Why YOU Should
Plant a Church by Bob Hyatt
From http://www.seedstories.com/
In the early days of our church planting
adventure I spent some time seeking out other church planters, hoping for some
wisdom and encouragement. Man, did I get a wake up call.
There seem to be two distinct schools of
thought in the church planting community. The first is “This is hard. Are you
sure you want to do this? You don’t look like you’ve got what it takes… I’m not
so sure you should do this! Have you prayed about it?”
Gee… thanks.
The second school of thought starts off
sounding much like the first, but then takes a dramatic turn: “This is hard.
What do you need? How can I help you? Man, what an adventure! Let me pray for
you.”
Do you hear the difference?
The sad truth is I heard a whole lot more of
the first than I did of the second. To be honest, it was discouraging to hear
such defeatist talk from those on the front lines of the revitalization and
renewal of the church- church planters themselves.
I KNOW I CAN DO IT... IT'S YOU I'M NOT SO SURE
ABOUT
Let’s just put it out there. You have to be a
certain type of personality to jump ship from the institution, the known, the
safe and head off into the uncharted waters of church planting. It’s not for
everyone… and for the A-type personalities who often make up the ranks of those
who have jumped, those who are sailing those uncharted waters, when we see
others getting ready to do the same, a common first impulse may be to wonder
who they think they are… don’t they know that this church planting thing is for
the few, the proud, the best of the best? And since we’re doing this different,
emergent-type thing… we really don’t need more competition, do we?
Better to weed out the weak.
I actually had church planters tell me disdainfully
that church planting was the “sexy” new thing and I better think twice before I
just jumped on the bandwagon. I was “assessed” in a 45 minute conversation and
found lacking.
It’s a good thing I didn’t listen to the
discouraging talk of the A-type personalities I encountered… that I felt called
to do this, that I realized that God loves it when people step out in faith and
start new churches… and it’s a good thing I remembered that this is kingdom,
not competition.
WHY NOT?
It makes sense to weed out the weak when you
start with the basic assumption that no one should step out and plant a church
unless specifically instructed to by God and unless they have “what it takes.”
I like to approach it from a different viewpoint.
Why shouldn’t you plant a church?
Most people when asking themselves that
question usually come up with three common
reasons…fear, finances and failure.
Fear? Is it scary? Yes, of course it is. But for me, a turning point
was realizing that I had never really done anything in my life that required
actual faith. Yes, I had picked up and moved to
I came to the point in considering church
planting where I realized that I simply didn’t want to get to 70 and look back
never having taken an actual step of faith… never having started something,
never having begun a journey whose end I could not clearly see from the
beginning. I didn’t want the regret of not having taken a shot at a dream of
mine.
Finances? Sure- that was a consideration. When we decided to plant the
church we had just bought a house and gotten pregnant. I knew that looking back
this was either going to seem like a great step of faith of a complete lack of
common sense. I suppose the jury is still out on that…
But we had to decide, my wife and I, that if
taking this step cost us our house, set us back financially… that simply wasn’t
too big a price to pay for God’s kingdom. If we did what we felt we needed to
do, and there were financial costs, so be it. We’d rather see people come into
relationship with God than have a house. We’d rather see those who have given
up on church find community again than have a new car. We had to ask ourselves
“What is the absolute worst thing that could happen if we do this?” And when we
really started looking at it, it just didn’t seem like that big a deal.
Failure? In a conversation with a good friend on the day we decided to
plant this church, he asked me a great question: How will you define failure? I
realized through our talk that failure wasn’t if we did this and had to close
the doors in a year because not many people showed up and we couldn’t pay the
bills. Failure would be if we failed to love the people God did bring us, if we
failed to love each other in community, if we failed to feed, clothe and
otherwise care for anyone. That would be failure… not if we simply failed to
achieve any type of long term momentum and institutional stability.
I realized that for me personally, failure
would be if I didn’t even try.
If you do this might you fail? I guess it
depends on how you define failure. They say 80% of church plants fail. I don’t
know about that… all I can say is that I think that many church plants that
seem to be failures by the standard of “Did they make it?” were probably great
adventures for many involved, probably introduced people to Christ and probably
made a practical difference in the lives of some people who really needed those
small, “failing” churches.
I think that the biggest failures in the
church planting world aren’t the ones who function as a community for 1, 2 or 5
years and then disband to go do something else. I think the biggest failures in
the church planting world are the churches that never even get started, for
whatever reason- whether because of fear, because of lack of encouragement or
simply because no one asked “Well, why shouldn’t we?”
ENCOURAGING CHURCH PLANTING BY ENCOURAGING
CHURCH PLANTERS
All this has left me at a place where I really
want to encourage those who are at the end of their rope, banging their head
against the institutional wall, feeling like those they really love and want to
see introduced to Christ are beyond the reach of modernistic, institutional
churches.
You can do this.
It’s not rocket science.
Through my experience in church planting I
have learned that there’s a hard way to do this and an easy way. The hard way
involves plans and proposals, hundreds of thousands in seed money,
denominational strings and a host of headaches. “Start with a bang!” they will
tell you. “Mailers to every home in three zip codes!” they will advise you. A
full band! Complete children’s ministry! Advertising!!!!
Don’t listen.
Start small. Raise some support, trust God for
the rest and get a job at Starbucks if need be. Let your community be what it
will be. Refuse to do for the people who come the
ministry that they should do for themselves. Concentrate on laying a foundation
of community and common core values and let your church grow organically
without superimposing a grand “vision” on it.
When we were still in the dream phase of this
thing people would ask me- “What will it look like?” I grew to love answering
“I have no earthly idea.” All I could say was that if a bunch of cloggers and bluegrass musicians showed up, well… we’d be
the clogging church. If a bunch of skate punks showed up, we’d be the skate
church. I wasn’t out to niche target-market our community, and so felt great
freedom to just sit back and watch what happened. I still feel that freedom…
Like I said, it’s not rocket science. You can
do this thing. Just look at the guys Jesus started with…
THE QUESTION
No- not everyone should plant a church. Not
everyone is called, gifted or able… but just the fact that you’re thinking
about it says something. Just the fact that you want to tells me a lot. And if
you actually step out and do it? Well… that says volumes about you, about your
courage and about your faith in the God who is advancing His kingdom all around
this world.
The question isn’t “Why should I plant a
church”… it’s why shouldn’t you! Here’s what I know: God loves it when His
people take a step of faith. He will go ahead of you, with you and behind you
in this adventure. If you love those He brings you, you will be a success
whether it lasts for a year, two years or the rest of your life.
So go ahead- take the leap. Plant a church!
And let me know how I can help.