What does this look like? Where do I start? Who do I target? Please put flesh on this whole process for me, please! If you are a church planter you have found yourself asking these questions.
We moved into Beaumont, Texas the weekend of the 4th of July. I have to tell you that there were quite a few mixed emotions for us. We pulled up to our house late at night, no welcoming committee from a church, no strong men to help us move furniture, no food awaiting us from the best cooks in the congregation. It was just us. Most of our moves before this one have been to cities where we had accepted a position on staff at a church. The silence was deafening.
The loneliness was real.
The "What have we done!?" questions quickly flooded both of our minds. We had both left successful ministries for the unknown territory we felt God pulling us towards. But at that moment all we saw was the fact that we were in a brand new city, with only one couple that we had made contact with and a city full of people that we didn't know.
After spending an entire week getting settled (something that you NEED to take the time to do) we began to try to wrap our minds around what was ahead for us. Let me save you some time by telling you, "You can't wrap your mind around it!!" It's impossible to put flesh on something that has yet to be born. There are models you can follow, training that you would be wise to seek after, but in the end every church plant looks different. The demographics are unique, the opportunities are different and God is calling each of us to help build a church that is designed as a "One of a Kind."
So with this in mind, how do you begin putting the pieces together? We are learning that it literally is a day to day process. As a church planter, you don't yet have the luxury of walking into a church with dedicated church members, thriving ministries and dedicated staff. If you are a church plant that has a sponsoring church you are a little ahead of the process. You will hopefully begin with a core team of individuals that, with your leadership, will help you begin to work towards your launch. If you are a "parachute plant" (like we are) you have a little more work ahead for you. You must work diligently the first several months to a year to establish relationships and identify key people who you feel can be instrumental in helping you launch.
There are no shortcuts to this process. Jesus took the time to teach His disciples and help them wrap their minds around what ministry looked like. In the same way, we must not get in a hurry to force relationships around us. God is calling us to make disciples, He's not calling us to find warm bodies that can help us with the tasks that lie ahead before we launch. Relationships take time, they take effort. Building relationships takes you, as the church planter, putting yourself out there time and time again, willingly making yourself vulnerable to people you barely know, if you know them at all. It takes seeking out every opportunity you can find to build relationships with people.
I've heard it said several times that planting a church is much like riding multiple trains on multiple tracks, hoping that in the end they all arrive at the train station simultaneously. While you are riding on the track of relationship building, you also must be riding on the track of developing your ministry plan. Ok, we know this by now, right? So now comes the whole, "put flesh on my ministry plan" challenge. What we are discovering is that our ministry plan is there to serve as a reminder of why we are planting a church in the first place. In our ministry plan we chart out the demographics of our city and what our timeline is going to look like. We share our vision and our calling in our ministry plan and what we hope our church will one day look like. But what our ministry plan is NOT is a day to day checklist for us to mark off at the end of the day with everything we accomplished. Now hear me out. You have to know where you are going, and you have to have order in your day and things you want to accomplish. But building relationships in this very pregnant stage of church planting is not something you can mark off on a checklist once it is accomplished. We've discovered that there are many days that we question if what we accomplished today amounted to anything more than a hill of beans (insert my Texas accent here and you've got this phrase down.) These are the days where you spend time getting to know someone, or a group of "someone's," and wonder if you made any impression on them at all. Never forget that God can transform lives during the church planting process and you can see great victories long before you open the doors of your church. What you are doing right now is making a difference. You are helping build a church block by block. It takes time, patience and perseverance. Keep moving and don't give up!
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