Church Planting 101

A huge thanks to Leila Disburg for sending me to a Church Planting 101 conference at the East Ohio conference. Some of the highlights:

• Affinity is everything. How & where did you grow up? What’s happened in your life that God’s redeemed and now others will relate to you through that? Bad plants are usually a mismatch between a planter and their affinity/mission field
• The #1 responsibility of a church planter is to put people in seats
• Don’t launch until there’s critical mass – have enough people to run a service week in and week out
• Attraction is the old wine skin – that worked when church & culture were identical – we could build something and they’d come
• Now, relationships lead to invitation
• In church planting, no matter how good your vision is, people don’t hear it the way you want them to
• By 2050, there will be no majority population
• Most churches don’t reflect their mission field
• The people right outside the church aren’t reflected inside the church
• As a church planter, you have the blessing & responsibility of being the DNA and mission field that connects most to you
• Every church casts a shadow in its community (in a good way!) – how far does your shadow reach?
• Are you a pastor who plants a church…or a church planter who pastors a church?

One of the best learnings:

Pastors have to develop a tough skin because they have so many difficult decisions – they lose vulnerability with others – many end up losing vulnerability with God