6. You’re passionate like Peter.
Peter meets Elijah and Moses and responds, “Let’s build a hotel right here!”
Jesus instructs Peter on foot washing so Peter says, “Give me a bath!”
Jesus says that all the disciples will leave him and Peter proclaims, “I will never deny you!”
Peter hops out of boat in the middle of a lake, cuts off a guy’s ear, cusses out a servant girl and sobs his guts out when he realizes the depth of his betrayal.
Everything Peter does, he does with passion.
Church planters lead with their heart. Their heart breaks when a marriage fails, they party like it’s 1999 every time someone commits their life to Christ, they get so excited they can’t stand themselves after every baptism. Church planters are obnoxious on Twitter because their emotions are on display for the world to see. I haven’t met a successful stoic church planter. I’m just glad Peter didn’t have a Facebook page.
7. You’re tenacious like Paul.
The Apostle Paul just didn’t know when to quit
Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. I have traveled on many long journeys.
I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.
I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.
After the third or fourth beating, any normal person would have said, “Well, that’s about it for me,” but Paul wasn’t a normal person, he was a church planter.
The single biggest difference between a successful church planter and one who doesn’t make it is tenacity. The ability to continue to work and change and adapt until he finds a way to reach people far from God and mold them into a local faith community. This is different than doing the same thing over and over and hoping this time things will work out differently (tenacity versus persistence).
Church planters are crazy, not insane.
