I never wanted to be a church planter.
It first seemed too hard, and, as I initially thought, unnecessary. There are churches everywhere and what good will a new church plant do anyway?
One of the first questions that I had to answer was that of all the churches that currently existed, how healthy were they and what were they doing to reach and disciple new people for Christ? I found that, sadly, a large number of churches are not really healthy at all. Furthermore, very few of them are reaching and discipling new people for Christ.
If you ask people their thoughts on church the answers will be about as varied as the number of churches that exist. People go to church or don't go to church for a variety of reasons. It is safe to say that in America the church is both an institution and a tradition.
But what's the real purpose of the Church?
The mission of the Church must be to reach people. The simple truth is that people's lives really can be better because of what Jesus came to do. When I see people in stores, restaurants, driving down the road, etc., I think, "if they only knew...." What a tremendous difference it would make! You can be a better (a lot of things) when you have a life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ.
Church is not a building, event or an organization. Rather, it is a purpose driven family with two missions: love God and love people. It was when I first really grasped this truth that I thought about church planting. Statistics show that more people come to Christ through a new church plant than through any other method. Where are those lost people who are ready to come to Christ? Everywhere!!!
Was it uncomfortable to think that I should leave my comfortable church position and start a brand new work from scratch? Was it crazy to prepare to move my wife and four children out of our home of 12 years to a totally new city? Absolutely!!!
So what was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me? It was a project by a man named David Olson called The American Church in Crisis. Please click this link to watch a short summary of this project: click here. Watch it and see what you think.
So now, do you hear the call? Do you feel the passion?
When people come to the Interest Meetings for our new church plant, I always ask them the same thing: "Ask the Holy Spirit what your response to what you have seen and heard should be." If you do that and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit, then I am happy.
So what is the Holy Spirit telling you to do? Should you step out of a comfortable place and become part of something bigger than yourself?
The bottom line is that we are not waiting for the harvest. The harvest is out there waiting on us.
