Everyone struggles with insecurity as a leader at some point in their ministry. Here are some great diagnosing questions, courtesy of Perry Noble (paraphrased):

1. You see people as working for you and not with you.
2. People who push back on your ideas are automatically branded as disloyal.
3. When someone says something good about someone else you always have to be the person who says, “yes, but what you don’t know about them is…”
4. You get jealous when someone on your team receives any sort of public affirmation but you are not mentioned at all.
5. You cannot celebrate what God is doing in other churches.
6. You always believe someone on your staff is going to attempt a coup to take over your role as a leader.
7. You dismiss what God is doing in another church/ministry because it doesn’t line up exactly with where you are theologically.
8. You lead through intimidation.
9. You secretly like the fact that people on your staff are afraid of you.
10. You feel the need to prove yourself in every meeting you are in by seizing every opportunity you have to speak.

Jerome Gay is the lead pastor of Vision Church in Raleigh, NC. In 2007, Jerome planted Vision out of a calling to see an urban reformation in the city of Raleigh. We’re excited about partnering with Jerome and Vision to see more churches planted in urban contexts, including right here in Raleigh-Durham.

While this is focused on an urban context, much of it also applies to planting in general.

1. You’re a Limited Leader (Exodus 18:18)
People will want you to be the omni-gifted leader and you’ll be tempted to believe it. It’s important to know who you are and who you are not. The only thing worst than the people wanting you to be omni-gifted is the pastor who believes he is, this will quickly drain you of the joy of shepherding people. Embrace your limits and work your strengths.

2. Process your Hurt (1 Peter 5:7)
Pastors aren’t exempt from hurt and many have ‘daddy issues’ that haven’t been addressed and oftentimes the pulpit is the ‘see I made it’ platform to address the hurt caused by an absentee father or an overly aggressive mother. Whatever the case it’s vital that you realize that you need God’s grace and much counsel. In short get help and embrace your frailty and dependence upon the King. If you don’t you will look for the church to heal these wounds only to find out that the help is not there and these wounds will only be highlighted in your church plant. Seeking counsel isn’t a sign of weakness, but in fact it’s a display of humble strength.

3. You’re not Planting the Church; your Family is Planting the church (Ephesians 6)
It’s vital that you don’t make the plant your baby. Your plant could fail and God may very well use that to bring you closer to Him. I’m sure you believe you’re the exception and that’s fine, I want your church plant to thrive, but the reality is that’s not always the case. Church planting is ugly, brutal and tiring,but it has the greatest rewards. If the church is everything, you’ll neglect your family and they don’t deserve that plan for your family prior to planning everything for the church. Don’t fail your family and include your wife in crucial decisions throughout the growth and pains of your plant. Your family is planting with you.

4. You’ll Experience Inner and Outer Prejudice (Galatians 2:11-21)
Many people of your own race won’t understand the theological stances and those outside your race will assume you’re rare because of the lack of exposure to gospel-centered, biblically orthodox African-American pastors. It comes with the territory, stay faithful to word word and don’t build identity around this, if you do you’ll see yourself as a savior to the context as opposed to be called to the context.

5. Go After Men (1 Timothy 6:11-16)
Men are an apologetic within themselves in the context because this is literally the most fatherless generation ever. It’s vital that you speak to men, encourage men and give men a platform to use their gifts for the King. Nurture the men if your circle and train them to go after other men. Men will bring families to your church and I love my sisters, but it’s vital that we don’t exploit them by having them do everything at the ministry. Get men and get as many as you can.

6. Get a Spiritual Father (1 Timothy 1:2 & Philippians 2:22)
Some see this as charismatic, but the bottom line is its biblical. Get strong men that can speak into your life. Men that you would follow and submit to and allow them access to the you that only your wife and children know. Let them speak into your life about your family, finances, church, sex life and hurt. This will pay HUGE dividends in your life and the life of your church.

7. Date your Wife (Ephesians 5)
It’s easy to replace your wife with the church. Allow her to be honest with you about how she’s feeling and be intentional about dating her, loving her, listening to her and romancing her. Don’t take her for granted she’s worth more than that and deserves your best. Don’t give the church your all and give her your leftovers. As you’re visioneering for your plant, be sure to visioneer on how you continue to intentional show and tell your wife how much you love her.

8. Establish Unity with Your Core Team (Philippians 1:27-28)
Have a clear sense of your philosophy of ministry and communicate it well with your core team. You want to be unified on three major fronts: Theologically, Relationally and Philosophically. Define your theological open and closed handed issues, examine how you relate with the leaders on your team and ask explicitly if they embrace your philosophy of ministry. This will ensure unity and a healthy board and longevity for your plant.

9. People will Leave (John 6:58-66)
In John 6 many walked away from Jesus after hearing hard truth, and many will leave you too. Don’t trip, but listen to what those that are leaving are saying; don’t dismiss them all because you’re hurt that they are leaving. Some of them will have vital points and people leaving is a necessary thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7-10) of a church planter to keep you on your knees. When people leave it will hurt and that’s ok. Don’t pretend that you’re not hurt, but don’t let those that leave define you either. Some will talk to you on their way out, many will just shoot an email or just leave and you find out on Facebook that they’re at a new church. Although you may not want to confront them you should have streams for growth and exits. Conduct exit interviews for people on their way out, you may find some holes in your leadership team that need to be addressed. Lastly it’s rare that people are honest with you about why they leave, but allow this to keep you reminded that Christ will build his church.

10. Fundraise for Longevity (Philippians 4:15-20)
Secure your salary and healthcare and another guy to be on staff on the front end. If you plan on being bivocational for the life of your plant then you can have some leeway with this, but you want secure as much money as possible prior to launching because this is a burden that you don’t need on top of everything else needed for your plant.

In all of this, love Jesus and his gospel – your identity isn’t in the success or failure of your plant; it’s in Him, and as simple as it may sound you’ll be prone to forget this. Remember this -  you weren’t chosen because you’re special, you’re special because He chose you (John 15:16). The truth is you don’t have what it takes for what you’re about to embark on and if your joy is in the plant and not Christ, this will become evident quickly and you’ll burnout and quit, or abuse your people and make the plant about you. Christ loves you and you’re His son. He didn’t die for you to be a great church planter; He died for you to be His son and that’s more than enough.

A couple of weeks ago, our latest church plant hosted a vision day to share their desire to plant a church in Greensboro, NC. Over 75 people came out. 25 people are already committed to uprooting their lives to plant God’s church in that city.

There are a lot of good reasons to join a church plant. There are also a few bad ones. Here are ten reasons you should join a church plant, and ten you shouldn’t, courtesy of Justin Buzzard, a church planter out in San Jose. I’ve paraphrased a few, and added some of my own comments (the original posts are here and here).

10 Reasons TO Join a Church Plant

1. You want to see Jesus do something new.
2. You dream of being part of something bigger than yourself.
3. You want to enter a battle for the kingdom of Christ.
4. You feel a constant itch to see people who don’t know Jesus come to know Jesus.
5. You want to give your time, money, energy, and talents to starting something new and make sacrifices to see a mission to succeed.
6. You fully support the vision, mission, doctrine, and leadership of a church plant.
7. You want your faith to grow and you want God to fundamentally meddle with and change your life.
8. You want to love a particular city.
9. You want to watch God move in ways you could never ask or imagine (Eph 3:20).
10. You’re not afraid to bank your life on God’s promise in Matthew 16:18, “I [Jesus] will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.

10 Reasons NOT TO

1. You’re looking for the next cool thing in town. The goal of our church plants is to reach the lost, not steal sheep.
2. You don’t like your current church. You’ll find reasons not to like this church.
3. You have a bad track record at churches of being unteachable and causing problems. You’ll repeat the pattern here.
4. You’re looking for a nice show. We’re looking for people who want to live on mission.
5. You want religion. We preach the gospel.
6. You have an agenda. Church plants have their our own vision. We’re looking for people who want to share that vision, not supersede it.
7. You’re a wolf. You won’t last long.
8. You think this will be a nice little church that stays the same size, where everybody knows your name and you have all the pastors’ cell numbers on speed dial. By God’s grace, we want to grow.
9. You think this will be easy and smooth. This will be hard and difficult; this will be a fight, a battle, and a challenging mission.
10. You want to hold onto your comfortable life. You must lose your life.

If I had to sum these up in one sentence, I would say this: Bad team members see church plants as an opportunity to get something other than the gospel. Good team members see church plants as an opportunity to give something for the gospel.

This week Dr. Tim Keller will join Alan Hirsch, Darrin Patrick, Eric Mason, J.D. Greear, Tyler Jones, and Danny Akin as the main speakers at the Advance11 Conference we’re helping host in Raleigh-Durham.

Here’s a sneak preview, part 1 of a 4-part interview with Dr. Keller done for Advance the Church. In it, Dr. Keller answers two questions: Why is the Gospel so revolutionary? And, how do we train people to take the revolutionary Gospel into their context?

It’s not too late to join us. Registration will be open up until the conference. We’ll even be taking walk-ups. To sign up, go here.

As we continue upload content to the new site, we’re starting a new series called Oldies But Goodies (OBG). These are resources from past events that we’ve found especially valuable.

The following audio is from a Church Planting Forum we hosted with Dr. Ed Stetzer, the Vice President of Research and Development for Lifeway. In it Ed lays out 6 pitfalls which most North American church planters face that undermine their work, and what they can do to avoid them. The pitfalls are Lack of Spiritual Preparation, Stress within Family Relationships, Inadequate Training, Lack of Accountability, and Broken Partnerships.

Download

Ed has also recently put together a new series on his blog called Top Issues Church Planters Face. We’ll be taking a look at these in more depth in the future (they are very helpful), but here they are:

*. Introduction
1. Leadership Development and Reproducing Culture
2. Financial Self-Sufficiency and Viability
3. Launch Team Development and Mobilizing Volunteers
4. Systems, Processes and Cultures
5. Casting Vision and Avoiding Mission Drift
6. Evangelism and Discipleship
7. Spiritual, Physical and Mental Health of the Planter and his Family
*. Conclusions/Observations