Let’s have some fun.

When you start a new church, there are various assessment tools available to predict the likely success/failure of the church.

In fact, since we received a small sum of money from a few church planting organizations, I had to undergo a couple of different assessments. This involves a lot of paperwork, and sitting down with several people while they ask you questions for a few hours. These questions are meant to determine whether or not you have what it takes to start a new church. These questions are based on personality, work ethic, past experience, spiritual gifts, etc.

Good idea. Since most new churches fail within the first three years (over 80%), it’s a good idea to try to weed out the guys who are starting churches for the wrong reasons. Or who think they should start a church.

But as we’re closing in our first anniversary at Elevation in February, I think I’ve got a better idea of what it takes to start a church. Not because I’m smart, and definitely not because we’ve done everything right. But after a year of bumps and bruises, victories and defeats, exceeded expectations and disappointed hopes, I think I could help a church planter sort through whether God has called him and gifted him to be the Lead Pastor of a new church.

So if I had 5 million dollars to start 20 new churches over the next 5 years, here’s what I would look for in a church planter. I think our whole staff would agree. These are in no particular order, and some of them are super sarcastic (just a heads up!)
Oh, and this is just the beginning of the list. This will be an ongoing thing I’ll post about.

3 Key Factors in Church Planting

1. The D.G.T.Y.T.D.T.? Factor
The Did God Tell You To Do This? factor may be the single most important factor in deciding whether you should start a church. It is a bad idea to start a church because:
a. You’re the youth pastor at a traditional church and a group of people have gotten together and told you how much better they like your preaching/leadership than the current pastor, so you decide to print some banners and get in a school 5 miles north of town, where all the growth is, building a church on the foundation of 20 dysfunctional families who will be tired of you too (trust me, they will) within 3 years.
b. You can’t get hired anywhere else. And you want to preach.
c. Rick Warren did it.

Since I was 16 I knew God wanted me to start a church in a major city to reach people who were far from God. I read a sentence this book and it turned my world upside down and planted a vision in my soul that I could never shake.

I’m not saying that every prospective church planter needs an experience where God writes a vision in the clouds with His fingertip. But every church planter needs to be able to say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, “I am called by God to do this.” That way, when the money is low and the bills are due, when the facility you were planning on meeting in is 3 months late being built (happened to us), and when the enemy whispers discouraging thoughts in your heart, you have an anchor. There is no emergency exit. You can’t bail. God told you to do this. Where else can you go? (John 6:68)
Your team will see that, and it will make them confident. A promise from God is bigger than any anxiety or obstacle.

Since we have a clear, definitive word from the Lord concerning Elevation, we don’t have to apologize for our existence. We moved to a new city with nothing but our faith and our promise from God, and that promise has marshaled us through all of our doubts and insecurities, cause Lord knows, there have been plenty.

You know what? That was longer than I had planned on.

I’m going to save the others for another time.

Trust me, they’re good!

Stay tuned…

H.A.G.D.
(That’s short for the Have a Great Day factor. Get it?)