Lincoln on Leaders
Two insights I gained recently from Lincoln’s life may well encourage you in your church planting endeavors. They have me.
July 2, 2015
Menu
Menu
Two insights I gained recently from Lincoln’s life may well encourage you in your church planting endeavors. They have me.
You may be thinking, “Seriously I thought being missional was cool?” or “I thought being missional was going to grow my church plant?” Well, I have good news and bad news for you.
I don’t know if sabbatical is in your future any time soon, but I know this – you do need time to rest. In ministry, and in church planting specifically, your vacation time isn’t a benefit; it’s a necessity.
Antioch was Paul’s first recorded local church where he was a teaching pastor at the bottom of a multiethnic and multi-gifted Leadership Team (Acts 13:1). Church planting became the heart of the Pauline mission.
New churches tend to attract three kinds of people: those from other churches who respond out of a sense of call; those not currently engaged in a church, who are intrigued by the idea of something different; and those who are dissatisfied and looking for a reason to leave the church they now attend.
Church planters will face conflict. The answer is not if, but when. God uses conflict to accomplish His purpose and plan for our lives and the church. The ultimate goal of conflict management should be to restore relationships not to destroy them.
As I explore ways to “warm up” the way I relate to others as a pastor, I am discovering that the lists I keep are a way I can treasure people. In fact, I hear the Holy Spirit teaching me that lists are a key to both treasuring and mobilizing lay people.
You know what happens when you have 17 Core Values? You really have 0 Core Values. They may certainly be values, but not Core Values. Core Values truly represent what we are and hope to be in the community and in the world for Jesus Christ. The also drive every part of our life together.
The apostle Paul was a bi-vocational church planter, so shouldn’t everyone else interested in church planting today, also? In today’s article, Rosario Picardo shares 3 pros and cons of this approach, with the hope that this helps us reflect on how mainline denominations in the United States can produce thriving, healthy churches once again.
Developing a preaching team might not be the first thing you do as a church planter, but it ought to be on your radar from the beginning. As God brings others into the fold who have the gift, ask Him to reveal them to you so you’ll be able to begin cultivating them.
I feel like the man who found a treasure buried in a field. And when he’d found it, he went and bought the whole field! In the formation of a preaching team, I have found a treasure and with it, a plethora of benefits.
In the end you want one story about your church, and so that means you have to move away from the other stories. Jesus wasn’t afraid to redirect the conversation in order to guard the narrative because he knew that his mission was that important. We need to follow suit.