Leadership – LOVE | ACCEPT

A Healthy Base for Planting Churches

Nurturing Roots to Fruit

If the Church wants to plant more churches in more places, we must launch them from a solid foundation. If your denomination, conference, affiliation or even your local church wants to see the reach of Christ’s church expand the kingdom gospel near and far, our commitment to church planting must balance that with an equally keen resolve to the nurture and maintenance of our existing bodies. We must nurture our legacy congregation at the same time we send out planters of new ones. Without the firm foundation of existing churches, planters without support, material and spiritual.

The Church is organic. We are the body of Christ spread across the globe and yet inseparably interconnected. Health in the body should be measured holistically, believing that all churches matter: fresh growth and existing parts equally. No leaves or fruit survive without the stem and roots. Like our own bodies, pain or weakness in one part is detrimental to the unhindered working of the other parts. It’s distracting at best, debilitating at worst. Sore legs cannot provide the stability and mobility needed by the rest of our body as we try to be of service in the kingdom. It can still happen, but it will require significantly more effort and may not be as effective.

While I support para-church planting efforts, I believe the most natural and effective church planting is done from within the church, done by churches who plant other churches. The men and women sent to plant are then known by the church, loved by the church, and supported by the church. When they are sent, they go with a support system in place and a time-tested culture adaptable to a new gathering of people. In order to realize this culture of planting, the existing churches need the confidence that comes from being healthy themselves.

To realize this mindset requires a cultural awareness on two fronts. The church must maintain as a life goal to reproduce itself. This begins on the more atomic level of being disciples who produce other disciples. Without this attitude, the larger goal of reproducing the church will be impossible in the eyes of the congregation. Keeping reproduction in the front of the other ministry goals, the church has an easier time of recognizing the need for health in all aspects of the life of the church. A public aim of reproduction heightens the awareness of a need for maintaining the church’s health in all areas to be prepared when the time comes to birth a new congregation.

Decline in churches occurs for a variety of reasons, but one of the most common is the loss of a frontier, a horizon toward which the body is always on the move. This is easily diagnosed by looking at the macro level; does the church have a group of saints who have ceased to grow? Are they not producing new disciples on their own? These truths point to the starting point on the path to health and, hopefully, a new vigorous pursuit of kingdom goals. This is a challenging ministry, but with the end goal of reproducing in mind, fresh motivation can kick-start a return to health.

Healthy roots support an abundance of fruit.

Watch Your Blind Side

Expecting the Unexpected by JD Pearring

Many leadership books focus on the act of leading, as though by sheer will, one can create success with no unanticipated outside interference. Anyone who has ever been in a position of leadership, however, knows this isn’t true. There are dozens of things that can come out of nowhere and derail your efforts toward reaching your goals. In his excellent new book Expecting the Unexpected, JD Pearring catalogs eighteen of these actions, feelings and events that we do well to be looking out for. He talks about anticipating these things as you go about your leadership duties, but the book is also useful in hindsight as you reflect on ways that each of us could have handled these negative influences better.

JD combines personal anecdotes, stories and scripture to structure each chapter. From these, he offers several ways to deal with the unexpected as it comes. The option to give up, quit, surrender, etc. is mostly missing from his suggested actions. Instead, by applying scripture to each type of event, leaders are encouraged to overcome in the best moments, or endure with faith in the more challenging instances. The Big Challenge conclusions to each chapter range in application from simple [don’t quit] to character challenging [serve in obscurity]. Depending on your situation, some will be more helpful than others.

Take some encouragement. It is out there for you.
JD Pearring

Expecting is a book to keep on a lower shelf for reference in the future. You may not be experiencing discouragement (now), but chances are you will at some point. Pull the book out, turn to chapter(s) on discouragement (and smears and complaining and fools and so on) and let JD’s wisdom get you back on track. This is a good book for new leaders who have yet to experience these troubles, as well as more seasoned leaders who have seen them all. I plan to use this material in coaching relationships with renewal leaders who often find themselves overwhelmed by these negative effects on the health of their church, as well as negatively affecting their leadership. Don’t miss this book.

THERE’S NO I IN INTEGRITY

Integrity is the foremost measure of character between you and me. The dictionary will define integrity as an adherence to a code of values, but even that is ambiguous. Integrity means that you will do what you say you will do and I do what I say I will do. Anything less and the bond between us begins to fray and eventually snap. When it finally breaks it’s much like the rupture of a taut Achilles tendon. The two ends will curl away from each other and must be stretched under great pressure to even come close enough to begin the net back together. There is much pain and a long period of time elapses before the bond is trusted again, if it ever is.

Well, actually there are two. I and I. You and me. Integrity is the foremost measure of character between you and me. The dictionary will define integrity as an adherence to a code of values, but even that is ambiguous. Integrity means that you will do what you say you will do and I do what I say I will do. Anything less and the bond between us begins to fray and eventually snap. When it finally breaks it’s much like the rupture of a taut Achilles tendon. The two ends will curl away from each other and must be stretched under great pressure to even come close enough to begin the net back together. There is much pain and a long period of time elapses before the bond is trusted again, if it ever is.

In leadership, whether in the church or in a secular setting, surveys have demonstrated over and over that the most important character trait in a leader’s integrity. If people are going to follow a leader into battle or into ministry they must know that the leader’s word is rock solid. They do what they say they’re going to do. Always. Without excuses. Even if it requires sacrifice on their part.

They are often misappropriated verse in the epistle of James speaks to the impact that integrity can have.

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. James 2:18

It is as easy to claim to have faith as it is to pound your chest and claim the solidity of your integrity. Because we do not exist in a vacuum it’s also easy enough for those around us to evaluate our claims of both faith and integrity. If we claim faith in the God of the universe and His Son Jesus Christ but live lives contrary to the obedience and character demanded of a recipient of his magnificent grace that our faith is certainly questionable. In the same way, proclamations of integrity fall on deaf ears when our actions demonstrate that we cannot be trusted. The Christian leader who finds themselves in this position also has a ministry that is over before it starts. God is not going to bless something that begins by bringing dishonor to His name.

Our hope would be to be found like Israel’s leaders Samuel. After having led Israel for decade after decade Samuel stands before all the people and lays himself bare. (1 Samuel 12:1-4) He states without hesitation that if he has wrongly taken anything from anyone he will repay. If he has cheated or oppressed anyone he will make reparation. If he has been less than honest in any of his dealings he will confess and make right any illicit bargain. “I will make it right” are Samuel’s farewell words before Israel and his God.

The people reply “you have not cheated or oppressed us,” and “you have not taken anything from anyone’s hand.” Samuel had integrity.

Gideon Pursues the Enemy II

After being denied sustenance in Succoth, Gideon pursues similar support in Peniel, to the same end. A vehement no! from the men of Peniel garners similar threats of retribution from Gideon. When he returns this way on the way back home, he states that the tower he is facing will be torn down. Do the men of Peniel respond in fear? For that matter, did a similar threat to scourge the men of Succoth with briars and thorns cause them to give in? The word tells us no and that the army of God’s purpose moved on under the power of the Lord.

Church leaders can find a second item of interest in this passage. It is sometimes the case that we can misread external signals thinking that they guide our purpose. If Gideon had asked of God for sustenance, relying on the people of Succoth and Peniel to be the answerers of this prayer, he may have been tempted to turn back and question his own interpretation of the mission. Maybe not at the first denial, but perhaps the second. How many times have we, as church leaders, been certain of God’s calling to a specific purpose only to find obstacle after obstacle in our way. What is the magic number of denials that we count before we turn back? Maybe our practice needs to be …one more than that.