This is the seventh in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly.)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor, I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. We then took a look at:

Mistake #1 (these are in no intentional order), “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.”

Mistake #2 Managing My Time and Not Managing My Life

Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between my Goals and Desires.

Mistake #4: Not Understanding the Difference Between Pursuing the Grace of God and the God of Grace.

Mistake #5: Not Understanding the Way Up is the Way Down

Mistake #6: Not Understanding the Priority of People Over Programs

Mistake #7: Not Understanding Product Living VS Process Living

I have to confess that I belong to what Pastor Mark Buchanan calls the Cult of the Next Thing. Buchanan writes, “It is dangerously easy to get enlisted. It happens by default–not by choosing the cult but by failing to resist it. It is dangerously easy to get enlisted. It happens by default–not by choosing the cult but by failing to resist it.”

For me the Cult of the Next Thing is sinful discontentment cast in religious terms.  It has its own sacred terms like: our ministry vision, our mission, our goals, our objectives. Please don’t misunderstand, these are good things, but we begin to believe that we can’t ever really be happy until we get them.

This Cult also has its own Mantras we church planter types often quote: I’ll be happy when we have a certain number of people in worship every Sunday. Or I’ll be happy when we are self-supporting financially as a church. Or I’ll be happy when we are self-governing with our own elders or deacons. I’ll be happy when I’ve been able to pass this baton (you name it) to another leader. I’ll be happy when I’m not sick anymore…when the kids are older…when the kids are gone….

And this Cult has its own shrines in other ministries that are doing better than ours.  And it has its own ecstatic experiences: those fleeting moments when you finally reach a goal you’ve been living for and looking to for so long. It feels great. But like sand through your fingers it ever so quickly slips away from you. So then you must look ahead to the next experience.

Author Isaac Rubin writes, “The joy and happiness from the process lasts much longer and can be much more satisfying over the duration of your life. But if you are totally goal-oriented in a success-oriented culture, and if the product is the only goal, you will destroy much of the possibility for true joy and happiness in life. That is because almost all of your life has to be the process and not the product. If you can’t learn to appreciate and enjoy the process of living itself, there goes your joy in life.

If you get nothing out of the doing, because you are always looking for the high that will come at the end, you’re in serious trouble. But if you learn to be nourished by the whole process, that result at the end of the road, positive or negative, is not terribly significant. You just go on to the next process. You must learn to understand and appreciate “Process Living” because the process is really what life is all about. We are in process 98 % of the time. If you are living for that final 2%, you’re in trouble. And the truth is most of us are in serious trouble.”

The story is told when Alexander the Great conquered the entire known world, he wept because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. The opiate of winning the next battle was now gone and he was left trembling in withdrawal, unable to live and love life in the present.

Elizabeth Elliot summed it up well, “ Don’t let your living for tomorrow slay your living for today.” If you’re not very careful you will always be living for tomorrow and find yourself being robbed of all of your todays. I wish someone had talked straight to me about that common and so costly mistake in life and ministry.

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages), representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies in 5 continents (& 5 languages). Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation. To learn more about GCA:

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Here’s what Steve had to tell us:

I learned today that most of these pastors have been taught (and have been doing it) to be “praying down Gods wrath on all pagans/poor/etc. NOW they have openly repented of this practice and have PLEDGED to pray the Lords prayer (i.e. the exact opposite), praying fervently instead that Gods will on earth (their part of it) will now be done as it is in heaven … through their radical acts of mercy & justice!

I’m so in awe and humbled by all this. Your prayers are being answered! Thanks again.

Gracious and Powerful Lord,

We commit Steve, his travels, his teaching, his partners on the journey, and his family as they remain to you.

We ask for wisdom as he teaches, sensitivity to the workings of the Holy Spirit, insight into the gifts and challenges of his translators and images that teach in powerful pictures the lessons you would have the pastors who hear learn.

Allow the lessons to be woven into the hearts of all who participate. Open Steve’s heart to the messages with which you would have him bring home. Join hearts together in the Hope of your Kingdom Come and in the work that is here now.

Protect all the families who remain and lend your travel mercies to those who join together. Fill up the participants with a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit that they might be refreshed, encouraged and empowered.

Provide good soil for the seeds which are sown.  Send water and sun to nourish them.   Raise up harvesters to reap the Word in deed and in their thoughts.   Hold back the thorns that would choke your harvest.   Protect the footpaths of those who would work and not damage the fields.   Allow patience for your timing and what you will bring forth.  Let there be rejoicing in all that you provide.   We give you the Glory!

“O Taste and See that the Lord is Good!”

We lift all these things up in the name of Jesus,

Amen.

West Africa 2010 Dates:

• Depart USA: Sunday afternoon/evening, May 23, 2010
• Ghana, West Africa Summit: Monday, May 24, 2010 to Saturday, May 29, 2010.
• Togo, West Africa Summit: Saturday, May 29, 2010 to Wednesday, June 2, 2010.
• Return USA: Wednesday evening, June 2, 2010

Mission Team 2010 Leaders:

• Steve Childers
• Dick Brown
• Allen Hunter

Steve Childers’ Personal Prayer Requests:

• The health and safety of the African church leaders I’ll be training, as well as their families and churches while they’re away. Many of them will be traveling long distances in remote areas of Africa in order to receive the training.
• Wisdom for me to know what to teach: even though the training topics are already planned I often find that I need to change some topics, put down the prepared notes and address real needs that have surfaced during the training.
• The ability of my French translators in Togo to understand accurately the concepts I’m teaching and communicate them with great effectiveness—resulting in not only renewed minds but renewed hearts. I’ve learned the hard way that my translators can make or break the learning experience.
• My relationships with the African leaders would be deepened resulting in new levels of mutual trust, love and ministry partnership.
• God would be glorified and His invisible kingdom would be made visible through starting, growing and multiplying gospel-centered churches in West Africa (starting in Ghana, Togo, Benin & Senegal) that result in the spiritual, social and cultural renewal of all West Africa (15 countries) AND that West Africa would become a major sending sub-continent to ALL nations.

So, since we’ll be talking about it, we should probably get you acquainted with what the Church Planting Institute is – namely, what are GCA’s goals and aspirations.  This is a pretty exciting time for us; and we want you to be excited too!  Because there is so much to share, this post will be longer than usual.  So, without further ado …

GCA West Africa 2010 Church Planting Institute (CPI) Goals

During the early GCA Leadership Training Summits in a nation, we intentionally do not focus primarily on church planting methods and programs for the indigenous leaders such as “practical steps to planting a church in Africa” or “how to develop and manage a church plant core group”.  Instead, the initial, primary focus is on laying a strong, biblical foundation among the indigenous national leaders and churches—from which these more practical church planting methods will emerge. The four foundational goals (pillars) of the initial training are:

I.  Uniting around a National Kingdom Vision for Church Planting

• A Vision for the Glory, Kingdom & Will of God to come with great power through the Church of God in all it’s various forms (denominations/agencies).
• A Vision not merely for individual church plants but for regional church planting networks that form kingdom alliances with other like-minded denominations that birth true gospel renewal movements and spiritual awakenings.
• A Vision for developing a common church planting training curriculum (“practical steps to planting a church in Africa, etc.”) through a Kingdom Partnership with GCA and other denominations that share this vision.

II. Renewing the Church Leaders through the Power of the Gospel

• Almost every great awakening in the history of the church has been started by a great awakening in the hearts of the church leaders. If we long for an awakening in our churches and nations, it must first begin in the hearts of the church leaders.
• So there is a strong focus on the need for the release of the transforming power of the gospel in the hearts of the leaders through their ongoing repentance (from heart idols) and faith in Christ—setting their heart affections on Christ in worship.

III. Renewing the Churches through the Power of the Gospel

• Like a spreading flame, the personal renewal of the leaders must spread to the churches. The leaders must return to their churches as agents of personal renewal that will lead to church renewal and reproduction of new churches.
• For a church to parent other churches (new church plants) it must first be strong and healthy itself. If not, it will birth sick babies—unhealthy church plants that have little or no true Kingdom impact. So we must have a strong, healthy base of leadership churches in these emerging movements or we will be reproducing unhealthy churches.
• During this training church leaders will study the “Vital Signs” of church health/growth and participate in practical exercises where they evaluate their present church plant or established church in order to help these churches become healthy (especially in evangelism, discipleship and mercy/justice ministries) so they will grow and reproduce new transformational churches.

IV. Raising Up Church Planting Movement Leaders

• For there to be true movements born in these nations, God must raise up movement leaders. So during this training we are asking the Lord of the Harvest to begin raising up church planting movement leaders from all the denominations represented.
• We need what we call “Movement Champions” in several critical areas: We need Vision Champions, Prayer Champions, Worship Champions, Preaching Champions, Discipleship Champions, Small Group Champions, Evangelism Champions, Mercy Champions and Leadership Development Champions. As we spend time studying these areas, we’re asking the Lord to begin raising up key movement leaders who will become champions for strengthening these areas in their own emerging regional and national movements.
• These movement champions will then begin to work in partnership with GCA to develop a common curriculum that will include contextualized church planting methods and programs that can be used effectively by all denominations and agencies in the movement.

GCA West Africa 2010 Church Planting Institute (CPI) Aims & Aspirations

This 2010 GCA West Africa Church Planting Leadership Summits (Ghana & Togo) are designed to equip key West African national leaders to strategically partner together to glorify God by advancing a movement in the West Africa that is multiplying churches and disciples through the transforming power of the gospel. Our purpose is to use this forum as a catalyst to help start strategic church planting movements in West Africa that will advance God’s kingdom in word and deed over every sphere of life by starting, growing and multiplying churches in West Africa that share a passion for the glory of God to be manifested in and through His Church for all nations.

Through these Summits, we aim to foster:

• Kingdom Vision: Helping to develop kingdom-minded church leaders throughout West African with a strong focus on transforming cities, towns and villages through deeds of mercy and justice as well as words of truth.
• Servant Leadership: Equipping leaders to better understand the capacity of the indigenous church to minister to and serve well their own people—leaders who will think and act strategically in spreading the gospel in West Africa.
• Church Planting Networks: Fostering a vision for leaders to develop cooperative Church Planting Networks that recruit, train, and mentor emerging their own indigenous church planters that will help multiply churches among their regions’ diverse groups of people. These networks will work in strategic partnerships with other ministries and NGOs to form alliances, create resources and facilitate more and better church planting movements in West Africa.
• Kingdom Collaboration: Creating platforms for dialogue with various regional leaders to explore new strategies and best practices for working together in their regions.
• Community Development: Fostering a vision of developing creative, entrepreneurial and passionate leaders who are constantly working to create a process of problem solving and improvement in the community that is sustainable through the leadership of different alliances and networks both at the regional level and abroad.

Through these Summits, we also aspire to:

• Explore and learn new strategies and best practices for working together in various West African regions
• Bring church leaders together to build alliances with various like-minded groups who are strategically involved in the same regions and are seeking partners to join them in their efforts.
• Share ideas and models with national leaders regarding how to foster church planting movements through establishing regional church planting networks and alliances.
• Examine holistic ministries and deliberate, proven models that foster social transformation by providing employment, encouraging social change (justice/mercy), influencing government and key national leaders, and helping church leaders provide a credible platform for demonstrating the love of Christ.
• Share proven business strategies that work well hand in hand with church planting, growth and multiplication movements.

[A Gospel-Planted Life]

The Success Syndrome

In the book Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, R. Kent and Barbara Hughes share how they had to reorient their understanding of success before they were happy in the ministry.  Nobody wants to be a failure.  But the point here is that success ought to be measured according to the proper criteria.  Church planters are as prone as anyone else to measuring their effectiveness against unhealthy, counter-productive, and even dangerous benchmarks.  If your top goal as a church planter is to grow your church beyond 200 people – or even 50 – then you ought to be taking a step back and asking yourself why growth is important to you.  Statistics can be helpful in gauging the health of your church.  But real success ought to be measured according to God’s Word.

For example, look at what Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 25:14-30 (“The Parable of the Talents”).  Even though one servant is trust with much and another with little, in the end they are each equally blessed.  Why?  Because each servant was faithful with what the master had given him.  Likewise with church planters.  The size of our churches are not indicative of our level of success.  Rather, according to Steve, we are successful in ministry by “faithfully pleasing God with the resources and responsibilities he has given [us].”

The Tyranny of the Urgent

Another source of trouble in the ministry can be all of the unexpected things that creep up and demand our time.  If we’re not careful we’ll find more and more of our days spent dealing with things according to their level of urgency and regardless of whether they align with our ministry vision.

The root of the problem here is that we all tend to deal first with the things that are right in front of us (urgent).  Instead of blindly following this approach, we should be mindful of our goals and do the things that serve them.  This won’t mean always saying no to urgent matters that come up.  But it does suggest that not all urgent matters are important.  Distinguishing these two factors allows us to more effectively prioritize our schedules.  Freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the urgent allows us to accept that our time is limited and that we cannot do everything that is asked of us.  Instead, you should focus on the things that are important.

The Main Thing

Once we have liberated ourselves from both the success syndrome and the tyranny of the urgent, we can more clearly consider who we serve and what He is asking of us.  Remember that it is God Himself – not church planters – who is building His church.  Our work, then, should be done in the kind of faith that allows us to trust Him.  This doesn’t mean we give up considering our vision, our Ministry Focus Group, or even our financial situation.  But it means that we trust God with those things and do our work in the faith that He is sovereign and controls the outcome.

Practically speaking, Steve suggests five things to help us “make the main thing the main thing”:

1. Understand the difference between your goals and desires. You have control over your goals.  You do not have control over your desires.  Learn to work towards your goals and pray for your desires.  For instance, you can make it a goal to share the Gospel will five people this week.  You can control that; so work toward it.  But to see five people come to faith this week … that’s a desire.  Be praying for that.
2. Pursue the God of grace, not the grace of God. To paraphrase John Piper, grace is a means to God, not vice versa.  Be humble enough to realize that you don’t love God as you ought, and ask for grace that you may love Him better.  Also keep in mind that the very purpose of your ministry is to connect people of the same God of grace.
3. Remember that the way up is the way down. Very often the solution to waking up a floundering ministry is to get to the heart of the minister’s pride and self-reliance.  This again is a very humbling experience.  Be honest where you have sinned and repent.
4. Also remember the priority of people over programs. Most gifted church planters are visionary when it comes to organizing a working ministry based on effective programs.  But those some men and women can also struggle not to let people get lost in the margins.  If your programs aren’t producing mature disciples, then you need to take another look at them.  A ministry that is perfect on paper is meaningless when people are not being effectively shepherded.
5. Process living versus product living. I’ve heard this stated alternately, “Life is a journey, not a destination.”  You’ll be a lot happier in the ministry if you’re not always focused on the next thing that you need to do – the next milestone you need to reach or program you need to implement.  The alternative is a life spent devoted to “the cult of the next thing.”

So what is “The Main Thing.”  It’s not the ministry.  The main thing is loving both God and people.

Here are some goals for church planters to set for themselves as they seek to formalize a financial plan:

1. Use your church planting plan in fund raising.  Some potential donors will want to know that you have your act together.  You should be able to explain your vision and mission to anyone who asks, including donors.  This is probably common sense to most of us, but it bears mentioning.
2. Determine your initial financial Financial Support Model.  This model will vary depending upon your denomination, whether you have a “parent” church, and a host of other factors.  Exhaust all of your options before you decide on a course of action.  For instance, you may consider a bi-vocational or “tent making” ministry early on.
3. Develop a financial budget for the next 2-3 years.  This is where the “rubber” of your Financial Support Model meets the “road” of your actual donor network and financial needs.  Thinking this far ahead will help you understand how realistic your vision is.  It will also show donors that you’re serious about seeing your church planting plan put to action.
4. Identify prospective donors.  Again, this is common sense.  If you’re going to be doing any amount of fund-raising, then you need to figure out who you are going to approach.  There will be some donors who are able to give a lot.  Others will be able to give less.  Everyone deserves your attention.  Keep in mind, though, that it’s not wrong to give large donors personal attention.  If you don’t do this, they may never understand the difference that their generosity can make.
5. Design a structured, personalized process for contacting and following up with donors.  Remember, your donors will be with you for many years.  Very generous donors will also want to know that their gift is making a difference.  So it’s imperative for church planters to be communicating with donors and telling them how their gifts are being used.
6. Develop the necessary policies for financial management and accountability.  Church planters have found themselves in hot water in the past because they were the sole parties responsible for making a myriad of financial decisions.  It’s in everyone’s best interest if some plan for management and accountability is put in place.  I know a church planter who has a whole financial team consisting of regular attenders helping him make important decisions.  That’s just one option.
7. While you need to have a detailed budget, it is generally unwise to make it public.  It’s too detailed for most donors.  Instead, let them know how much money you need to raise (excluding your core group).

One more thing: There are people out there who are blessed with wealth and a spirit of generosity who are looking to get involved in funding a ministry – one that they can get behind and in which they can believe.  Those people are the one’s to seek out.  You are not trying to persuade people to give against their wills.  The goal in fund-raising is to mobilize generous, godly people and to give them an opportunity to come beside you in ministry.

The church planter must help determine how these biblical purposes should come to expression in the unique Ministry Focus Group being served.  This means that one of a church planter’s tasks is to discover the stylistic expectations of his culture and, as appropriate, embrace them, adapt them, critique them, or reject them.  At the same time, we should be using our own stylistic decisions to serve the cause of the gospel.

A church planter from Ukraine shared a story with us about planting a church in the western part of that country.  The culture is more traditional there than in the east (which is near Russia).  Even though both areas can be broadly called “Ukrainian,” they have different needs.  A more traditional style of worship resonated with people in the western part of the country, while more contemporary services worked in the east.  On the other hand, in the west a contemporary service seemed disrespectful, while the east would have found a traditional service out of touch.  The different cultures necessitated different styles of worship.

So we need to adapt our style to the culture of our Ministry Focus Group.  The goal is “contextualization without compromise.”  Where this isn’t being done, we’re probably guilty of one of two errors.  The first is under adapting to the culture.  The root cause here is probably ethnocentrism.  We feel that our own style preferences are best and seek to impose those views upon our Ministry Focus Group.  The second error is over-adapting to the culture.  This is called syncretism, and involves embracing all of the style preferences of your Ministry Focus Group (including preferences that might hard your proclamation of the Gospel).

So how can we know what to embrace and what to reject when it comes to style?  The Lausanne Covenant has some helpful words: “Because man is God’s creature, some of his culture is rich in beauty and goodness.  Because he is fallen, all of it is tainted with sin and some of it is demonic.”  In other words, there are no easy answers here.  Church planters must be able to determine what stylistic elements they can pull from the culture in order to serve in the proclamation of the gospel.

Keeping the following points in mind can help us determine what styles to embrace:

1. Go where the wind is already blowing.  If there are already successful churches in the area you hope to reach, then find out what they’re doing right.  Don’t be afraid to “jump on the bandwagon” so long as those styles can be adapted to serve your Ministry Focus Group.
2. Choose ministry styles that serve your Ministry Purposes.  We’ve already discussed the importance of having a clearly defined set of purposes for your ministry.

One more tidbit that a veteran pastor shared with us during the conference session: “We should not be defined by what we are against, but what we are for.”  This doesn’t mean that we never critique culture.  It just means that we should be known for the cause we serve and not the things of which we disapprove.  Keeping this in mind will help us reach those who disagree with us with the gospel without compromising our integrity.

Before we can answer that question, we need to take another step back.  Why does any church – young or old – exist at all?  Put another way, what are the church’s priorities in ministry?  Answering these questions puts us well on our way understanding the purpose of church planting.

As I write this, GCA Director of Training Bob Orner is still teaching the Foundations module.  He began by giving us the biblical reasons for the church’s existence, based on Acts 2:42-47 (via the Redeemer Acts Curriculum).  Practically speaking, Bob gave us five reasons:

1. Worship & Prayer (v. 42).
2. Learning & Discipleship (v. 42).
3. Fellowship & Community (v. 42).
4. Outreach & Evangelism (v. 47).
5. Mercy & Social Concern (v. 44).

So a healthy church (biblically speaking) does not have the luxury of picking some of these and rejecting others.  Rather, it will balance these five things as it reaches out to its Ministry Focus Group.  This doesn’t mean that every healthy church will look the same.  Pastor’s and church planters should prioritize and emphasize the above purposes based on the following factors:

1. The unique gifts and ministry philosophy of the church planter.
2. The emphasis of the church’s core group or leadership team.
3. The unique needs of the Ministry Focus Group.

The end result is a ministry that is “serving out of strength.”  That is, the church both effectively balances and prioritizes the five ministry purposes and, at the same time, knows its own strengths and passions in order to do those things best.

With all of this in mind, the purpose of church planting in particular should be clear.  It’s to produce healthy churches.  Actually, it’s to produce more healthy churches.  Actually, it’s both.  And for church planters, keeping our purpose in mind helps us better understand how to move forward in our communities.