4. Think twice your size.
Too many planters simply want to get started, which is a good goal. As the church gets off the ground, they can quickly move into maintenance mode. They stop thinking ahead and the grind of preaching every week starts to set in. When before you had dream sessions, now you are having counseling sessions. Before you used to talk about the future, now you are dealing with what just happened. In this time, it is easy to stop dreaming, stop vision casting and just do. This is dangerous. At all times, as the leader, you must think twice your size. You must ask, “If we do this, will it keep us from doubling?” Or, “When we are twice our size, will we do that?”
5. Learn from your mistakes, ’cause you’ll make them.
You’ll make mistakes. In fact, you’ll make them before you have your first core group member. That’s OK. Learn from them. When we started, we did small groups a certain way. Yet, they didn’t give us what we hoped to get, we weren’t seeing disciples made and community happen. So, two years into our plant, we scrapped what we were doing and started over. That was hard to admit because we had 85 percent of our adults in a small group. But we learned. Today, I know how to shut a ministry down. I can raise $45,000 in a month to make a big move.
I know how to kill a worship service. How to start a new worship service. How to hire a leader. How to fire one. How to have tough and easy conversations. You can blow through those experiences, but I would encourage you to go through them slowly, write down what you learned and process it with someone. Last in this area, get a coach. Someone who is steps ahead of you in the journey. Someone you respect who can speak into your leadership and give advice and be a sounding board. It is helpful if this person is not at your church so you can be completely honest with them and not hold back.
6. Bonus: Commit to outlast everyone, put down roots, and commit to one church and city.
I know I said five, but this one is important. When you start a church, it is exciting. Then the hard work starts. People stop coming, someone gets angry, shepherding sets in and it is hard work. That is why, before you start a church, commit to that church, to that city, put down roots. When we started Revolution, our prayer was, and is still, that we would die in Tucson.
We wanted to give our lives to one church, to one city, to one movement, and out of that church, we prayed that 1 million people would follow Jesus because of it. This commitment has helped when times are the darkest, because sometimes, your calling is all you have. You will come back to it and question it and wonder if you heard God correctly. If you commit to stay, it makes difficult situations a little easier. They still hurt and are painful, but when we hit rough patches, Katie and I would look at each other and say, “We decided to outlast them, so let’s push through.”
Church planting is one of the greatest adventures you can ever take. As I look back on what God has done in the last five years, I am blown away. He has been faithful, protected our leaders and my family. He has made me a better husband, a better leader and a better pastor. I remember the 11 people we started with and wonder, “Why did they stay?” Yet, I love all those people, even the ones who are part of other churches now (the ones who leave don’t belong to you anyway).
Today, as I think toward the future and our first plant, Lord willing, in September 2014, I am so excited and hopeful for the future. The idea of planting our first church and seeing the beginning stages of the movement we’ve prayed for actually becoming a reality, I get so excited. And I’m ready to sign up for more. On our fifth anniversary, one of our leaders who started with us pulled me aside and told me, “I’m still in. I love what God has done in my life. What God is doing in the lives of others. I’m in. I’m ready. Let’s take the next hill.” It is that passion that drives me and reminds me, for Revolution Church, the best is yet to come.
