Rethink Mission: Inspiring gospel-centered missional churches

Seven years ago I left my job as a youth minister to gather a core team of friends and start a new church in our town. We launched publicly on Easter Day, 2003. A short year and a half later, my wife and I did the unthinkable – we shut the church down and moved away – one of the hardest decisions of our lives.

There are a ton of lessons I’ve learned over the years about what went wrong and why, but I’ve distilled five of the most important.

Here is How to Kill a Church Before It Gets Off the Ground:

1. Plant for a culture that is different than your setting.
Our new church was oh, so hip. (I’ve said more about The Hipper than Thou Church.) The problem was, this was a small town. In the South. Influenced by what large churches in large cities (primarily in the Midwest & Northwest) were doing, I was more in love with “hipness” than trying to understand the culture I was actually planting in.  Thus, in an effort to be relevant, we failed to be properly contextual. If you want to kill your church, don’t study your culture or do the hard work of contextualization. Don’t die to your preconceived notions about what your church has to look like. Plant a church like one you’ve been to or read about, not one that will actually connect with the people in your area.

2. Plant a church for rebellious evangelicals that is intentionally not like the church down the street.
We’re not like… your parents church… those Baptists… those fundamentalists… those… well, you get the point.  Our church plant was more obsessed about what it was not than what it actually was going to be for.  Almost anything that is reactionary will take an unhealthy turn in the opposite direction.

You don’t like legalists, I get it, but what will you stand for? You won’t be the church that asks for money, yells at people, makes people sit/stand/sit/stand, and where you don’t have to wear a suit & tie – that’s fine. But I hope you have more vision than just that. Deconstruction is easy (and a lot of times necessary) but it can’t stop there. What healthy thing will you actually build? How will you shape your people and your city positively with the gospel?

3. Don’t preach the Bible.
My highest calling and greatest gift to the church is to study the Bible and preach what I find there. To teach people to read and treasure scripture. And most importantly to look at the story of the Bible and point to Jesus and his work to redeem humans.

And yet, in an effort to be relevant, I was more eager to preach series based on movies and pop culture instead of the Bible. (I’ll save myself the embarrassment of telling you those sermon titles.) I strongly believe that we need to pay attention and come awake to the often subtle ways that God reveals himself through culture. However, what both believers and seekers need more than anything is to come in contact with the God of scripture.  That happens as we (intelligently, winsomely, passionately) preach the Bible.

4. Don’t protect or provide for your family.
Christ’s Bride became my mistress. (So it really wasn’t about Christ or his Bride… it was about my ego.) Driven by pride and a desire to be everyone’s savior, I didn’t put boundaries in place to protect my wife or our family time. Out of ignorance I didn’t raise enough money to support our family, and so in laziness I played around with my church plant while my wife worked a soul-killing job to support our family. It was almost the end of our marriage, and I was too blind to even see it. You want an unhealthy church? Sacrifice your marriage and family at the altar of “ministry.”

5. Plant before you’ve dealt with your own obvious sin issues.
You’ve probably heard it before, but it bears saying again: whatever is in your heart will come out at some point during this crazy church planting adventure. I am not saying that we need perfect pastors.  They don’t exist and as soon as you start acting like they do, everyone wants to play the I’ve-got-it-all-together-smiley-faced-perfect-pastor act. We do, however, need pastors and church planters who are living in the light – living lives of authentic gospel repentance.

There were hidden persistent sin issues in my life. Instead of paying attention to the darkness and opening up to trusted community, I just kept my head down and went back to work, feverishly hoping that it would all just go away. It’s obvious to say that it didn’t go away.  By God’s grace, my sin could not and would not stay hidden.

A final warning.
Shutting the doors on our dream was one of the most difficult things we’ve ever done – but it was, without a doubt, the best decision for that time. Ashley and I became a part of a healthy church and worked on our relationship and leadership.

I know that the idea of church planting is hitting a peak in popularity. It’s chic. Better than that, there is a need. We need courageous, zealous teachers and leaders who relish grace and want to take a giant risk to plant new churches in cities and villages across this planet.

Before you do, however, stop. Think. Are you ready? (Do trusted, wise advisers say you are ready?) Would time in a healthy, gospel-centered church as a volunteer or intern better equip you before you go? Could a better plan and better preparation in a community that knows you and knows your junk possibly help? Go. Plant a church. But not to the detriment of those you lead, your marriage or even your soul.

Tags: church planting, leadership, preaching

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 6:29 pm and is filed under church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.