April 2008

Has anyone else been receiving three of every blog post that is ran through the Planter Planet blog feed system? I subscribe to it and this blog is a part of it but I didn’t want anyone to think I was spamming their readers three times every time I post. I was just curious if this is just me or are others seeing this too.

I felt like jotting down a few thoughts after seeing that my blogging friend Ben Arment turned his blog comments off due to time constraints. Seems folks were engaging him in some debate and it was hard for Ben to keep up. Recently, he was fielding some comments from others about church success and his well planned “Whiteboard Sessions” one-day conference he has coming up. It seems every time the subject of church “success” is discussed, it never fails that a lively debate ensues; usually dealing with such non-essential things as music styles and bible translations. Not that those things aren’t important, but they are NOT essential in the large scheme of what the function of the church should be.

So what IS a successful church? As a church planter, I am under pressure to raise money to stay on the field. I’m also under a lot of stress to build a church that will quickly pay its own bills so that we do not have to rely on others to survive. It does take time. We began this work nearly $30,000 in the hole. That was the debt load I inherited when I brought my family here from Missouri. All of that aside, one thing I have learned is what Nelson Searcy would call RTL’s, or “Radically Transformed Lives”, is the key to success in ANY church. I simply tell folks we are in the business of “Life Transformation”. Of course, that transformation must begin with our commitment to Christ and whether or not we have truly repented and given our hearts to him. But honestly, I measure my success these days by the lives I’ve seen the ministry of our church change. It’s a work in progress and always will be.