The advantages of being a full-time church planter are numerous, and well-known. I have recently decided to go a different route, and as with anything I like to do a pro/con list. So here are the 'pros' of finding supplemental full-time income while church planting:
1. Supports my family. This may seem obvious, but I've heard stories of church planters who, in the name of expanding the Gospel and the church, ignored the real needs (financial needs) of their family. In addition to financial support, my family needs me to be present, unstressed, and responsible.
2. Helps us relate to others. Hugh Halter pointed this out to me at a ChurchPlantingBC event. Regular people work full-time, and can't understand when a church planter stays home reading or visiting or blogging all day long.
3. Gives me a platform for encouraging my congregation to be missional in everyday life. It's one thing for me to encourage others to be missional 'like me' when I don't have a regular chlorine job and I can pour myself into it. It's another when my audience knows I have the same demands on my time as they do, yet do my best to set an example for them to follow. If I can tell them how I attempt to follow Jesus on mission through and beyond my regular, full-time job, maybe they will see that they can do the same.
4. Helps me meet people. One of the questions I've faced in ministry is, 'how do I get to know people where I'm at?'. A full-time job gives me an opportunity to rub shoulders with people I wouldn't normally get to know.
5. The work becomes less personality-driven. If I can't spend myself on my church, then others will have to step up too. It becomes less about me and my church plant, and more about what we're doing together.
There are, of course, disadvantages to working full-time while attempting to church plant. It will take longer to achieve, it will take more time, I might look less 'official', it will be hard to gain momentum. I would like to go full-time eventually. But the point is that there ARE reasons, good reasons, for me to find full-time employment as a church planter.
What do you think? What are some other advantages of working full-time while church planting?
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
2. Uniqueness.
Church Planters are an unique breed. They're discontent with the status quo and go out to shake it up a bit. They'll play around with church structure, definitions of 'congregation', and reject labels like 'pastor' for more culturally fitting titles. My favorite replacement for 'Pastor' is 'Cultural Architect'. Imagine having that on your business card? How many phone calls would you get to spruce up a home or garden? Especially if the name of your church on your business card happens to be something like "Home" or "Garden".
Which is another part of this love for uniqueness. The church name. Not since 1997 has a church plant had the word Baptist or Pentecostal, or perhaps even the name Church, involved in any way. 'The Journey' is probably the #1 unique name for a church plant. 'Mars Hill' is brilliant, and many other church planters have thought so too.
The problem is that we can get so creative, that we create a new type of irrelevance. Society, even in Canada, knows and for the most part respects what a 'Pastor' is but is unfamiliar with the term 'congregational facilitator'. Even Saturday evening worship gatherings may seem cool and cutting edge to Christians, but the culture you are reaching may wonder why you would ever 'do church' on a Saturday. Hanging out in the bar to meet people and have spiritual conversations may seem cool to you, but might be too much of a stretch for those you're trying to reach.
Innovation is good, but don't become so unique that you lose your focus from being a Christian attempting to start a church.
Which is another part of this love for uniqueness. The church name. Not since 1997 has a church plant had the word Baptist or Pentecostal, or perhaps even the name Church, involved in any way. 'The Journey' is probably the #1 unique name for a church plant. 'Mars Hill' is brilliant, and many other church planters have thought so too.
The problem is that we can get so creative, that we create a new type of irrelevance. Society, even in Canada, knows and for the most part respects what a 'Pastor' is but is unfamiliar with the term 'congregational facilitator'. Even Saturday evening worship gatherings may seem cool and cutting edge to Christians, but the culture you are reaching may wonder why you would ever 'do church' on a Saturday. Hanging out in the bar to meet people and have spiritual conversations may seem cool to you, but might be too much of a stretch for those you're trying to reach.
Innovation is good, but don't become so unique that you lose your focus from being a Christian attempting to start a church.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Stuff Christians Like: Starting New Churches!
Here's a shout out to John Acuff, and Stuff Christians Like. Check it out!
http://stuffchristianslike.net/2010/10/starting-new-churches/
http://stuffchristianslike.net/2010/10/starting-new-churches/
1. Beer.
Even if they don't drink beer, they'll talk about it. Some church planters hate the taste, the smell, the thought of beer, but they'll expound its attractive properties to non-churchgoers.
Mentioning beer and beer drinking, bars and pubs, pints and kegs in regular conversation without flinching is a hallmark of an 'effective' church planter. It shows that he is not afraid of taking risks, of crossing traditionally-held boundaries, and becoming relevant to the people he's called to reach. He's not bound to some old-school Christian thinking and practice. He's doing what it takes to reach the unreached. It makes him 'cool' to the unchurched. Some set up "Beer and Bible" discussion groups*. Some even go to the great lengths of working in a brewery*. People ooh and ahhh - that church planter is SO culturally relevant, he works with the heathens in the brewery!
Of course, lots of 'churched people' won't like it. Not one bit. But that's okay, as long as they understand that his calling has mandated that he's gotta drink beer (or, at least, talk about it).
Church Planters like beer. They have to. It goes with the package, along with the faux-hawk and facial hair.
*Disclaimer: I am that guy who worked at a brewery, and who started a Beer and Bible night at a local Bar and Grill (not exactly 'pub', but it's what we've got in this town). Unfortunately, neither tactic made me cooler than I was before.
Mentioning beer and beer drinking, bars and pubs, pints and kegs in regular conversation without flinching is a hallmark of an 'effective' church planter. It shows that he is not afraid of taking risks, of crossing traditionally-held boundaries, and becoming relevant to the people he's called to reach. He's not bound to some old-school Christian thinking and practice. He's doing what it takes to reach the unreached. It makes him 'cool' to the unchurched. Some set up "Beer and Bible" discussion groups*. Some even go to the great lengths of working in a brewery*. People ooh and ahhh - that church planter is SO culturally relevant, he works with the heathens in the brewery!
Of course, lots of 'churched people' won't like it. Not one bit. But that's okay, as long as they understand that his calling has mandated that he's gotta drink beer (or, at least, talk about it).
Church Planters like beer. They have to. It goes with the package, along with the faux-hawk and facial hair.
*Disclaimer: I am that guy who worked at a brewery, and who started a Beer and Bible night at a local Bar and Grill (not exactly 'pub', but it's what we've got in this town). Unfortunately, neither tactic made me cooler than I was before.
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