Monthly Archives: June 2010

June 24, 2010

5 Lessons of Church Planting – Part 4

By alexpenduck

This week I am blogging about five lessons I have learned on the journey of starting a new church. I believe these five lessons are ones that every church planter will face no matter what their unique situation is. You can see the introduction and part one here, part two here and part three here.

Today is lesson number four:

4. You must be willing to do the thing you hate most!

I’m a big believer in leading through your strengths. I know what I’m good at, but I equally know what I am very bad at. Being on a leadership team at a church has the advantage that you can lead by your strengths and pass your weaknesses over to someone else. However, I have discovered, when it comes to church planting those things that you absolute hate doing will often pass your direction, and often you are the only one who can tackle them.

I believe as a church planter God often tests our leadership and develops us as leaders. We can have mentors and coaches (which I believe every leader should have), but at the end of the day, I think God just throws us in the deep end and forces us to swim, no matter how much we may hate it!

For me, confrontation was my deep end. I hate confrontation, I’ve always tried to avoid it, and on previous leadership teams I’ve always been able to let those whose strength it was who could create healthy confrontation take on a particular issue. Since stepping out to plant a church I have been thrown in the confrontation deep end so many times it is becoming a regular occurrence. I don’t like it anymore than I did before, I still have the same feelings, I still feel totally out of my depth, but I have realized, I must sometimes do the things I hate most, and I believe every church planter will be thrown into a deep end of the things they hate to do most.

What is the area or thing you hate to do most? Are you willing to tackle that area head on?

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Church Planting, Leadership

June 23, 2010

5 Lessons of Church Planting – Part 3

By alexpenduck

This week I am blogging about five lessons I have learned on the journey of starting a new church. I believe these five lessons are ones that every church planter will face no matter what their unique situation is. You can see the introduction and part one here and part two here.

Today is lesson number three:

3. A Prayer Team is the most important asset

One thing I set up at the beginning was a prayer team. These were people from all over the world who I personally knew whom I asked to commit to pray for my wife, our team, the church plant and myself on a weekly basis. I was surprised by the people who did commit to pray and also surprised by the ones who didn’t. It’s not always the people closet to you who will support you the most.

I wanted to have a team of people praying who were not going to be attending the church. These were people who were part of their own churches and able to commit to us in prayer without being emotional involved in the day-to-day operations of the church. I did not realize until we had started the journey how important this group of intercessor’s were going to be.

Church Planting is a spiritual thing, and for all the practical advice there is to be found, without a spiritual backbone it will be impossible. You can have a great team, plenty of money, a rocking band, a perfect location and a sweet kids ministry, yet without people consistently holding you and the church up in prayer it will fall flat on its face. I soon realized that I could not lift the church in prayer alone.

There are times when the pressure and burden of church planting is so great and you do not have the energy to lift yourself in prayer let alone a church. I’ve always had a pretty decent prayer life, but it wasn’t until I started Generation Church that I realized how much of an effort it takes to lift a church in prayer. This is where the prayer team is essential and if I was to do this all over again I would start with a small prayer team of trusted people who I know would commit to prayer before I even shared the vision with anyone else.

That is how important a prayer team is to any church planter!

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Church Planting, Leadership

June 22, 2010

5 Lessons of Church Planting – Part 2

By alexpenduck

This week I am blogging about five lessons I have learned on the journey of starting a new church. I believe these five lessons are ones that every church planter will face no matter what their unique situation is. You can see the introduction and part one here.

Today is lesson number two:

2. Raising money is overrated, managing money is underrated

If you read most church planting books, or go to most church planting seminars you will soon realize that it takes a whole lot of money to start a new church. You hear of reports of anywhere from $30,000-$100,000 to just get started. We’ll for most people this just plainly freaks them out.

So much emphasis is put on money that it sometimes becomes the one thing that church planters think is the most important. Well, I have found that yes it does take a whole lot of money to plant a church, but raising $100,000 cannot be a priority! When it comes to finances, it is not how much you raise that is important, but how you manage your money. If God has truly called you to plant a church, believe in him, listen to him and give of your all to him and he will make sure you will have the money you need to plant that church.

So often I have seen it time and again, people raise money and within a few months the money has dried up and they are struggling, all because they did not manage their money well. I chose not to go down the mass fundraising route, but I decided if God has called me to this then I have to step out in faith and believe he is going to provide, and he has provided in an incredible way! What I have found out is that if you are a good steward with the small things God gives you, he trusts you with more. I started with $1000 of my own money, gave $500 of it away to a church planter in India before we even began and have discovered that if you use your money for God’s Kingdom and use it wisely (not spending on things you do not need) God will reward you and provide your every need and every bill that comes your way!

If you’re a church planter, are you using all your money towards your church plant or are you giving away a portion as a tithe and offering unto the Lord?

5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Church, Church Planting, Leadership

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