formed a big circle around us. When the song ended, everyone applauded just for us. And the man looked at me and said, ‘Thank you for having this dance with me.’ As he looked into my eyes, I knew it was Jesus. Again he said, ‘Thank you for this dance.’ And then added, ‘Let me tell you one more thing.’ He bent down and whispered in my ear, ‘Christine, I’m wild about you.’”

Christine concluded, “I know it sounds odd, but it’s true. He said to me, ‘I’m wild about you,’ and I know I will never be the same again.”

I love that story! I hope you took away from the theological deep dive and Manning’s story that God is extending his hand to you, asking you to do life together with him. The Great Collaboration starts with you being together with God. Before God can create a movement through you, He must first move in you. Before God will create community through you, he must first be in community with you. Only a whole and healthy leader doing life in communion with God can lead themselves, their family, their team and their church into greater experiences of being together with God—and one another.

2.0 WHY PLANT CHURCHES?

Planting churches is part in parcel to fulfilling the Great Commission.

We’re all familiar with the Great Commission, Jesus’ instructions to go out and “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19–20). These instructions were the driving force behind the growth of Christianity.

Church planting is an essential part of our commission to make disciples of all nations. Yet, church planting is never explicitly named in the Bible.

But the New Testament writers never really needed to define church planting—in the same way fish do not need to explain water and humans do not need to explain air, the Bible writers never needed to tell people to plant churches. At the time the Epistles were written, church planting was a constant, ongoing event; it was a regular part of life for Christians who spread the good news around the world. The Epistles gave churches a doctrine to follow, and the Gospels gave the narrative of Jesus.

2.1 So, why should we care about church planting?

i.       Biblical Reasons: In some ways, the history of church planting began with Paul, who went to new places and shared the story of Jesus, primarily with the goal of sharing Jesus with new people. Paul planted, and in some cases they grew the church, and the expansion continued. By the second century, bishops started to send people into rural areas to plant more and more churches.

This theme of sending people or resources into new areas in the hopes of starting a new church is, of course, what we now refer to as church planting.

If we really think about it, there has been no great move of God without either a proceeding or accompanying move of church planting. For example, during the Second Great Awakening, churches came first and people followed. New Christians appeared after churches sprang up in states like Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee.

ii.      A Theological Reason: Scripture tells us that “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10). Simply, the church is God’s instrument. God uses the church to teach us and to help us grow in our faith, so it’s only logical that with more churches come more opportunities for the gospel to reach new people.

iii.     A Sociological Reason: There is sociology behind the development of new Christians and church planting: People like new things. Years ago, I started a church in Pennsylvania. We grew to about 400 people coming regularly in three years, and we decided to plant two daughter churches in the area.

We invested in these new churches, sending people to lead Bible studies and hiring new staff members to grow the new congregation. On the Sunday that the two new churches launched, our church lost about 80 people. The church planter at one of the new churches even convinced one of our worship teams to join their new church. It was a perfect example of people being attracted to something new.

PLANTING MORE?

If we understand the theology and sociology of planting churches, it only makes sense to ask the next question: How do we plant more churches for the glory of God?

Part of church planting includes simply allowing God to do his work. When 80 members of our congregation joined our daughter churches, God filled the roles they’d left behind by empowering new people to step up. Although we lost an entire worship team, we rebuilt piece by piece and our church continued to grow. Within the next few years, our church grew beyond our expectations.

2.2 God’s math is often different than our own math: If your congregation is leery about planting an entirely new church, there are small steps that churches can take to begin the journey of church planting. There are always opportunities to serve as a “mother church” to another group. You can offer financial resources, maybe by giving a percentage of your church’s finances to another.

You can also offer services, such as leaders for Bible studies or volunteers to run events. Yet another option is to partner with a church outside of your cultural context. By doing this, it introduces your church to new people, and it allows for your congregation to serve in a new capacity.

Regardless of which direction your church is currently moving in its church planting goals, we must remember that the main goal of church planting is to share the love of Jesus through our work.

When we keep that fact at the center of all we do, God will be rightly glorified.

3.0 HOW DOES CHURCH PLANTING BENEFIT THE SENDING CHURCH? Can giving away your best people be a good thing?

How can giving away our best people possibly be good for us?

This is precisely what many congregations wonder when they encounter the idea of church planting. I understand the question and concern, but I want to challenge the underlying mindset.

3.1 Send the Best: That we-can’t-send-off-our-best-people mentality is more like a baseball general manager not wanting to trade his best players than it’s like the New Testament ministry model. Paul and Barnabas were sent out from the church in Antioch (Acts 13:1–3); and when it came to our salvation, the Father sent heaven’s best for us (John 17:18).

Churches not on mission will be anemic in their discipleship and will lack healthy growth. Not only are we sanctified for mission; we’re sanctified through it.

3.2 So how does church planting bless the sending church?

 Here are six ways.

1. It Keeps People’s Focus on the Great Commission: Consumerism is a big problem in America (and many other parts of the world). But when this reality seeps into the church, the problem is huge. Focusing on church planting helps to fight consumerism in the body.

By being involved in church planting, you remind people that real church membership is not like going to the movies. It’s more like joining the military. The church is not a place to “eat popcorn” while the pastor preaches. Rather, it’s where we gather to worship God and get sent out together on mission. When churches stop focusing on the Great Commission, death is coming. The church that is not sending is ending.

2. It Causes People to Live as Citizens of Heaven: Church planting causes people to say lots of “gospel goodbyes”—these are painful farewells driven by gospel purposes.

This is a hard one. We don’t want to lose our best people. It hurts. But we do it because of what’s at stake, and because Christ is worthy. As Christians, we know that we have trillions of years to spend together in glory, so a goodbye for a few decades now is worth it. This is part of what it looks like to live in light of our heavenly citizenship (Phil. 3:20). There’s no pain we suffer now in service to Christ that will not be worth it when we see him face to face.

3. It Sets a High Bar for Discipleship: Discipleship must not be reduced to mere information transfer (as important as that is). Rather, we teach people the truths of God’s Word that they might be changed and live on mission as God’s people. We must disciple people in view of mission. Church planting emphasizes mission as a part of the discipleship process.

4. It Fosters a Culture of Generosity and Unity: When a church keeps the gospel and mission central, then (generally speaking) a lot of the little squabbles won’t be such a big deal, because you’re focused on what is central. Unity is cultivated where people are focused on the main things.

Church planting also encourages generosity. In our church, a 74-year-old business owner gives regularly to the mission, including direct gifts to one of our young church planters in France. I love seeing the two interact with each other when our planter visits. It’s a beautiful picture of generosity and gospel partnership across generational lines.

5. It Causes People to Think About Contextualization: When churches send people to plant churches in various parts of the world, those church planters come back with all kinds of crazy—and sad—stories of the idolatry of the nations. Now, it can be easy to sit in judgment over such people, until we realize that we’re a nation too, and we have all kinds of our own idols (we’re often just blind to them).

But the positive side of being exposed to others’ idolatry is that it can cause people in the sending church to ask, Whats are my idols? What about my neighbors? What are they hoping in? By virtue of being in a church culture that constantly thinks about how to apply the gospel “among the nations,” we’ll inevitably consider how to apply that same gospel “among our neighbors.”

6. It Emphasizes Prayer: Sending a church planting team can intensely focus a church’s prayer life, since it heightens everyone’s sense of desperation. It’s common to hear church planting teams say that when they set out to plant a church, their prayer life broke open like never before (something Tim Keller also said happened to him when deciding to plant

Redeemer Church).

But it’s not just the planting team that experiences a revived prayer life; it’s usually true of the sending church, too. As church planting updates are received, the church prays. As pastors lead corporate prayer times, the church prays for these new works.

And it’s amazing to witness how praying for gospel advance around the world fuels further prayer among God’s people. So, do you want your church to pray? Get serious about church planting.

IMMENSE BLESSING

Planting churches will immensely bless your church. Will it be costly? Yes. Will the gospel goodbyes be hard? Absolutely. Will there be challenges? Certainly. Is this a “guaranteed recipe for church growth”? No. But we need to scatter communities of light among the darkness of the world. So let’s give ourselves to it.

And in giving ourselves to church planting, may we not forget that God will use it to sanctify and bless the sending church, too.

3.3 CHURCH MULTIPLICATION CHALLENGE

A generation of seasoned pastors who’ve pursued the growth paradigm—and now an emerging generation of new leaders with an eye toward the next move of God—are uniting around the priority of reproduction and multiplication. Like Lake Pointe and Hope Church NYC, these churches are leaning into their discontentedness and taking action. They are shining the light on a new and far-less-traveled path to success for leaders who’ve been focused exclusively on the church-growth paradigm of the past 40 years.

Throughout Scripture, God repeatedly and clearly lays out this vision. But nowhere is that plan more vivid than in the ministry of Jesus. From the start (“I will make you fishers of men”) to the end of his time on earth, Jesus focused on the elements of health that produce multiplication. Yes, his plan is for healthy addition as the means to fulfilling the Great Commission. But we know we are being good stewards of his plan when that healthy addition produces multiplication as its fruit.

Disciples who make disciples—who plant churches that plant churches—must become our future norm. God’s call to be fruitful and multiply will produce fruit in us when we follow the ways of Jesus and make disciples his way rather than programmatically. That starts when we embrace the “multiply” intent of Jesus’ teaching over the “accumulate” bias of our own scorecards.

Jesus’ last words on earth focused on kingdom multiplication: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The church-multiplication advocacy group Exponential has championed this biblical call to see the multiplication of disciples and churches in the United States and beyond, and to see multiplication become a normative measure of success in the church.

To help church leaders move from a growth-centric focus to a reproduction and multiplication bias, Exponential has created and is debuting The Church Multiplication Challenge. This declaration of foundational priorities and actions aims to help churches make a public proclamation of their commitment toward multiplication. Exponential CEO Todd Wilson explains what led to this definitive work.

“We want to see reproduction and multiplication become normative,” he says. “We want to see leaders changing their scorecards as they think differently about what it means to lead successful churches and to build legacies that last. The good news is that a growing number of leaders are starting to make those shifts and that others, like this magazine, Leadership Network and Life Way Research, are also seeing and valuing this emerging shift.”

Ten years ago, Exponential assisted Ed Stetzer and Life Way Research in creating a list of 25 Top Reproducing Churches for this magazine. Wilson recalls the extensive effort required to find and validate those churches. “At that time, it would be hard to credibly conclude that reproduction and multiplication were a strong priority within the church’s collective understanding of success,” Wilson says.

Today, that narrative is changing—and at an accelerating pace. As Exponential set out to identify and validate 100 reproducing churches for this issue, the stories poured in. Church leaders throughout the country, not just in specific regions, shared the scorecard shifts they were making both personally and in their congregations—in the number of churches they envision planting in the next five, 10 and even 20 years, their dreams for creating church-planting residencies and much more.

“Our whole team was thrilled as we read through these stories of reproduction,” says Wilson, who calls himself a multiplication activist. “With each page, we got more excited as we realized how many leaders had actually caught this fresh wind and were actively engaging.”

Exponential’s goal of finding 100 reproducing churches has now expanded to identifying 1,000 churches. The Church Multiplication Challenge is one way they are looking for churches committed to healthy reproduction.

3.4 SOBERING REALITIES

While the numbers and stories are increasingly positive, the road ahead remains long because the reality of what’s happening in the majority of today’s churches and our culture isn’t so positive. In fact, it’s sobering. The truth is that less than 10% of U.S. churches are reproducing or multiplying. And congregational growth—size—is still the normative measure of success in the U.S. church.

Several years ago, Exponential set out to identify 10 rapidly multiplying churches in the United States. Unfortunately, the research team couldn’t find even five. Even more troubling, their work concluded that as few as 4% of U.S. churches were reproducing.

These stats raise some tough questions that we have to confront, says Bill Couchenour, Exponential’s director of learning communities. “Imagine the disastrous impact of less than 10% of the human race reproducing,” he says. “Now, consider the impact of less than 10% of U.S. churches ever reproducing. With this reality, we’re losing ground.”

The top 100 largest churches can grow 100 times larger, and we will scarcely make a dent in what true fruitfulness looks like, Couchenour explains. “We need an ever-increasing number of churches with a vision to see 100,000 new Christians in the collective churches they’ve planted as a priority above seeing 10,000 in their own church.”

Wilson and Couchenour say hard questions must be asked, specifically, “Why are so few churches committed to reproduction and multiplication if it’s God’s plan?” They identify and flesh out three critical problems that Exponential’s Multiplication Challenge seeks to address.

• We have a disciple-making problem. Jesus’ method for healthy addition was found in disciples who make disciples who make disciples. It’s the simple engine for reproduction. Our church growth strategies are optimized on programmatic approaches for adding. Unfortunately, these programs never reproduce themselves. The product they produce is often cultural or consumer Christians who are also not capable of reproducing. We produce a product that is essentially infertile.

• We have a posture problem. Bobby Harrington, founder and CEO of Discipleship.org, is a student of disciple-making movements. He says church-multiplication movements are rooted in disciple-making movements—and disciple-making movements are born out of prayer and fasting. “Are our prayers mostly focused on conquering the next growth barrier, or on restoring us to biblical disciple making?” he asks.

• We have a scorecard problem. Multiplication starts with the scorecard of the leader. How the leader measures success will define how the church measures success. How we measure success will define how we add, and whether we have the capacity to reproduce. Is our scorecard biased to what we catch, accumulate and consume; or by whom we reach, develop and deploy?

A ‘LAKE’ CHURCH VS. A ‘RIVER’ CHURCH

Larry Walkemeyer, leader of Light & Life Christian Fellowship in Long Beach, California, faced these problems as the church considered relocating to a larger property. When he and his wife, Deb, went away for a week to pray over this decision, God gave them a vision from Ezekiel 47.

“God revealed we had been a ‘lake’ church where we were seeking to get as many people as possible to flow into one place, around one pastor, giving to one budget—and keep them there,” he explains. “But the Spirit was calling us to become a ‘river’ church where people flowed in, and then many of them would flow out to start other churches.”

Walkemeyer and multiplying leaders like him have come to see that the prevailing growth-focused operating system in the majority of U.S. churches is producing cultural or consumer Christians versus surrendered disciples who are obedient to Jesus’ teaching. As a result, increasing percentages of people are distanced from Jesus and especially the church.

And as the culture continues to shift, more leaders are discovering that these prevailing models that launch and grow large multisite churches are becoming increasingly difficult to reproduce in the hard corners of society. “The more Americans become urbanized, the harder it’s going to be to reproduce megachurches,” says Walkemeyer.

THE ATTRACTIONAL VOLUNTEER DRAIN

Another subtler reality is also hindering multiplication. The come-and-see, attractional program-based approach to growing a church is consuming the largest volunteer force on the planet. Think about the number of volunteers it takes to keep all the internal operations and programs running in a church.

Church multiplier Ralph Moore (the church movement he founded has ties to almost 3,000 churches worldwide) says that this consumption is not equipping and mobilizing everyday missionaries into the everyday mission fields—the places where they have the most relational influence to make disciples.

Wilson adds, “The vital programmatic elements known to produce numerical growth don’t necessarily give us the form of addition that will also produce healthy, sustainable reproduction. And it’s healthy reproduction to the fourth generation that produces multiplication.”

The good news? Things seem to be changing in a positive direction—and at an accelerating pace. Earlier this year Exponential and Life Way Research completed a major national study on church multiplication. They found that approximately 7% of U.S. churches are substantially involved in church planting. While this is still below the 10% that Exponential has set as its first benchmark, it’s a shift worth celebrating.

HOPEFUL INDICATORS

Thankfully, hopeful indicators of change can be seen. According to a Leadership Network survey, 83% of lead pastors below the age of 40 have a vision to reproduce and multiply. Leadership Network concludes, “The next generation of church pastors is aiming to grow via outreach by multiplying.”

And increasing numbers of church leaders (both young and seasoned) are experiencing a growing uneasiness and even discontentedness. They are realizing that this current operating system isn’t advancing the multiplication vision God has called his church toward.

While Celebrate Community Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was good at addition (they had planted two churches but weren’t intentionally focused on multiplication), Founding Senior Pastor Keith Loy knew something was missing. He was even pondering leaving the megachurch he planted. He took a month away to pray and hear from God.

 “God spoke directly into my heart: You’ve spent the first years of your ministry building your church. I want you to now let them go to build my kingdom.”

Loy went back to his church and asked who might feel called into ministry. “We had over 80 people stand,” he remembers, “and our journey to multiplication began.”

3.5 ADDITION, REPRODUCTION AND MULTIPLICATION

While “being fruitful and multiplying” is the definitive biblical call, a new conversation is critical to carrying out God’s kingdom vision, Exponential says.

Couchenour urges church leaders to first assess whether their church is intentionally reproducing, and, if not, why not? “Too often leaders say, ‘We will plant a church when [fill in the blank] happens.’ Unfortunately, that elusive day never comes for most. But that trigger continues to change with each church-growth obstacle. Leaders unintentionally prioritize growth over reproduction.”

To press further into this question of intentionality, church leaders must also confront the principle of firstfruits.

Every leader knows that where we allocate money is the most direct indication of what we value, both personally and as a church. Wilson notes that every one of the 320,000-plus churches in the U.S. is “one priority decision away from tithing to church planting.”

“Imagine the impact if just 20% of churches called a board meeting today and decided to begin tithing for reproduction and multiplication activities?” he says. “We’d quickly change the spiritual landscape of our country.”

Unfortunately, he adds, the financial demands of feeding the internal church-growth engine often keep church leaders from stepping out in faith to commit the church’s firstfruits to multiplication-producing activities.

NOT ALL ADDITION IS CREATED EQUAL

A second and vitally important question for church leaders to address is how their church is adding. Because how we add makes a huge difference in whether we will be capable of reproducing. With church-growth strategies being built on finding new and better ways to add (services, ministries, sites, etc.), it’s even more critical that leaders consider their methods of producing growth, Couchenour explains.

“This is especially important because not all forms of addition are capable of producing reproduction,” he says. “This means that your church-growth strategies, while aimed at good things, could hinder healthy reproduction.”

Consider the core distinctions between adding and reproducing. Wilson says that the difference is largely dependent on whether the outcome is offspring that are capable of reproducing—and whether the offspring actually do reproduce. If churches choose a method of addition that produces offspring that can’t reproduce themselves without the action of a parent, the multiplication vision God has called us to will never see fruition.

For example, if a church has one service and then adds a second one, that’s adding, not reproducing. Wilson explains: “The reality is that you’ve added because the first service doesn’t have the ability to reproduce itself. It’s reliant on the parent to take that action.

“When we add programmatically, it cuts off our ability to reproduce. But multiplication of both churches and disciples results from sustained efforts to reproduce in a healthy way. Addition is the building block for healthy reproduction and multiplication. But we can’t stop there.”

He points to God’s design in Scripture. After the flood, Noah and his wife weren’t tasked with having all the children to repopulate the earth, nor did they have to give their children permission to reproduce. The human race multiplied through the inherent reproduction of offspring, one generation after another.

Wilson’s words ring true for Dave Dummitt, lead pastor of 2|42 Community Church in Brighton, Michigan. The church has a 15-year plan to raise up their campuses to become autonomous churches that remain connected through cultural DNA.

“The idea is to release our campuses similarly to how parents raise and release children,” he says. “These newly independent churches would then go forth and launch new campuses and plant even more churches that plant churches.”

More churches like 2|42 are needed, says Exponential Board Chairman Dave Ferguson.

ADDITION OR REPRODUCTION?

In addition to offspring that can’t reproduce, Exponential has identified yet another issue that can be a roadblock.

“We’re planting churches that aren’t reproducing even though they have the capacity to reproduce,” says Wilson.

 “What happens to the world’s population if only 1 out of 4 children ever reproduce? In essence, when we plant churches that don’t plant churches, our efforts are really focused on addition and not reproduction’’.

Unfortunately, that’s the current reality. According to a Life Way Research study, 73% of all church plants in the U.S. don’t turn around and plant. That statistic is frustrating to Exponential. “Not all church planting is reproducing,” Wilson says.

“It’s not enough to plant a church or site,” adds Ferguson. “We have to be planting churches that can plant churches—to the fourth generation. We’ve got to get more serious about that.”

Exponential is encouraged by the number of prominent churches, such as The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, that are beginning to shift their multisite strategy to increase their multiplication capacity. Led by pastor and author Matt Chandler, the church is now using its multisite model as a strategy for church planting. They plan to transition their remaining campuses into autonomous churches by 2022, Chandler explains. “By planting these churches—whose people can continue the good work of making God known and enjoyed in Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond—we multiply his kingdom.”

THE CALL TO YOUR CHURCH

With minds and hearts to the future, the Exponential team and its growing community of thought leaders are asking today’s church leaders critical questions: What if the next great wave of opportunity to build on the church-growth movement is an awakening to the importance of healthy reproduction? What would it look like for your church to pursue becoming a reproducing church with the same priority you pursue growth? What would that take?

To help churches embrace and carry out this big vision God has set in motion, Exponential has developed The Church Multiplication Challenge. The Challenge is a simple declaration of multiplication that helps a church embark on the journey towards multiplication. The declaration includes foundational priorities and seven specific commitments to move a church from good intentions to action.

According to Exponential, the goal is to provide a simple accountability pathway churches can follow to embrace a commitment toward multiplication. The simple step to begin your journey is visit ReproducingChurches.org and take The Church Multiplication Challenge. When you do, you will endorse a declaration and assess where your church is now on the journey to church multiplication.

3.7 A DECLARATION OF MULTIPLICATION

Because We Believe …

·       Any thought or effort toward reproduction and multiplication must be bathed in prayer and fasting.

·       A new scorecard for success is non-negotiable.

·       Multiplication requires personal surrender.

·       All multiplication movements find their roots in relational disciple-making movements rather than programmatic growth strategies.

·       To multiply, we must intentionally mobilize everyday missionaries into their everyday mission fields.

We Commit to …

1.      Tithe the firstfruits of our income to church planting regardless of our financial position.

2.      Support church multiplication beyond our finances with tangible, direct involvement.

3.      Make sending a priority and to see every person as a missionary and potential planter.

4.      Taking risks with evangelistic urgency and a missionary mindset that takes us into new places with new models and approaches.

5.      Planting autonomous churches with as much (or higher) priority as adding new programs.

6.      Partnering with others to do more together than we can do alone.

7.      Being intentional about reproduction, including prayer, fasting and strategic planning.

Exponential’s hope and prayer is to see a tipping point of churches that embrace and act on The Church Multiplication Challenge as they risk to find and pour into new wineskins. The impact has the potential to be church-transforming and world-changing.

New Life Christian Church in Chantilly, Virginia, has seen God’s hand move in ways they would never have imagined since getting serious about the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25. The church plants 10 autonomous churches a year.

“You will never discover who you are until you risk and lose,” New Life Pastor Brett Andrews says. “Your church will never discover the redemptive capacity God has placed within her until you’re willing to fail and lose. And to try.”

To take the Challenge and read how churches are pursuing reproducing in prayerful, strategic and powerful ways, visit ReproducingChurches.org/challenge. And for more information, stories and church profiles, also visit OutreachMagazine.com/reproducing-churches.

4.0 TYPES OF CHURCHES

4.1 There Are 5 Types of Churches and Their Kingdom Impact

Level 1- Churches That Are in Decline

Level 1 – These Churches are characterized by subtraction, scarcity and survival. These churches experience some combination of declining attendance, staffing, income and conversions. Without a turnaround, Level 1 churches eventually close.

Level 2—Churches That Are at a Plateau

Level 2 churches are plateaued and looking for the next catalyst to spark a season of growth. These churches experience some combination of flat attendance, staffing, income and conversions. These churches may see temporary ups and downs, but their overall trend is flat.

Level 3—Churches That Are Growing

Level 3 churches are characterized by addition, growth and expansion of impact. These churches have a strong growth culture with some combination of increasing attendance, staffing, income and baptisms. Leadership development and conquering the next growth barriers are often key priorities in these churches.

Level 4—Churches That Are Reproducing

Level 4 churches are characterized by the value and priority they place on starting new churches—they have a strong programmatic emphasis on it. They see their fruit as more than the apples on their own tree, but by the other trees they plant in the orchard—or the new orchards they establish. These churches continually feel the tension pulling them toward investing in addition at their own church on the one hand, and the kingdom expansion of new churches on the other.

Level 5—Churches That Are Multiplying

Level 5 churches are characterized by multiplying, releasing and sending everyday missionaries and church planters. Multiplication is so deeply embedded in the DNA of these churches that they would need a strategy to stop multiplication. These churches plant churches that plant churches to the fourth generation, resulting in hundreds of churches in their multiplication family. These churches reach non-Christians at a much higher rate of conversion than other churches and see disciple making to the fourth generation as a cultural norm.

4.2 How Your Church Can Get the Ball Rolling on Planting

How can we help our churches capture the vision of multiplication?

Church planting looks a lot like merging onto the highway via an on-ramp. It’s a bit risky, a bit challenging and a bit scary. But it’s a necessary step for moving your church toward multiplication.

Today, I want to offer four practical ways to get involved in church planting. The most important thing is to start small. We don’t want to merge onto the highway going 100 miles per hour. We want to be able to merge onto the church planting highway and then, once we’re used to it, we want to ramp up our speed and invest more heavily.

4.3 Here are four small steps your church can take at the beginning stages of planting.

1. Partner with Another Church: New churches are almost always willing to accept guidance and resources from older, more experienced churches. Sending staff members and volunteers to a new church can be a really great way to extend help. This doesn’t have to be a full-time commitment. It can look like mentoring sessions with pastors or small group leaders. It can also look like giving a new church feedback after a service or sharing videos with a new church that will teach them important lessons about planting.

The most important part about a small partnership with a new church is simply getting your church’s feet wet in the realm of planting. Partnering gives us a chance to see what multiplication can look like on a small scale, which then helps us become more eager to take bigger steps. Everything we do here is a baby step toward deeper involvement later.

2. Invest in a Church Outside of Your Cultural Circle: Churches, for better or worse, tend to be apprehensive about starting churches in their area that are reaching the same people that go to their church. I think it’s a fear thing, but we tend to shy away from planting churches similar to ours because we don’t want to lose members at our church.

Let me be clear. I am not saying that is a good thing, but I am saying we can strategize to address it—to get multiplication started from which we can build.

One way to counter people’s fears is to work with a church that’s outside of your typical cultural demographic. For example, if your church considers itself to be Anglo, you could try investing in a Latino church plant. Or a Korean plant. As always, think carefully about how to partner and empower the church plants, but that can be a start. This same principle can be applied to other parts of ministry in your own church. If your church doesn’t want to plant a new church, you can still get involved in multiplication by starting a new ministry. This could look like the formation of some new group or ministry.

The idea here is that we’re reaching new people in the kingdom and getting the congregation accustomed to multiplication.

Of course, at some point, your church should step out of its comfort zone and move toward multiplication through church planting on a larger scale, but investing in a church outside of your cultural circle is a small step toward the bigger step.

3. Create a Culture of Multiplication within Your Church: As I’ve already alluded to, part of alleviating some of your members’ apprehension can come from simply talking about multiplication. Making multiplication (of disciples, groups and churches) a regular part of your church normalizes it. Over time, people will be more comfortable with the idea, and this is where breakthroughs happen.

Although the last article in this series focused on developing a culture of multiplication, I want to reiterate what we can do as church leaders to normalize and grow this culture. A key step is getting your church leadership—your elders, your worship team and any other leaders—educated and on board with multiplication. That way, the culture of multiplication can be emphasized in every part of your church.

We can also emphasize the culture of multiplication by using language that encourages it. In past experiences with church planting, I’ve been very strategic with the words I use to talk about multiplication. I made sure that I always brought up multiplication as an important value for our church. I made sure that I emphasized that we would be multiplying in every part of our church, from small groups to eventual church planting.

Creating a culture of multiplication begins with placing an emphasis and value on the idea of church planting itself.

4. Keep Casting the Vision: Finally, the biggest key to initiating investment in church planting and multiplication: Keep casting the vision. Keep believing in God’s calling for your church.

Keep encouraging others to understand and embrace the calling as well. We can hold meetings for our church members where we educate them on church planting. We can create sermon series on the topic if we feel called to do so. We can also encourage our church members to ask questions and have open discussions with church leadership about their feelings toward church planting.

The important thing to understand is that we can’t force people to invest in church planting. We have to educate them and encourage them in the hope that they’ll embrace planting as a way to grow our churches and advance the kingdom.

At the end of the day, I believe that with gospel preaching, multiplication teaching and the power of the Holy Spirit working through each of us, we can create cultures of multiplication that will lead to more new churches around the world.

4.4 ‘Prioritize Life and Eternity over Personal Opinions’

“We can become blinded by our own personal perspectives.”

We asked pastors of some of the nation’s largest churches to share their thoughts on church growth, discipleship, outreach and faithful ministry.

Some practical contributors to our growth are transparency and stewardship. Our leadership has consistently proven to be trustworthy. We are transparent with our plans, intentions, resources and goals. This transparency has given people the ability to trust us with their time, finances and talents. The second practical contributor of our growth is stewardship. We operate on a strict budget that allows us to be ready for all growth opportunities. We also put significant time and resources into developing our leaders. We realize stewarding resources and people opens opportunities.

Spiritual leadership starts with personal discipline: Getting more personal time with God is the best thing any leader can do to increase their effectiveness. When you’re leading a large church or organization, it is easy to get sidetracked on strategy, staffing and other organizational issues. God wants our heart, and we all have been guilty of just giving him our head.

God never called us to be successful—he called us to be faithful. God never intended for church growth, speaking platforms, success or local notoriety to fulfill us in the same way obedience to him does.

What I have learned about learning is that it never stops; we are always a student. The challenge with personal growth is you don’t always pick the teacher. At Action Church, we make it a goal to learn from every situation. Every constructive conversation or even the harshest criticism is an opportunity to reflect, learn and grow.

We can become blinded by our own personal perspectives. The church today is known way more for what we are against than what who we are for. In a world that picks sides, agendas and platforms, we try and see the people representing all of these in an attempt to prioritize their life and eternity over personal opinions. God loves people, and I’m committed to lead a church that is committed to people.

5.0 THE DON’TS IN PLANTING CHURCHES

Church planting is more of spiritual activities than physical though the greater work appears physical.

5.1 There are 8 Things Not to Do When Planting a Church

Here’s a list of things I wouldn’t do again if I were planting another church.

I have been involved in church planting for most of my ministry career—whether as a planter or as a supporter of planting. I love the process of planting. I love the energy and the enthusiasm a new church brings to a community.

Having planted two churches, I’ve learned a few things. Some of the things I’ve learned are things I wouldn’t do again if were planting another church. If you are planting now—or in the future—I hope these are helpful.

Here are eight things I wouldn’t do again if planting a church:

1. Limit God’s Vision: In our first plant, we started as a church to reach one section of town. As we grew, God seemed to lead us to a different target geographically. In our second plant, we started in one location, relocated, then ended up in two different locations—in each move reaching entirely different segments of our community. God continued to refine and shape our path as a church. Who we were a few years in was not necessarily who we thought we would be as a church.

2. Fail to Challenge People to Grow in Their Walk with Christ: I don’t know that we shied away from this—it certainly was our heart and our vision to make disciples, but in the early days, we were very conscious of reaching the lost. I wouldn’t change that either—and I’m still trying. Reflecting back, however, we may not have been as bold as I wish we had been in challenging people to grow. In addition to growing in weekly attendance people need to grow individually. It wasn’t enough to know Jesus—we needed to strive to be like him—even when it involved change in them and their daily lives.

3. Shy Away From Talking about Money: So many people think all a church does is talk about money. We attempted to avoid this stigma from day one. We concentrated more on serving than we did giving. (And both are needed.) In the process, we neglected to develop our core givers those first couple of years, we put ministries on hold we should have been pursuing, and we robbed people of the opportunity to become generous givers and consequently to feel the reward of trusting God completely.

4. Resist Leaders from Other Churches: We wanted to plant a church for nonbelievers, but we needed leadership to be successful. When leaders from other churches came, however, we were hesitant to plug them in for fear we would be seen negatively by other churches. In the process, we missed out on quality leadership and we denied people the right to follow their own heart.

5. Expect everyone to be as committed a Few Years into the Plant: The fact is, life changes. Some people are starters and some are finishers. Some of the original people will grow bored with things as they are and/or they may even disagree with some of the directions the church plant goes. Some will become overwhelmed, tired or simply feel led elsewhere. They had a great impact in our beginning, but they sought opportunities elsewhere in later years—and it’s okay. Be thankful for the investment they made in the beginning.

6. Worry about the External Critics: In both plants, it seemed our biggest critics were from other churches in the area. They didn’t agree with our style of worship, our teaching (which we tried to make very biblical), or even the need for us to exist. I let it bother me too much the first couple years. Then I had a wise planter give me some advice. I still hold on to it today for other applications. He said, “Ron, seek your affirmation among the people God sent you to minister to.” The people we were reaching with the church plant—the hurting, lost, wanderers—were so thankful we had obeyed God to plant. The more I focused on them the greater sense of accomplishment I felt in my obedience to God.

7. Wait Long to Reproduce: We were five years old when we launched our second campus. I see churches do this in their second full year. There are so many in our city who need hope. Taking a risk on my own comes easy, but sometimes I’m too careful when representing God—as if he can’t handle something so large. When God leads, I want to move quickly. We saw several opportunities to launch other locations we passed on because we didn’t feel “ready.” I’m not sure we ever would have been.

8. Delay the Need to Add Structure: We were a church plant. We were often escaping the structure and traditions which keep so many churches from growing and reaching outsiders. But with growth can quickly come chaos without some carefully planned policies and procedures. You want to add smart structure—and always want to be open to frequent and even constant change, but even church plants need a few systems to guide the organization. And the best way to do this may be to find people to help you do it. With a background in business I was a natural to do this, but I hated the management part of it—so we didn’t do it as well as it could’ve been done. We were running well over 1,000 before we hired someone as an administrator. We should have done this earlier. If a church is 400 or 500 in attendance this becomes a full-time job. If the plant is smaller—recruit part-time help or even volunteers.

5.2 Errors in Thinking That Stunt Church Growth

Watch out for these “think holes” taken from Will Mancini’s book, ‘Church Unique.’

My first degree, industrial engineering, taught me to think systematically, which has in turn benefited my pastoral leadership. Since then I’ve read many books on church planning and been certified through Ministry Advantage and Auxano, two strategic planning/pastoral coaching organizations. I’ve also led three churches where I’ve served through a year-long strategic planning process. So, I’m well versed and trained in the church visioning/planning process.

Yet, of all the books I’ve read on strategic planning, Will Mancini’s book, Church Unique is the best. In his chapter called “Lost on the Way to Your Own DNA,” he lists subtle thinking patterns that can hinder church growth. He calls these patterns “think holes.” I’ve listed them here with brief definitions.

MINISTRY THINKHOLES

1. The ministry treadmill: Busyness eliminates time for reflection.

Leads to just adding more programs.

2.     The competency trap: Presumption that past methods will continue to work decreases appetite for learning.

Leads to just working harder.

3.     The need based slippery slope: Consumerism removes the need for discernment.

Leads to trying to make people happy.

4.     The cultural whirlpool 1: BuzzChurch—innovation short circuits’ self-awareness.

Leads to just trying to be cutting edge.

5.     The cultural whirlpool 2: StuckChurch—change outpaces the discipline for learning.

Leads to glorifying the past.

6.     The conference maze: Success increases the temptation to copycat.

Leads to simply modeling best practices.

7.     The denominational rut: Resources disregard local uniqueness.

Leads to just protecting theology.

At times I’ve been caught up in these thinkholes. How about you?

What other thinkholes would you add to this list?

6.0 HOW TO BUILD A CHURCH PLANTING CULTURE AT YOUR CHURCH: Here are the keys to planting churches in healthy ways.

For the past few years, I’ve been working primarily outside of the church, mostly in research or academic roles. The last time I served as a full-time senior pastor was in Erie, Pennsylvania.

In a previous article, I wrote about the last time I served as a senior pastor. I was a volunteer senior pastor at a new church in Nashville, Tennessee. I wrote about how we wanted to be involved in church planting from the first service—taking up our first offering and announcing we were going to be a church planting church.

At another church plant early in my career in Erie, Pennsylvania, we had a commitment to plant our first church within three years. (I had been told that was the optimal time—later, I would try to be involved from year one.)

It was through these experiences that I learned important lessons about what it means to plant churches in healthy ways, which is crucial for the sake of the mother and child church.

6.1 Sending People Out

 Anyway, we had grown our church in Nashville from 3 to 400 after three years, so we decided to be bold. We decided to start two churches on the same day. We figured, if we’re going to start one, we might as well start another. Right?

It was bold, but we believed it was what God had called us to do, but in the first few weeks of planting two daughter churches, we sent many members of our church to the new churches. Actually, about 15% of our church were sent out—around 50 people.

An entire worship team went out to one church plant—and we were glad they did.

But there were times we were uncertain. People at the mother church were nervous, questioning if we’d made a mistake. We reminded them that planting had been a good idea and that God would work in all three of the new churches. But it was still a time of anxiety as we rebuilt.

Had we made a mistake?

You can probably predict how this story ends. God ultimately used our planting to grow all three churches. His math often looks different than ours, and somehow our mother church ended up growing more than both of the two new churches. Soon our church was thriving again and we felt great about our decision to be involved in planting.

We did not forget the lessons we learned, and the experience taught us the importance of intentionally planning our planting.

Clearly, I believe that church planting should be very strategic. When you start with a plan to be a reproducing church, you tend to become one.

It can take a few years before your church is ready to send out 50 key members, but you can be involved in planting from day one. You can promptly and eagerly create a plan for how your church is going to invest in another church. I firmly believe that at a point in each year, the church’s elders should sit down and devise a plan to be involved in planting. This should involve evaluating previous or ongoing planting, receiving feedback from members of the church, and creating a new plan that will help your church, the churches you plant, and the churches you assist in planting.

And hopefully that involvement can grow each year.

6.2 Planting Patterns

One common way to church plant is to use alternate years for planting—meaning that churches can plant a new church every other year and scale back their involvement in off years. In the years between, your church can help grow other churches in smaller ways, such as financial support or sending volunteers. This way, your church’s level of involvement can increase and decrease as your church evolves. The main point here is that your church continues to be involved with planting, even on years where a new church isn’t planted.

Of course, involvement can vary based on your church’s size.

For example, a church of 100 might be a part of planting a new church each year, and every third year they might send out some people to start a new church.

A larger church, on the other hand, might support a different church plant each year, while sending out people every other year.

Finally, a megachurch could be planting a new church and sending out planters and people each year.

6.3 Sacrifice

This is crucial to remember: Church planting is always a sacrifice.

That’s what getting into a rhythm of church planting does—creates a pattern of outward thinking and ongoing church planting.

Planting a new church should be challenging. It should demand time, effort and resources that stretch your church. It should require new people to step up as leaders and workers in your church. Ultimately, if it doesn’t feel like your church is giving something up for the sake of planting another, your ways of church planting should be reevaluated.

That sacrifice often causes others to step up into new ministry roles. New people take the place of those who left—but they still did leave.

We want to create church planting situations where we continually sacrifice over an extended period of time so that we continue to invest in our neighbors. Because, as we’ve talked about over and over again, the ultimate goal of church planting is to advance the kingdom of God.

7.0    THE NO. 1 THREAT TO PASTORS AND CHURCH PLANTERS

There is one thing that is repeatedly the downfall of biblical figures and modern church leaders alike.

One of the (innumerable) benefits of reading through the Bible every year is that God causes me to notice different things than in previous years. As most pastors acknowledge, there is no end to the depths to which we can know God, his ways and his words.

 So whether specific verses or words, or themes or patterns, different things jump out when we devour God’s written word.

Reading through the Bible in 2019, the most prominent theme that has struck me is two-fold. On one hand, I’m seeing time and time again, how common it is for leaders to fall, at great impact to the lives of those they lead. Of course, you might think, look at what’s happening in churches and even businesses across our culture—no wonder that stands out right now. But it’s the other hand that has been the most sobering aspect of this theme. While there are dozens of leaders in the Scriptures who fall, there is nearly universally only one reason they fall: pride. That’s true throughout the Bible, and that’s true in the world of pastoring and planting churches.

7.1 The Names and Faces of Pride

Granted, we don’t always label our actions or the actions of others with the overt word “pride.” We might call it “self-reliance” or “vanity.” Recent news articles label it “narcissism” and “egotism.” The Greeks called it “hubris.”

Today, we might shroud our desire for more social media likes, sermon downloads or compliments on a sermon as “doing more for God.” Some people pay professionals to help “build your platform.” But of course it’s to make God famous—or so we tell others. Pride might even be as subtle as the inability to stop working, to rest and to turn off our phones. (Isn’t that self-reliance?) Or in phases that start with, “I deserve …” (Isn’t that self-justifying?) Or maybe it simply creeps into our minds as the recurring thought, “I’ll just do it myself.”

But a rose by any other name would smell as sweet … or sour. All of these terms are different references, or different angles, of the concept of pride.

We don’t even see in the Scriptures overt use of the word “pride” in every instance. Instead, God’s Word guards against “haughtiness,” “boasting,” “arrogance,” being “puffed up” or “lofty,” and “conceit.”

More sobering, the Bible warns us against “selfish ambition.” Even more scary might be the person who is “wise in his [or her] own eyes.” But the scariest definition of pride in the whole Bible is the lie that Adam and Eve believed in Genesis 3, “You will be like God.”

7.2   Pride in Israel’s Leaders

It was the desire to be like God that caused Satan to fall from of heaven. It was the desire to be like God that caused Adam and Eve to fall from perfection. It was the desire to be a god that caused God to harden Pharaoh’s heart and destroy much of Egypt. It was the false gods that Israel worshiped, whose statues were toppled and burnt in Old Testament history.

On and on we could go, as we look from Genesis to Revelation. What has struck me most about the concept of pride is how common it is among leaders. David’s career began as a humble shepherd, and by the end of his life his arrogance drew God’s punishment. Solomon was rewarded by God as he sought God’s wisdom at the beginning of his reign, but by the end of it he had so departed from God’s ways that he referred to all of life as “vanity.” Many kings of Israel and Judah followed one of two paths. Some started by humbly leading their kingdom toward God, and as they experienced his blessings got comfortable and prideful, to their own demise. Others took the throne in a time of existing prosperity, or at a time where God was unknown. In either scenario, they lacked the urgency of holiness and humility, and led their kingdom away from God, also to their demise.

7.3 Pride in Church Leaders

The point of this history lesson is that history all too often repeats itself. Few kings of Israel or Judah took the throne overtly opposing God. Some were ignorant of him; others earnestly sought him. But over time, they became puffed up, and pursued their own name and kingdom instead of God’s. They even rejected accountability and rebuke, and their pride led to their fall.

Similarly, few planters or pastors lead a church overtly opposing God. Some are ignorant of him; others earnestly seek him. But over time, our tendency is that of our forefathers: We become puffed up, and pursue our own name and kingdom instead of God’s. We even reject accountability and rebuke, and our pride, like so many before us, leads to our fall.

Five years ago I led a church planter training in the building of a church whose membership had grown into the thousands but had then dissolved in less than a year. In that space I was struck as I considered my own journey of planting during the first two years. I felt our church was very fragile—that any misstep I made, or any word I misspoke or blunder I made would shut down the church. That’s pride. But even more prideful is that in year three, I stopped feeling that our church was fragile. Whether because of the number of people, or a healthy budget or any number of worldly factors my mind and heart slowly stopped depending on God. Our little church no longer felt fragile. But sitting in the building of the church that had dissolved, it hit me like a ton of bricks: “Our church and I are always fragile. Our church and I are never at a point where we can be self-sustaining, self-reliant and self-dependent.” This is the charge that I have since relayed to every church planter we’ve trained.

Brothers and sisters, under whatever name it prowls, pride is the number one killer of churches and planters. Biblically and literally, it time and time again goes before a fall. We and our churches are always fragile. We are always dependent. Let us remember our place, seek God and his kingdom, and remain humble—for the glory and fame of Jesus, not of ourselves.

8.0 SYMPTOMS OF TRYING TO LIVE THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Reasons why many Christians are disillusioned, disappointed, frustrated and confused.

8.1 Symptoms of Trying

In my experience, people who are trying to live the Christian life almost always feel disillusioned, disappointed, frustrated and confused because they know they aren’t meeting the standards they’ve set for themselves. Yet they continue to believe they’ll get there if they just keep trying.

So how do you know if you’re caught up in this cycle of trying? In my experience, we need to watch for three main symptoms.

Symptom 1: Striving to Earn Spiritual Maturity

The first symptom of trying to follow Jesus is believing that spiritual growth and spiritual maturity can be earned. In many ways, people with this approach to following Jesus act as if heaven has a spiritual bank that stores credit in our accounts whenever we do something “spiritual” and deducts from our accounts whenever we sin.

Bill has been a Christian his whole life. His parents were Christians, and he grew up in church. Now in his forties, he considers himself spiritually mature. He’s familiar with the Bible, he has no public vices, and he’s known as an active member of his church community.

Bill also has an addiction to online pornography. He knows this is both sinful and harmful, and he genuinely would like to have victory over this addiction—but on his terms. For most of the week, he tries his best to resist the temptation. But then his wife takes their children to a movie on Friday night, and Bill indulges while they’re away. The next morning, he reads his Bible for an extra thirty minutes. He also confesses his sin during his prayer time and commits to “doing better” the next time he’s left alone in the house.

Bill knows he probably won’t do better, but that’s not the point. The point is that he counts on his extra good behavior to somehow earn back whatever spiritual credit he lost with his bad behavior.

Nancy is up for a promotion at work. She’s competing with two of her coworkers for it, and she’s done all she can at the office to make her case. During her prayer time, she tells God she’d like to receive the promotion. She even asks Him to provide that blessing if it lines up with His will. Additionally, she spends extra time in prayer throughout the week. She reads her Bible longer and longer each day, and she’s careful to avoid anything that could be considered sinful— she even rejects her routine bowl of ice cream each night.

Whether or not she’s conscious of it, Nancy is attempting to store up spiritual credit—credit she hopes will allow her to “cash in” and receive the promotion. In both of these examples, the core misconception is that we can earn spiritual credit with God—either forgiveness or favor—through our own efforts.

Symptom 2: Experiencing Spiritual Guilt

Constantly feeling guilty is another symptom of trying to be a faithful follower of Jesus. The more we focus on our spiritual scorecards—and on the spiritual scorecards of everyone around us—the more we’re aware of falling short.

For Nancy, guilt usually comes when she hears about the high points of other people’s spiritual lives. For example, when one of the people in her small group speaks up about sharing the gospel with a coworker, Nancy is genuinely pleased to hear the story. But it also makes her feel guilty and anxious because it’s been a long time since she’s shared the gospel with one of her coworkers. She feels as if her friend’s success has highlighted a weakness in her own spiritual life.

Nancy resolves to have a spiritual conversation with one of her coworkers the next day. She wouldn’t phrase it this way, but she feels she’s fallen behind her friend in terms of spiritual accomplishments, and she wants to catch up.

Bill often feels guilty when he chooses something he enjoys over the opportunity to do something “spiritual.” For example, his favorite football team is playing on Sunday Night Football, but his church is having a worship night the same time as the game. Bill decides to stay home and watch the game, but he feels guilty, and he doesn’t really enjoy the time to himself.

Bill doesn’t know how to articulate this sense of guilt, but he’s built his life on a foundation of spiritual performance not only for himself but also for others. Choosing to watch football over attending a church service makes Bill feel guilty and uncomfortable because he perceives it as a missed opportunity to be seen prioritizing spiritual things over his own desires. It makes him feel less mature as a Christian.

Symptom 3: Developing Spiritual Arrogance

Another common symptom of trying to live the Christian life is developing a level of arrogance when it comes to our spirituality. Whether or not we admit it to ourselves, we start to believe we’re ahead of others in terms of being a good Christian—almost as if we view life as a spiritual marathon. We think we’re in the top 10 percent of performers. That makes us feel good, and we like that feeling.

Back to Bill. He’s been part of a small group with ten or twelve other men for close to a year now. They meet weekly to work through a Bible study, pray for one another, and fellowship. Most of the men are around Bill’s age, but he views the group as split into different spiritual levels. In his mind, the group leader is the most spiritually mature, but Bill comes next. He knows several of the other men admire him, and he believes they’re right to do so.

Two men in the group are recovering from alcoholism, and another man rarely does any of the assigned homework for the Bible study. Bill sees them at the bottom level of spiritual maturity within the group. When they talk during the study, Bill doesn’t give much credence to what they say. Nor does he consider sparking a deeper friendship with any of these three men. Deep down, he believes the differences in their spiritual maturity would prevent them from forming a meaningful connection. Bill is aware that his own troubles with pornography are similar to an alcohol addiction, but he genuinely believes he will “get it under control” in another year or so. He doesn’t need to seek outside help.

Nancy regularly interacts with customers and neighbors who aren’t Christians. She knows they’re not Christians because of how they dress, how they talk, and how they support certain politicians. Deep down, Nancy doesn’t like such people. She finds them off-putting and dangerous in a way she doesn’t completely understand.

When Nancy interacts with her customers and neighbors, she’s kind and polite. She doesn’t display her dislike in any public fashion because she believes that would be dishonoring Jesus. She considers herself a good example, and she hopes her actions and attitudes will one day rub off on those who need to become more like her.

9.0    HOW TO KEEP YOUR CHURCH APPEALING TO YOUNG PEOPLE

9.1 These seven practices will help you stay ahead of the curve.

All churches become chronologically older every year, but why do some remain young, vital and more spiritually fruitful than others?

There is a life cycle to all churches, but intentional leadership can make a huge difference.

The point here is not to select and preserve modern-day cathedrals, but we do have a responsibility to lead churches that are vibrant, flourishing and bring life change through the person and power of Jesus for as long as we can.

There are several things you can do to help your church remain young, alive and vibrant, even though the life cycle process eventually continues.

This article doesn’t promise an ecclesiastical fountain of youth. However, if your church is aging and becoming weaker, it can pivot to maturing and becoming stronger. It can have a greater impact by making a few key decisions and commitments toward staying young.

1. Think Multiplication and Reproduction:

Life produces life. That truth is woven into God’s creative design. My daughter and son-in-law are having a baby soon. Life continues and we pass on family values. Grandchildren keep us young.

The same idea holds true in the church. Leading the way for the birth of new campuses and planting new churches breathes new life into the existing “parent” church.

9.2 The Birth of a New Church is Inspiring.

Church growth is good, but it can be focused on only adding people. Adding people can be accomplished merely through events and programs with more people attending. That’s oversimplified, but you get the idea. And again, this is a good thing, but there is more.

Reproduction is the next step, where believers are discipled and become more mature in their faith.

Church multiplication, then, is focused on developing disciples to become leaders who can help launch and plant new churches.

There is, of course, much more to this, but for now I just want to make the connection to a life-giving church environment that helps keep your church young. (Or support other churches who plant churches.)

2. Focus on the Future: Thinking young always looks to the future, and equally important, a better future.

Let’s keep the family analogy going. There are two things essential for any aging person who wants to remain as youthful as possible.

First, they need to keep moving. A sedentary lifestyle is harmful to good health. Second, they need a reason to keep moving—a goal, a dream or something to look forward to.

For the local church, it’s a bold, clear and compelling vision. It’s the reason to exist and keep going. Purpose is powerful. It keeps us moving forward with the anticipation of a better future. It keeps the church young and forward focused.

Status quo, doing the same things week after week, is draining and demotivating. Focus on what’s new and next for the future.

3. Empower Young Staff and Volunteer Leaders: The importance of selecting, developing and empowering young leaders has always been true. But now more than ever, with so many leaders who are part of the boomer generation, it’s important to learn how to pass the baton.

That is not always easy, and it’s different for every church. But begin with this question. Are you developing and empowering young leaders?

Organizationally it can get complicated, but start with the foundation. Can you name the young leaders in the church and on staff that you are selecting and developing?

Invest in them, train them and develop them into strong spiritual leaders. Then as appropriate, empower them to actually lead.

4. Place a Premium on Children’s Ministry: If you want your church to remain young, a strong children’s ministry is non-negotiable.

Hire great staff, invest significant time and energy, and be as generous as you can with the budget.

Without this, you are absolutely capping your ability to reach young families in your community.

To reach kids with the gospel message, it’s important to understand and keep up with the world they live in.

That world is fast-paced and built around technology. When you add to that mix loving adult leaders who genuinely care about children, you create a winning environment that the kids want to be part of.

There are few things more heart-warming than children beginning to understand who Jesus is and becoming a Christian at a young age. As they mature in their faith, their potential is incredible.

5. Keep Up With Technology: A key to thinking about technology and churches is knowing where you want your church to lie on the innovation S-curve.

Not every church needs or should be spending to innovate in the technology space, but any basic interaction that can be made easier with technology should be implemented.

There is a subconscious level of expectations when it comes to the user experience that everyone has now. If our churches don’t meet them, we are likely communicating irrelevance.

·       Websites should be extremely easy to use and answer key questions within seconds. For example, where your church is located and times for your services.

·       Child registration and event check-in should be digital.

·       Online Giving became a standard about five years ago now.

·       Social media has become the preferred and primary method for people to interact with your church.

·       We should have a database that knows and understands our congregation.

When I started in ministry we used cassette tapes. Remember those? Gen-Z has not even had much interaction with CD’s, much less the preceding cassette tapes.

Far too many churches have a cassette tape mindset in an instantly responsive digital world. You don’t have to be a megachurch to leverage technology for the sake of the gospel.

If you’re a smaller church and you have just a few young adults, you’d be amazed at what they can do with only a laptop and a smartphone. Ask for their help.

6. Design Your Sunday Morning Service with a Fresh and Culture-Connecting Feel:

So how do you know what is young and relevant? That’s a subjective issue.

But here’s where you can start as it relates to your worship service. If you are still doing pretty much what you did 10 years ago, the way you did it 10 years ago, you are not keeping up.

Are you playing new music? Who is choosing your music? That can be a sensitive subject, but have the conversation.

Remember, it’s not about being different for the sake of being different. It’s about what will engage a post-Christian culture most effectively with the gospel message.

Are you inviting young leaders onto the platform? Young musicians and singers will lead you to younger music and a younger vibe overall. This helps to attract young people to your church.

If you are thinking, What about the older people? Don’t they matter? Of course, they do. I am one, and I still make a difference. But we should be more mature.

We know that it’s not about us. The mission is to reach the lost, and if you reach the next-gen people, other generations will follow.

How about your primary communicators? We need the wisdom of age and experience, but we also need young voices in the mix. How are you doing there?

Think through all the components from language to video, and think young.

If you focus on a younger crowd, the older generations with join in. If you lean toward older, the young will often leave.

7. Invest in the Next Generation:

Raise up and train young adult leaders—perhaps through an internship, invest in student ministries, and champion the call to vocational ministry among your young adults.

Communicate that you believe in the next generation. They are the future.

The vision of the church needs to be captivating to the next generation, and at the same time, be compelling enough that older generations get excited about the vision in such a way that they will invest their heart, time and resources.

Let’s face it, middle-aged and older generations have no trouble loving and believing in kids; just watch a grandparent with their grandchildren

9.3 How the Leader in You Can Help the Teacher in You

You need to give yourself ample time to learn and grow to be effective.

Kenton Beshore (my predecessor and pastor emeritus at our church) and I meet every other week for lunch, and I always learn something. Recently Kenton shared some helpful insight about managing the multiple responsibilities of a senior pastor. They would likely apply to other roles too. I am paraphrasing, but he essentially said: “You are both the leader and the communicator—the overseer and the lead teacher. And as the overseer you have to lead and shepherd the teacher in you. If you do not, the teacher in you and the church as a whole will suffer. You have to lead the teacher in you like you would lead any other person who teaches as frequently as you teach.”

Of course I wondered what prompted the discussion. To which Kenton replied that he has seen many pastors not lead themselves well in terms of their teaching responsibilities, and that, without intentionality, the pace and rhythm of ministry will pull time and energy away from the “teacher in you.”

I have thought about his insight a lot, and here are six ways pastors should lead themselves as teachers. Yes, I believe that “teacher” and “overseer” are integrated and that one is both at all times. I am not advocating for an unhealthy separation of those two responsibilities—as if only one of them requires time with the Lord and submission to the Spirit’s prompting. This is simply meant to be helpful as we lead ourselves well in relation to our teaching.

1. Be Sure the Teacher Is Being Fed: The person who communicates the Scripture to the flock must be a person who is enjoying time with the Lord, whose heart is being warmed by his glory and grace. Charles Spurgeon wrote: “You cannot feed the sheep unless you are fed yourself. I think a teacher is very unwise who does not come to hear the gospel preached and get a meal for his own soul. First be fed, and then feed.” So, lead yourself spiritually before you attempt to lead anyone else.

2. Help the Teacher Take Ample Time to Prepare: The “leader in you” must block off time for the “teacher in you” to read, study, and prayerfully prepare messages. Those times must be guarded as ferociously as possible for the sake of the people.

3. Give the Teacher Freedom to Prepare in the Most Effective Place: The “leader in you” may want to be in the office to set the pace for the team, but if that is not the best place for the teacher to prepare, then the “leader in you” must stand up for the “teacher in you” and help the teacher prepare wherever the best preparation happens. Some pastors have confessed that they know they prepare better off-site, but they feel guilty not being in the office. Direct the teacher to go wherever the prep is most effective.

4. Hold the Teacher Accountable to Deadlines That Help the Church: If having a teaching plan for an upcoming series helps the communication team or the discipleship team, then “the leader in you” must hold “the teacher in you” accountable for that plan and deadline.

5. With the Help of Others, Set Up Systems That Help the Teacher Focus: As the leader, ask others to help protect the teacher’s prep time. As the leader, know what distracts the teacher before teaching and work hard to eliminate those distractions. For example, if “the leader in you” wants to respond to emails but they can distract the “teacher in you” before teaching, then “the leader in you” has to protect the focus of “the teacher in you.”

6. Remind the Teacher of the Serious Responsibility: Be sure “the teacher in you” remembers the charge that was likely read to you by an older leader when you first started teaching and preaching: “I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; rebuke, correct and encourage with great patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:1–2).

9.4 Three Glaring Church Growth Trends

What separates growing churches from declining churches?

If you’re familiar with any of my work, you probably can guess I really like numbers.

While numbers aren’t everything, without a baseline perspective it’s hard to make decisions about ministry strategy. If you’re trying to discern whether or not a church is healthy, the numbers give you something consistent to review—an indication whether all of the activity is producing the right results.

Many churches try to make changes and have no way to measure if those hard-fought changes are really having an impact—in a positive or a negative way—which is why I think it’s so important to be looking at what the numbers are telling us.

Exactly two years ago, my team released the very first version of The Unstuck Church Report. It was designed to give church leaders an objective view of church health by highlighting the trends we’re seeing in five key areas of ministry across a wide variety and number of churches (Ministry Reach, Staffing and Leadership, Connection, Finances and Ministry Health).

What indicators can we look at to see if a church is healthy?

It’s easy in ministry for there to be a lot of anecdotal stories that illustrate how people feel about church or a specific ministry, but what about data to show where the church is headed?

A few quarters ago, I even dissected the difference in growing and declining churches in each of the key areas. It was fascinating.

Each quarter, I like to share the data that stands out to me.

This quarter, there were three areas in particular that I want to dig into. These are the trends that jumped out at me.

1. The Front-Door Challenge

I wasn’t surprised to see this show up. When my team and I work with churches, this is something that we see often, and this is also a theme we’ve seen consistently in our quarterly reports.

For churches to maintain health and growth over time, the number of first-time guests over a 12-month period needs to be equal to or greater than their average weekly attendance. But, on average, we’re seeing churches of 1,000, as an example, average 490 first-time guests in one year.

If you dig into the report, you’ll see that ministry connection numbers are getting stronger, but also that churches are seeing fewer first-time guests. These numbers combined suggest churches really are dealing with more of a “front-door” than a “back-door” challenge.

I suggest reading this. With an outside perspective, Connexus Church embraced this “front-door” challenge by pursuing an inviting culture and went all-in on becoming a church that’s passionate about seeing their friends, neighbors and colleagues experience Jesus.

(A few years later, they’ve seen their number of new guests skyrocket.)

2. An Increase in Group Engagement Isn’t Necessarily a Win

This quarter, we saw churches report that 64% of adults and students are in small groups, but only 44% of adults and students are engaged in volunteering.

On the surface, this may look like a win. Yes, it’s encouraging that so many people are connecting into small groups for community and Bible study. And that is a great way to connect with people and build relationships. My wife Emily and I have been involved in, or led, many small groups over the years.

However, our experience at The Unstuck Group has shown that people who volunteer are actually far more “engaged” in the mission of the church. Having people involved at that volunteer level impacts many aspects of church health, including frequency of worship attendance, invitations to new guests and giving, as examples.

If you’re trying to find ways to engage people and keep them engaged, it’s critical to build up the volunteer teams and leaders of those teams.

Serving together creates a deep, rich community environment worth pursuing. It gives people the option to “own” part of the mission of the church and put their gifts and talents to use. This is how God designed the body of Christ to engage the mission … together.

3. Governance Complexity and Declining Churches

When I wrote an article series on the differences in growing and declining churches, this data stuck out to me: Declining churches have twice as many committees.

Churches that have large decision-making boards and multiple additional committees generally struggle, but it should be no surprise.

The more people you have making decisions about what can or can’t happen in ministry, the fewer people you have actually doing ministry.

Growing churches have streamlined their governance structure to eliminate unnecessary committees and the meetings that go with them.

This allows these churches to be more nimble when it comes to decision-making. Tough decisions that impact the overall health of the church don’t get bogged down in various layers of bureaucracy.

It’s counterintuitive, but it can often be smaller churches that struggle with having more committees and boards than larger churches. If you lead at a small church, it might be time to reevaluate how your church governance is structured to make sure it is efficient and actually serving the church’s broader vision and mission.

I really believe this tool can help you take some valuable steps towards health in your ministry. It’s invaluable to have data and benchmarks to measure your church’s health and see where other churches are today.

9.5 Eight Qualities of Successful Church Planters

These things will get your church plant off on the right foot.

You said yes to planting a church? You are in for an amazing adventure! Planting a church is one of the most challenging and rewarding opportunities within the kingdom. While there are many blessings within the process, there are also many challenges.

Conquering these challenges early in the church planting process will make or break your church planting success.

We want you to have full success with your church planting process. We want to see you and your team take territory for the kingdom and to help change lives for Jesus.

Do you have what it takes to be a successful church planter? Here are a few key takeaways for making sure your church planting process is a successful one.

1. You have a clear vision: One of the important first steps to making your church planting process successful is to have a clear vision of the calling God has placed on you.

What is the vision of the church you are wanting to plant?

This vision includes God’s design for it, the name, the logo, the location, the mission and the purpose of the church plant. Coming up with branding is also a great idea, as it helps clearly communicate the purpose of your church.

2. You have a launch team: To quote John Maxwell, “He who thinks he leads but has no followers is only taking a walk.” Having people who will follow you on the journey of planting your church is very important.

Church planting is not a solo project. The process of going from a church dreamer to a church planter starts with the addition of people. These people you recruit to join your launch team will help launch your church.

Having a launch team will maximize and multiply your efforts in the church planting process. Not only are they the first carriers of the church’s DNA, but they are also your first volunteers and visionaries.

3. You are intentional with prayer: A seemingly obvious one, but one that will completely make or break a ministry entirely.

While “faith without works is dead,” faith is the prerequisite for having a successful church planting process. Not only does God want to be completely involved with the planting of his church, but he also wants to lead and guide you and your team toward his heart and his vision. It’s easy to hear a word from God and want to run with it, getting so caught up in the doing that we forget who technically started the church dream. Intentionality with prayer and walking with God will abate burnout and keep you aligned with his will.

• Be intentional with prayer in your own personal walk with God. This will keep you refreshed and able to have gumption through the church planting process. Remember, you are first a child of God, then a leader of his church. Your spiritual health comes first.

• Be intentional with prayer with your team. Your team will get tired. Your team will need energy and encouragement when things get tough. Praying with your team will undergird them for their success in being a part of the launch. It will also keep them aligned with God and grow their relationship with him as well. You can also give them responsibility for praying for the ministry alongside you.

9.6 HOW DOES A CHURCH PLANTER ORGANIZE THEIR TIME?

1.      You create a schedule: As a church planter, sometimes your work boundaries blend with your life. This creates ambiguity within your days and weeks. To maximize your time as a church planter, create a daily and weekly structure with clear work boundaries.

2.      You structure work hours: Speaking of boundaries, whether you have an actual office to go to or not, designate yourself work hours. This will help with work-life balance and hold you accountable. Creating this structure will also curb too much leisure time and too much work time. Having clarity with your schedule will keep you and your team in a healthy place.

3.      You are intentional with people: Whether it’s your own team or others who are asking for help, a successful church planter will be intentional with people. Planting a church is not just being task-driven. There are boundaries for how much time to spend with various people, and who should be getting the most amount of time. And there are boundaries for working and getting things done. As a church planter, it’s important to invest intentional time with your core people.

4.      You strategize: Life happens, but success is a result of hard work and strategy. Strategy can cover a multitude of things. Strategy covers church planting phases, to scheduling out services, to planning sermons, to planning finances, and growing to the next level. Design your goals to fit within these characteristics. Doing so will clearly define them and help your goals be actionable.

5.      You use tools to manage your days: While there are so many tools and applications out there to help plan your day and boost productivity, here are five tools we recommend to get you started: Calendar software, Evernote, email software, planning center and Hootsuite.

YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES

Even with all the challenges, God is in control and is right by your side in the whole process, making a way for his agenda. In the end, this is his vision, his church, his mission for impacting the community. You get to partner with God and steward his dream.

We believe that God is going to do great things in and through your church planting process.

 AMEN.