Church Planting – Page 3

February 22, 2010February 25, 2010

Velocity 2010 – Shawn Lovejoy

Velocity 2010 Church Planters Conference

Satan knows if he can get the leader to doubt themselves, he has them on a slippery slope.

When leaders get insecure in their own skin:

1. We start comparing ourselves to other leaders –

The Challenge is, with technology, we can look all around the country and see what is happening everywhere else and start comparing our church to others and ourselves to other leaders. This brings a great deal of negativity.

2. We start copying other leaders –

We’ll use their logos, their sermon series, etc.

We become afraid of becoming or being the leader God’s called us to be.

Copying leads to envying other ministries and leaders.

3. We Condemn other Leaders –

When condemning others does not make us feel better, we start getting down on ourselves.

(Either God called you, or he didn’t…If he called you…don’t quit, don’t give up!)

2 Timothy 4:1-5, 6-7

[Francis Chan] “I can build a church bigger than Jesus with enough money and slick marketing. (Large crowds are not always attracted to the commitment Jesus calls us to)

Be Patient
Do Your Ministry
Use Your Gifts
Be Self-Disciplined

1 Samuel 17:38-40

Pastors try to wear someone else’s armor:

Copy their personality

(God wants to use MY personality in MY community)

Copy their gifts

Someone else’s armor could be someone else’s testimony

A lot of churches look good and look the way they do, because they reflect the testimonies of the leaders of that church.

(We cannot duplicate the testimonies of other churches)

**God wants to use OUR testimonies in OUR community!**

Could God be limiting our voice in our community because we are trying to duplicate everyone else in our church?

Are you willing to take off someone else’s armor?

Velocity Conference: Main Session 2 Highlights – – Main Session 3 Highlights – – Breakout Session 2 with Pete Wilson Highlights – – Main Session 4 Highlights – – Breakout Session 3 with Tony Morgan Highlights – – Main Session 6 Highlights

October 21, 2009October 21, 2009

Church Planters Don’t Come In a Box

I haven’t joined the MAC cult as many of my friends have. I’m very curious about owning my own MAC, but my main decision to stay PC has been solely financial.

One of the things that attracts me to the MAC is the out-of-the-box uniformity. With PC’s we have the good family members and then we have the distant, red headed step cousins that we wish weren’t at the family reunions, no names…E-Machines and the like. With PC there are vast differences between a Toshiba and an E-Machine.

The more time I log in this “Church Planting” journey the more I am coming to realize that church planters and new churches (known as church plants…not the fake green things) are more like PCs and not like MACs. Church planters do not come in a box just as new churches do not come in a box.

I allowed myself to be defeated in the early days of our launch. It seemed like everything I’ve heard in conferences or read in books or listened to on Podcasts simply didn’t happen for New Passion. I allowed myself to have high hopes based on plans I created and from the promise of support and help from groups and individuals and even from the closest of friends. Though I can never control the circumstances around me, I’ve come to the reality that though God uses people in the most powerful of ways in our lives, there are times that he has a specific plan for us where we have to fully rely on and fully trust in him alone. I came to the realization that God was building New Passion in such a way that HE alone would get the glory.

There are things that all church planters experience and have to go through. I understand that. I consider these the mouse and the keyboards of the industry. We all have to have them to function properly. However, there are some things based on each church planter’s circumstances that they cannot learn from just anybody. The sad reality is, some church planters will spend a ton of time looking at attractive “successful” churches and adopting just about everything they do, but they never see or understand the realities that led that “successful” church to adopt those programs or processes. There are some church planters who want to be everyone but themselves and though I have dealt with the temptation of falling into that trap, I am slowly seeing that many of the “successful” churches I could look at haven’t dealt with what New Passion has to deal with.

It would be much easier if all church planters came in a box packaged with $75,000-$100,000 to start with, a launch team of at least 100 people, a partnering organization that fulfills their purpose, all of the equipment needed for success, and every promise made to them fulfilled, and the ability to launch as a full time pastor, etc. (That DOES happen for some)

My box consisted of…$15,000 ($5,000 of which was a loan & a majority of the remaining amount provided by some amazing generous individuals), 23 adults on our launch team, an organization where my “coach” abandoned his team and that has given no local support, not 1 church supporting us financially on a monthly basis, several broken promises by other churches and by *gasp* friends, equipment loaned to us by an amazing church for about a year (maybe more), and a job from another Kingdom minded church where I can work and still launch our church bi-vocationally.

I don’t say this to complain. I say this to point out that church planters do not come in a box. New Passion Church is New Passion Church and God has given us this path to travel because I believe he has a specific plan and purpose for our church. If we whine and complain that we didn’t get to launch like other churches or if we whine and complain that life’s not fair, then I believe we set ourselves on a path that will miss what God has for us. Trust me, I am a student of other churches and what they are doing to have success, but I want to be careful not to miss what God has for us! What can’t God do with New Passion Church? I believe he has put us in a place where he can blow our minds, and make everyone else wish they could have a little bit of the credit. 😉

Join the Conversation…What Did Your Box Look Like?

June 1, 2009May 30, 2009

Church Planting: Can I At Least Have A Flashlight?

I read this devotion from Oswald Chambers the other night…I thought it defined my journey as a church planter pretty accurately. Sometimes I wish I just had a flashlight to see some of the things lying before me. At times I think a flashlight would make things easier. When I talk to people about joining our team…honestly, I understand their squirminess. Church planting is tough. I can say that with integrity now. It requires total reliance on God. Some people are not willing to do that. We absolutely will not take a step unless we can see what it is that’s lying in the grass ahead of us…what Oswald talks about is a scary, dangerous life of reckless abandon:

“Yes-But…!”

“Lord, I will follow You, but…” (Luke 9:61)

Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but-suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about…?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what he asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”

Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventerous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be time when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.

By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis-only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.

When God gives you a challenge. Do you wait for Him to give you a flashlight? Or are you daring enough to invest your faith in the character of God and taking a leap into the dark?