Thursday, December 4, 2008

Eight things I Learned in Eight Years as a Church Planter

What are the eight things that I have learned in my eight years as a church planter that I wish I would have known (you guessed it) - eight years ago? Here they are:

CONFESSIONS OF THIS CHURCH PLANTER

Year One: Too much of me was not enough for me.

The late comedian Richard Prior once said, "I like me too much to stop liking me." How true. Right out of the gate I learned something about myself that I am not very proud of - even to this day: I came into planting eight years ago with way too much pride. Maybe I'll be the next Bill Hybels or Rick Warren. Why not? I've read their books and found some things that even I could approve upon. I was so full of myself that I couldn't get enough of myself. I would later discovered that much of the under current of this pride could be summarized with just one word - I was "insecure." Even today, this continues to be a constant battle for me - and I've learned that I'm not alone. Many of my church planting partners have shared privately with me how this has been one of the many demons in their life as well. Although we all desire to have a successful church from the very beginning, we are extremely fearful of failure. And if truth be known about myself, if the church did thrive, I wanted to make sure my "name" was attached to it. Similar to James and John (really their mother) fighting for "that" special position in heaven (to be next to Jesus), so too, I desired more of me and less of Jesus. The first year.

Year Two: Motive is behind 101% of all decisions.

Check your motives. Why are you writing that book? Why are you lecturing or teaching? Why are you attending the conference? Why are you traveling so much? Why are you gone all the time? I discovered early on that for every decision that I made as a leader of our new church, I had a motive behind it. In fact, all decisions that we make do come with some form of motive. Some of the motives are pure, while others, well - not quite. For example, in just our second year of existence as a new church, we were able to plant another church. This made the "highlight" reel among our conference. Hence, a quick interview with - you guess it - "me." (Remember my year one lesson above? Oh ya). An article about me and our church appeared in a Leadership magazine and you could say that my motives for church planting took an awkward turn. I couldn't wait to share my "expertise" with my fellow friends. I was speaking everywhere - not even aware that during this entire trip down "smart lane," my marriage was eroding along with my parenting. Year two.

Year Three: If you want to turn people off, enforce your authority.

Now that our church was clipping along, most of my time was spent clipping the wings off my volunteers and leaders. In year three, I now sat in the big boy seat, asking for opinions but welcoming few. It seemed like each time there was a problem in our church I was fast to throw out my answer and enforce it. We had our occassional ministry team meetings (creative meetings)during the year to take us to the next level, but I soon noticed that our leaders, while sharing their big ideas to the group, would often glance my way for my reaction to their suggestions. At the time, I viewed this as a good thing. Hey. Why not? I'm the leader. However, I soon discovered that my leaders were sharing fewer and fewer ideas with me. Why? I had muffled their dreams. Hence, much of the time during our third year as a church was, me, keeping the wheels on the bus. I felt that my authority was enough to steer us forward and save the day. You might say, a big adjustment was on the horizon. Year three.

Year Four: When you plateau, find a foe.

When I first planted Willowbrook I would read about these churches that would plateau in their attendance. My thought: "That's too bad. They should have been more creative." But in no way did I ever think it would happen to us. But it did. We could not climb over the 500 mark. Like the little engine that could...we couldn't. Instead of going about it the right way, I jumped to the conclusion that we must have enemies in the church that didn't want to see us grow. And of course, I implemented "operation scarlet letter," finding people in our church who did not like to see our church growing larger - and I tossed them out. This is true. I wish I could say I'm lying - but I'm not. In my fourth year I was so focused on our "problems" that I couldn't even attempt to find a solution. Most of my meetings with our leaders were concentrated on finding enemies, the people who love causing issues in our church. Obviously, every church must deal with this to some extent, but God wired (I call it a gift) me with a "compulsive" disorder and I needed a chill pill - but couldn't find one. The church consumed every minute of my waking time. My cell phone was attached to me but my family wasn't. The fourth year.

(The remainig four lessons will be posted next week)