A Different Kind of Ministry

Last week while my family was relaxing and enjoying July 4th together my wife shared some information with me about a church that started on the web before opening in January 2009. The ministry is called “The Courageous Church” in Atlanta, GA. Today I ran across the information myself while checking Facebook and found it refreshing to see many of the things this ministry is doing. After looking around a bit I ran across Pastor Shaun’s blog and found an article that caught my attention. It’s titled “10 Mistakes I’ve Made (so far) as a Church Planter”. Go ahead and read it for yourself:

10. I completely, totally, absolutely (did I say completely) overestimated how much money we would be raising from week to week. 50% of the people that are a part of our church are unemployed. A huge percentage of the employed adults that attend are either in a financial crisis or are a bit skeptical about giving to churches. We?re working on solutions for all of these things, but I made many decisions based on these estimates and soon found myself in a bit of a leadership crisis without the financial resources to support the decisions I made.

9. While I would give our team a big ol A+ for creating buzz and momentum leading up to our Grand Opening on January 11th, I channeled nearly 100% our early attention to creating this buzz and gave almost no attention to putting in place the programs, systems and structures that would keep our momentum going. While I am glad that we had a huge grand opening, I regret not putting in place simple things like information cards, follow up emails, a clearly defined system for baptism or membership/partnership, etc.

8. I was told by a few gazillion people that launching and pastoring this church would be like working two full-time jobs. I thought that was stupid. Turns out I was a bit stupid! I did not properly plan for just how much time and effort it would take to plant and lead this awesome community.

7. I made a few really bad hires and put some people into leadership positions that I would not wish on my worst enemies. Because we are a brand new community, we just didn?t have time to get to know some people that we put a lot of trust into. This is very, very tricky. From this point forward, I will make sure that we are very, very picky and much more intrusive before we make any hires.

6. I underestimated the need for office space. I have heard a lot of different opinions on this and regularly read that it is not advisable to jump right into having an office, but we need it. With a family of 6 in a small urban townhouse, my home is a terrible makeshift office space. We will still make use of public space, our house, other homes, etc., but a dedicated office space is pretty essential in my opinion.

5. I really regret not having a very clear, well conceived definition of what it means to be a member/partner of our church. Some of this really stems from my own personal hangups on the idea of membership. However, I am thinking that I through out the baby with the bathwater on this and we are now working hard to define what this means in our context.

4. We spent way too much money on our first Sunday morning facility. Nobody in the world could have convinced me of this. Nobody. Even though we have some very legitimate reasons for creating poor projections for our income, I still think that our first facility simply cost too much money. If we were raising more money maybe I would be thinking differently, but I doubt it. With all of this said, it was really the only choice that opened up for us in January and we had to do what we had to do.

3. We didn?t launch with a functional assimilation system that would really channel excited attenders into committed volunteers. We are just now starting to get this together, but I think we burned out a few volunteers in the process.

2. We weren?t courageous enough and being courageous is essential to who we are as a community. Atlanta really doesn?t need another church doing the same old stuff that reach old people. When we started to have some stress and systems challenges after our launch, I started to fall back on default church mode and lost touch a bit with the unique call that God has for us. I feel strongly that SERVOLUTION helped us get our mojo back!

1. I wasted way too much time either thinking about & engaging my critics. This not only got me distracted from the work of God, but really put me in an unhealthy place emotionally. I think I was surprised that the public criticisms started so soon and regret even caring in the first place.

You will either find this useful or be able to relate to his testimony because of your own experience. The original can be found at http://www.shauninthecity.com/2009/04/10-mistakes-ive-made-so-far-as-a-church-planter.html.

Be sure to take a look at their website also, http://www.courageouschurch.com/.

My Favorite Quote

Today I was listening to a song that spoke about getting in a place where you can hear the voice of God clearly speaking to you. I began to realize how much this song has inspired me and began to think of other things that have brought inspiration to my life. Something that keeps me focused and has ultimately become a vision for my life. It’s a quote! A few years ago I had the privilege of listening to a preached message by Dr. I.V. Hilliard that was spoken on the subject of eliminating excuses. It was during this message that he spoke something that I have continued to use for my life. He said, “Until I make an uncommon contribution in the earth my existence is unnecessary”. The quote echoed in my spirit and struck a chord with me. You see to me what he said has helped me realize that each of us has a God ordained purpose on this earth. Specifically, I believe there is something God designed for me and only me to do while here. If I don’t do it, it won’t be done. I’m just that unique and He created me that way. Moreover, in carrying out this assignment I am uncommon because you can’t accomplish my assignment. You don’t have the personality and gift mix that I have. At the same time I can’t accomplish your assignment. This quote keeps me grounded. It keeps me focused and I say it to myself often especially in those times when I feel ineffective. We should all have something that keeps us focused.

What’s your favorite quote?

Social Networking and Ministry: Do They Mix?

I have recently heard of several ministries attempting to use social media to connect to congregants.  This immediately caught my attention as one pastor has encouraged teens to text during service!!!  Did you hear that? Yes, I said text during service!!!  He probably was thinking he’d keep their attention doing something they probably are already doing in service anyway.  Instead he encouraged them to text questions concerning the sermon which would be answered during some point in the service.  Interesting or crossing the line?  More recently I ran across an article from the New York Times entitled “Lead Us to Tweet, and Forgive the Trespassers”, concerning ministries using the Social Networking service Twitter to “tweet” their services across the globe.  One might say, “What is the world coming to”. While another would say “It’s about time someone started speaking my language”.  What do you think?

The article from the New York Time can be found here.