Only God can cause a church planting movement, but having wholly affirmed this, let’s acknowledge that some things help release movement and other things impede it. There are core spiritual components like serious prayer, the centrality of Scripture, obedience to Christ, and abundant gospel seed sowing. Missionary principles seem critical too, such as indigenous lay leadership, reproducible church models, intentional church planting, and rapid reproduction. Barriers to movement include extra biblical requirements for leadership, dependency created by subsidy, and  mental images of Christendom.

Another set of factors that can either help or hinder movements are structural elements. Luther Gerlach and Virginia Hine wrote about this in 1970 in their book, People, Power, Change: Movements of Social Transformation. The authors referenced two movements of their day, the civil rights movement and the Pentecostal movement to frame principles regarding the anatomy of movement. If they were writing this book in North America today they may have selected the green movement, or the LGBT movement.

Three structural elements named by Gerlach and Hine are decentralization, segmentation, and interconnection. Decentralization refers to lateral decision-making and accountability that is distributed among, or delegated to participants, versus hierarchical, more formal authority. Jesus decentralized the mission of God when he said, “all authority I give to you”. He could have sent out the 72 (Luke 10) to gather a large group prior to His entering the towns where he was about to go. He might have had the 72 initiate a rally, but instead He opted for decentralization by sending 36 teams of two each.

Segmentation refers to differentiation. Movements happen when there is a shared mission, purpose and values with various manifestations. For example, vendors at a Green Festival, may promote fair trade coffee, hybrid cars, or aromatherapy candles. At first these expressions seem quite different, but each sees itself as contributing to the whole. At Pentecost the Gospel was spoken in the languages of the world. The call and the missionary journeys of the apostle Paul allowed for geographical and religious distribution of the Story. The Jerusalem Council (Acts 14-15) allowed for both segmentation and decentralization by deciding it was not necessary to become a Jew to become a follower of Christ. Contextualization allowed for the wide distribution of the Gospel for various peoples.

Intersection means that the various expressions of one mission are energized and advanced by connecting with one another. Synagogues and Passover times provides that. The LGBT movements throw parades and the green movement produces festivals. What if the various strands of “would be movement-makers” in the Christian world were to find frequent and significant places for intersection? For example, what if the house/simple/organic/missional/ T4T/ life transformation group/ Discovery Bible Study peoples created commonly held venues that reflected what they stand for together? And what if those connecting places were more decentralized, less driven by popular figureheads, and more segmented to reflect racial, ethnic, gender, age, geographical and other segments? Structure can either stimulate or confine movement.

If you’ve planted a church, and you’re honest with yourself, really honest, you might admit things have not turned out quite like you had planned. While others around you seem to be doing great things for God – baptizing, adding services, etc., you may still be struggling to figure things out.

You’re not alone.   I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve begged, pleaded, and even made one-sided deals with God, promising Him I would dothis or that if he would just make it work!

Recently, we’ve seen much growth, and blessing.  Here’s what I’m learning:

1.       Jesus wasn’t my priority

Honestly, I know what it’s like to preach on Sundays without personally pursuing Jesus with my own heart during the week.  The truth is Jesus won’t do something through you until He first does something in you.  What’s He doing in you personally?  Apart from your role as pastor, have you prioritized the presence of God in your life today?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. –Matt. 5:6

2.       I divorced the vision

You can’t plant a church apart from vision, period.  If Jesus has given you a vision for your church, you better be willing to die for it! Early on, I divorced the vision that God gave me, because others told me it was too grandiose, while they struggled to keep their church doors open.  I soon realized they were mistaken, because any vision I could pull off on my own was not God-sized!  If you’ve heard from God, be bold.  Go public with your vision today!

Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained. – Prov. 29:18a

3.       I didn’t have a coach

GET A COACH!  Adding an expert to your staff is an invaluable investment.  My coach, Charles Hill, has taught me more in four months than I’ve learned in two years.  Even the best athletes in the world need a coach.  You can’t afford not to have one.  Trust me, get a coach today!

I quaked. Whenever I neared her classroom, fear and trepidation besieged me. My reaction was autonomic, full of emotions I could not control. Whenever she called on another student, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. For the moment, hallelujah, I was not the one who was put on the hot seat. Have you ever been there? Whenever I handed in an essay, I tossed and turned in unabated restlessness. Red markings blanketing my paper were sure to follow. Ouch! No professor since, not even one of those renowned psychologists on my dissertation committee, provoked in me such angst.

It was freshman year at Taylor University, and she was the notorious Professor Hilda Studebaker. English Composition was her playing field, and fierce hard ball was her game. To many of us, she felt like a student’s worst nightmare, or a better metaphor, a terrifying earthquake reverberating aftershocks and tremors across the Upland campus.

Take her grading policy. She docked you one letter grade for every error on a paper. If you split an infinitive, the best you could get was a B. On the same paper, if a subject and verb did not agree, the best you now could get was a C. Many of my essays, incidentally, had three or more errors. Coming from West Philadelphia to rural Indiana was enough of a shock. Encountering Professor Studebaker was flat-out traumatic. I can envision her stern look and hear her say. “Write in the active voice, not passive voice.” “Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence.” “Vary the lengths of your sentences to maintain interesting prose.” “Use proper syntax.” “Write with precision.” “Use forceful verbs.”

Professor Studebaker etched an indelible mark on my psyche. But here is an irony. Although I never remember her smiling, behind the persona was a caring person. In spite of my bumbling, she saw my potential and then transformed me into a writer. More than anyone other professor, she gave me an incredible tool and honed my academic abilities. The experience propelled me forward. For you see, good writing is not simply about syntax and sentence structure. It is about critical thinking, clarity of thought, focusing on what is important, connecting with people, enriching the human experience, and ministering. Yes, good writing is ministry. Remember the works of Solomon, Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, C. S. Lewis, and Jonathan Edwards? You should. I place writing near the top of my ministry tool box.

Inadvertently, Professor Studebaker also taught me a life lesson: the one about conquering debilitating fear. I learned that the only real solution to fear is to confront the object of fear. My astute professor would not allow me to avoid the task at hand, despite my deepest angst. Therefore, I respectfully suggest that FDR was slightly off point when he said: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In my opinion, a more accurate mantra is this: “The only thing we have to fear is the avoidance of the things we fear.” We psychologists call the professor’s method flooding, which is prolonged and intense exposure to the noxious stimulus. This should be of interest. By the end of that freshman year, my fear had subsided. I amazingly looked forward to going to class. Do you know what is more amazing? Writing became a passion.

Along life’s journey, it became clearer to me that the antidote to fear is the opposite of how we often behave—avoidance. For real success, we must face the things we fear–not in lieu of our fears but despite them. When we obey God and step into the uncharted waters of life, God works in wondrous ways, and then our fears begin to subside. The scientific principle of extinction, which underlies flooding, accords with the biblical command of living by faith: “Walk by faith, not by sight” (II Corinthians 5:7); “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17); “Obedience is better than sacrifice” (I Samuel 15: 22); “The just shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4); “Trust and obey, for there is no other way” (John H. Simmis).

Faithlessness, not fear, is the antithesis of faith. Fear–the expectation of impending harm–reflects our humanness; disobedience and irresponsible avoidance, our faithlessness. Fear may underlie our decision to disobey and irresponsibly avoid. But faithlessness lies in the choices we make—choosing this day, this hour, this moment who we serve, what we serve, and how we serve. To complete the narrative, fear does have a contingent relationship with faith. Walking by faith precedes the dissipating of our fear, while the dissipating of our fear (the effect) hinges on walking by faith (the cause). Like faithlessness, faithfulness is a choice. Unlike faithlessness, this choice leads us into obedience and responsible action.

As it turned out, Professor Studebaker was my biggest fear inducer yet my biggest fear conqueror. To be honest, I still get threatened. I still bumble. Lord strengthen my faith so that I might confront the fearful challenges I need to face, flee the threats that bring me needless harm, and grant me the conviction to choose rightly between these opposing choices.

As a Church Planter, there are certain built in big days that give you a great increase in numbers, but sometimes leave you feeling empty the week after.  For example, Easter can be one of those days.  People go to church on Easter!  They come to your church, the numbers swell.  The fact is with proper systems in place, you will keep some of those people, but the bottom line is the very next week, you could have up to 50% less people.

This past Easter, I sat down with my staff in our regular Monday Staff Meeting the Monday after Easter and taught them this fact. As leaders in our church, we must:

LEARN TO LIVE IN THE BIG PICTURE

I have been guilty of living week to week.  I remember launching and being so excited, but then the next week having 50% less than the week before.  The books were right!!  But it was a beginning of a “big picture” that Jesus was painting for us.

Since then, we have had big days and some more Easter’s, but I have had to learn to live in the “big picture”. I am beginning to understand that each week is a stepping stone and sometimes those stones seem to be going backward.  However, it seems as if  God shows up and it seems as though there is breakthrough just in time.

I have had the temptation of giving up many times.  I have fallen into depression and worry and anxiety because I thought that I just didn’t measure up because the numbers fell in one week.  Looking back, I can see the journey that Jesus was bringing me on.  Now looking ahead, I know that the journey is not finished.

So have hope! Live in the big picture and let Jesus grow you in His time.  Here are some practical steps that have helped me live in the “big picture” that I shared with my staff:

1.  Continually Practice The Presence of God: No matter what happens in my church, my relationship with Jesus is most important. I have had to understand and learn that Jesus is already pleased with me.

2.  Celebrate the “BIG DAYS” – Take time to celebrate every big day and thank Jesus for the “next weeks”.  Do not be afraid to shout it from the rooftops what Jesus has done on a “big day”.  Allow your team to celebrate.

3.  Plan For More Great Things:  Live as if every Sunday is Easter.  Live in the “Big Picture”, planning on great things from God.  Why? Because He is great and He is doing great things in your midst even though you may not see it right now!

Developing a realistic time line is essential for the new planter.  It should include all the set-up steps and preparatory spiritual work.  You must have a time line.  I have found it a good idea to make three plans and debate the three plans with your core leaders.

I have found that most church planters are excessively optimistic.  And think that is a good think.  But the down side is your planning can be unachievable.  I think it is a good idea to decide on a plan and then add 20% more of a span of time to what you think you can pull off.

I recommend moving from just a checklist to answering the following questions:

1. Who will do each task?
2. How much time will each task take?
3. How much money will each step require?
4. Where are you going to find the time and money?
5. What’s the back up plan for each step?

These are often questions left unanswered by planters.  I find the more specific a plan is greater the likelihood it will be executed.  I have failed at three church plants and succeeded at a couple as well.  And I have guided dozens of plants.  I attribute my failures to not answering the above questions in enough detail.  And I have found the more detailed a planter can make their time line the more likely they will succeed.

I have a time line right now in my backpack from a church in the southwest.  It is very good in outlining the sequence of needed tasks to accomplish.  But I can predict the planter will struggle.  Mainly because he is overly optimistic as to how much of the plan he can achieve on his own.  There are three major resources a planter team has that need to be budgeted in the plan as well.   These are:

1. Time
2. Money
3. Energy

The planter needs to remember they have limited supplies of all these three. I recommend assessing what each task will take to achieve in terms of time, money and energy.  If you run out of the resources above you will need to go and find more.

I’m a huge fan of learning from great organizations. One of my favorite things to do is to take planters, pastors and clients on field trips to learn from those who do it best. I have done this several times and there is always a ton to learn.

This week I took 5 church planters to Disneyland (it helps living close). First, I took them to 5 places in the park that tell the Disney story as well as create teaching moments. After we made our 5 quick stops I provided them with observation questions to get them thinking, asking and observing.

Here’s a sample of some the questions and instructions I provided them:

1. Look around and make some general observations. Remember to look with “new eyes.”
2. Ask,” What does Disney know/do that we could learn from?” Keep in mind that we often miss the genius of the familiar.
3. Ask the “why” questions.
4. Describe your experience (both good and bad).
5. Describe the environment.
6. How does this place make you feel?
7. What can you learn from your experience that can be integrated or used in the ministry you’re currently doing or will be doing?
8. Describe the different emotions and experiences you had.
9. What do you learn about vision and dreams? Attention to detail? Customer service?
10. With everything ask, What does this mean for me?

After a few hours of observing and playing, I gather those participating to debrief and ask, “What did you see, what did you hear and what did you learn? The depth of conversation and observations deepens the more people you have. In my opinion collaboration is the best process for learning, so creating a collaborative environment is key to best outcomes. The best way to do this is by sending people out in groups with observation questions designed to maximize the learning experience. The questions you ask will guide people’s thinking and the outcome you hope they experience.

So, if you want your organization or leadership team to get new ideas about things like customer service, the importance of values, branding, etc., then send them out armed with their observation questions and instructions and when they get back be sure to debrief and ask what can we learn from these observations and what would it look like for us?

Here are my top ten organizations to learn from:

1. Disney – Customer service, great environments and experiences, values, leadership, branding, fun and vision

2. Southwest Airlines – Driving values through an organization, enduring a crisis, advertising, fun

3. Panera – Creating an environment and experience for people, values, quality

4. Nordstroms – Customer service, sales

5. Apple (the Apple Store) – Branding, customer service, change, creating an environment for people

6. Starbucks – Branding, values, management, pride, change

7. In & Out Burger- Quality, simplicity, hiring, values

8. Chick-fil-A – Commitment to excellence, values, telling a story

9. Google – Simplicity, fun, loyalty

10. Trader Joe’s – Branding, Customer Service, Identity

Things to keep in mind as you do this:

1. Learning best happens when it’s collaborative

2. Learn outside the box – We tend to focus our learning on the same books, models and organizations

3. Control the experience not the outcomes

4. Do your work ahead of time – Just don’t show up and expect to learn

5. Record everything and get your observations to everyone

Super Bowl coach and respected Christian witness Tony Dungy has left a mark on America in terms of exemplary leadership. He didn’t curse, sarcastically chew out players, or rant on the sidelines. He believed he could get his team to compete by calmly providing direction and treating players with respect. Interestingly, this demeanor allegedly prevented him from securing a head-coaching job for many years. In our church planter stables, we need more Tony Dungys, who, in the process of trying to achieve great goals, set examples for others.

In the hectic, demanding world of new church development, planting leaders often don’t know either what is going on or refuse to do anything about subpar efforts by staff or volunteer ministry leaders. Point leaders who fail to step in when people need them most are culpable. It may be time for a new type of leader who has cast aside the largesse of ego and exercises power in ways that are more humane. The less invasive leadership style symbolized by the shepherd’s staff reminds me of a quote attributed to Margaret Thatcher: “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

Leaders exhibit many qualities besides kindness. It is, for example, possible to be hard-nosed and kind, to be cantankerous and kind, to be analytical and kind, or to be gregarious and kind. Kindness comes packaged with many other traits. Thus, a leader’s own unique qualities give him or her a distinctive style. I believe that kindness is part of a good leader’s constitution and that others are able to brush aside some of the other qualities that leaders possess in order to see the compassionate center. Therefore, many different types of people are kind. The search for the perfect leadership personality is terribly misguided and ultimately fails to explain what leaders really do and what makes them effective.

By kind, I do not mean sucker or pushover. Nor do I imply a warmly permissive leader whose staff team runs wild. Kindness does not preclude a full range of expression, including, at times, displeasure, nor should it be interpreted as excessive amicability. The goal of spiritual leadership should not be to get results to please the management team or financial stakeholders, but to increase the effectiveness of the ministry team over time using agreeable means. So even though kindness does not appear in leadership books that are devoured by new church planters, I contend based on personal experience as a planter and planter coach that leading with kindness is truly an important key.

Over the last 18 months at COMMUNITY we have made strategic moves in order to mobilize all (yes, we mean ALL) our people for mission.  Part of that process has been to clearly articulate in a simple way our mission and how we will carry it out.  The mission is “helping people find thier way back to God” and the way we will accomplish it is throug the 3 R’s.What is below is the script from a voice over I did for a video to explain in a concise way the Jesus mission at COMMUNITY.

MISSION:  At COMMUNITY we have accepted the mission of Jesus and simply say it like this: “helping people find their way back to God.”  This mission is made up of three tasks:

REACH.  First, we must reach people far from God. The Western Church is observing a dramatic shift from a Christian culture to a post-Christian one.  It is now suggested that 60% of the people we want to reach will never enter the doors of our current forms of church.  If that is true, we then need to allow our imaginations to be profoundly shaped by the biblical notion that God is sending us as He sent Himself in Jesus.  Matthew 28 says to “Go!” and we are challenging ourselves to be the church who will reach people who are far from God.

RESTORE.  We must also restore God’s dream for the world. A common perception among pre-Christians is that Christ-followers talk about poverty and justice issues, but that we don’t do much to address those issues.  But Jesus expects us to change that perception.  “He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free.”  (Luke 4:17-18) It is our mission to be a people who restore God’s dream for the world.

REPRODUCE.  We must then reproduce the mission in others. If we are called to go to “Jerusalem…Judea…Samaria… and to the ends of the earth,” we have to find a new way of counting that results in rapid reproduction and exponential growth.  This new math counts on you and your friends to start a missional church movement.  Every movement starts with one person.  When you and your friends follow the biblical example to become apprentices of Jesus, (2 Timothy 2:2) the result can be the beginning of a missional church movement.  Through these apprenticeships, we will reproduce the mission in others.

That’s the Jesus Mission. Now go.

I know there are any number of principles for church planting—I’ve made up or stumbled across many of them myself. These are just five that stand out to me right now.

1. Water the roots
The roots of any church plant are the leaders. No matter what their formal role, these are the people doing the work of the ministry, and these are the people you need to invest in. Support them through coaching, encourage them through gathering together with others leaders, challenge them by serving alongside them, develop them through intentional conversation. The roots are the key to the health of the whole tree.

2. Keep the focus
Especially if you’re planting a different kind of church than what people are used to, you’ll see how hard it is for people to change their paradigms. You’ll need to continually cast vision for what church is and what ministry is—over and over and over again. You’ll need consistency of vision and singularity of focus. And you’ll need that for the long haul.

3. Let the Spirit lead
We need to commit to a posture of openness, letting God set the agenda. At my church, we send out our people in groups of twos and threes, letting them choose their own ways of living incarnationally. When we see the fruit emerging, that is where we focus. The idea is to find out where God is already working and then join him there.

4. Do not forget the poor
When James, Peter, and John sent Paul and Barnabas off to plant a church, they had only one piece of advice:  “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along” (Galatians 2:10). When we look at the population numbers of the poor vs. the middle class and wealthy and then compare those numbers with who our current church planting efforts are targeting, we’d do well to remember the apostles’ advice today as well.

5. Keep multiplying
Keep what you do reproducible. Resist the urge to make it fancy or difficult or personality-based. Reproducibility empowers ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And it ensures that your ministry will outlast you and leave a lasting legacy for the Kingdom of God.

When talking about planting in Small Town USA. I am often asked, “Why even go there?” I have 3 main reasons for planting in this vital neck of the woods: a) a biblical reason, b) a practical reason, and c) a cultural reason. Let me deal with the first one here, a biblical reason.

You’re probably familiar with the passage in Matthew 9 where Jesus has compassion on the crowds and says the harvest is great and tells the disciples to pray for workers. Then in Matthew 10 Jesus sends those same guys out. Let’s look at it again. ³⁵ Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:35-38

Did you notice that before Jesus’ compassion on the crowds and before this commissioning of the 12 Jesus ministered to ALL the towns and villages. He didn’t just stay in the metro areas of Jerusalem, Capernaum or Caesarea. He went through ALL the towns and villages. According to John 5:19 Jesus only went to where His Father sent Him. Apparently the Father wanted him to go ALL the towns and villages.

But that small town Israel mission from the Father wasn’t just for Jesus. When Jesus commissioned the disciples He said: ¹¹ Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. Matthew 10:11 Jesus didn’t restrict the 12 to just the metro areas or the cultural centers of His day. He says whatever “towns and villages” you enter.

And of course the Father even commissions us to go. We’re all familiar with the Great Commission text – preach and do the Kingdom stuff nearby (Jerusalem), and further out (Judea), and further out (Samaria), and finally to the ends of the earth. Isn’t it odd that we’ll encourage the planting of churches in the remote villages of Kenya, the Amazon, and Tibet and yet neglect Small Town USA?

There is a Biblical Reason to plant churches in small towns whether here in the States or in countries far away. Jesus went to all the towns and villages. Let’s do the same!