ChurchPlantSpeak ‘07

Nearly a year ago, I blogged on what I called “ChurchPlantSpeak”.  That is, the “expert” voices at the time who were explaining why so many church plants fail.  You can read the post by clicking here.

With 2007 drawing to a close and nearly a year passing since I wrote that piece, I first reflected on my feelings at the time and now, looking ahead, I see even more that confuses me on this whole issue of planting a church.  Here’s why…

In just a few months, I’ve seen the complete shutdown of two local church plants and fading of a few others.  I’ve had my own growing pains this year so I can related but in both cases of the church plant shutdowns I mention, the pastors’ abrupt resignations and moving out of state brought about situations that left their fledgling congregations with little choice but to fold up shop.  Leadership had not been cultivated and therefore, the church had no direction.  This is what I meant in my piece a year ago when I said it’s easy to build a crowd a mile wide in church today but so very often this large crowd is “an inch deep”, meaning they are spiritually very immature and at the first sign of hardship, they jump ship!

I’m more convinced then ever that we as leaders need to make leadership mentoring our top priority as we see our churches begin to take on new people.  That’s not to diminish evangelism and “soul winning” as it’s been called over the years.  But it’s my job as a pastor to train up folks to do this work also so that I can pour quality time into the lives of those who will help me sustain this work.  Think of Jesus.  He took his 12 disciples and spent the bulk of his ministry teaching them.  Yes he did many miracles…but the Bible is replete with stories about his training and teaching of the disciples.

I’ve not seen as many articles on the subject of why church plants fail like I did at this time last year.  Perhaps some of these men have been humbled to see that they are not beyond struggles also.  I still see the occasional post on what others need to be doing, etc…but by and large, many of the blogs I’m subscribed to now are more encouraging and understanding.  The “ChurchPlantSpeak” of ‘06 was far more spicy than that of it’s successive commentary a year later.

Rather than focus on any one thing…Here’s what is working for us….

1.  Prayer.  We pray fervently for God to bless our work.  My wife and I open our home once a month (small as it is) and we invite the entire church to come over on that evening (Usually, a Sunday evening) and enjoy snacks, a time of devotion, and then uninterrupted prayer for as long as it takes.  The “community” we are building in doing this is paying great dividends.

2. Leadership development.  As I mentioned earlier, my focus is still on new people and gathering a crowd but I have begun to say no to some commitments to give me time to pour my life into a few others (a few at a time!) that will not only support the church, but also LEAD in it.  Doing this has been wonderful for me.

3. Let your people know you care.  I’ve seen very little written in the blogosphere regarding this area.  What I’m talking about is writing notes and calling your people to let them know you are thinking about them.  I have a great pastor friend who told me if I could touch 10-15 people a week with a note of concern and care, it would do great things for me!  He was right.  I hand write notes so the person receiving knows I thought enough of them to take the time and not “cut and paste” something.  I also make brief calls (usually, no longer than 3 mins) just to check in on others and to make sure they are OK.  Another source is email so you can see that in under an hour, you can touch all these lives with the gospel.  That’s wonderful.

I have other thoughts to share on this but for now, I’m going to close.  Those three should give you food for thought and I welcome your criticisms and comments.

~Until next time