thinking about church planters
i am constantly asked about what makes a good church planter. my friend @davidputman wrote an article yesterday in his blog, (that if i knew more about technology i would link too, sorry david) about assessing church planters and how he could generally do it in about 5 minutes. now i don’t claim to be quite as sharp as my friend david but i also believe it doesn’t take a psychological interview and 4 hours to assess a church planter.
for the most part david got it right. here’s some things i also look for. are you a risk taker? if you have never done anything risky in your life, you’ll probably struggle greatly with planting a church. i’m not talking stupid, but has God ever spoken to you about something totally out of character for you and you did it? if not, stay in a safe ministry.
secondly for me. are you a leader? tell me about something you have led to a successful conclusion. it’s good that you started something, but how did it end? could you get people to follow? did you build structure, leadership, identify people and bring them along. is it john maxwell that says, “you aren’t a leader, if no one is following.” or something like that.
third big deal for me. are you able to meet and actually get along with unbelievers? church planting is about reaching people, new people, people far from God, people God is pursuing. otherwise you are either swapping sheep or stealing sheep and your church may grow but the Kingdom stays stagnant. i often say i get along better with unbelievers than i do some guy that has been a believer for 50 years and hates his neighbor, someone of a different race or even ideas. but if you want to live in your ivory tower and study for sermons all day, everyday you’ll definitely struggle with church planting.
again, i don’t put myself in the league of a david putman, but you better be aware of these three things if you want to plant a church.
