Church Planting Discussion

Please note that the notes on this blog are for the church planter in the USA or on the foreign mission field. Though there are major differences between starting a church on the mission field and in the USA the basic areas are all the same.

The work load is going to be very similar. The disciplined missionary will be a real church planter. It can be easy when you are a missionary to settle for doing less because your support comes in whether the church grows or not but you will certainly not want to do that.

No matter where you are you will have to work like your life depends on it. Get a schedule and a plan and work them. The process is your responsibility and the product is God’s. You do what you are supposed to and trust God for the results.

Numbers should never be the goal of your ministry. They will simply be the result.

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Church planting is about a man! Literally God always uses a man. Elmer Towns said; “”A great church is always caused, it never just happens.” “One of the greatest tasks a man can do today is start a church.’

Throughout Bible history every time God wanted to do something He raised up a man. When Cornelius wanted to be saved the angels weren’t even allowed to share the gospel with him rather God said send for a man. That is God’s way and so when He wants to reach people He calls men to start new churches.

The modern day Biblical hero in many ways is the church planter. He dares to do what very few will ever do. He knows that starting a church is one of the most important jobs he could ever be called to do. He is willing to risk it all to start a church.

There are several questions you need to ask yourself:

Have you learned the basic steps of Christianity?
Do you have the physical endurance to visit hour after hour, pray, study, preach, counsel?
Do you have the emotional endurance to not crack up when your young converts deny the faith?
Are you willing to study and learn the thousand things you will need to know to build a church?
Are you wiling to be so hard headed that you will say that you will not give up no matter the cost?

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I like Mike

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
- Marie Curie

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At least for a while I want to discuss church planting with you. I hope that you will post a comment to discuss or question things or you can email me at gardner @ bcwe.org and I will post your question and answers.

I do not consider myself an expert church planter though I have been planting churches now for over 29 years. I have read lots of books and want to share with you what I have found and start a lively discussion with you if you are interested.

Church planting starts with the church planter. Elmer Towns said: “The man who desires to build a church is usually motivated by the ‘impossible dream’ and he must accomplish the ‘unperformable task.’”

The quote really is very true! To be a successful church planter you will have to know that God placed a bucket load of desire in your heart. What you seek to do is outside the realm of human power. A human being can put together a group of people, a crowd but not a church. He might form a congregation but not a New Testament Church. Only the Lord Jesus and His power can equip you to do what God wants done. It will be far more than just finding a way to get people to come.

It is impossible and unperformable because it is against human nature to truly love God and begin to allow Him to live in and through us. You will have to have Holy Spirit power to get the job done. Towns also stated in the same chapter; “God must perform a miracle each time a new church comes into existence.”

Questions to be answered

Do you know what you are getting yourself into!
How have you prepared yourself for this kind of work—ministry related experience?
Do you have a solid understanding of the Biblical doctrine of the church?

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I wanted to let everyone know that:
#1. My great buddy Travis had 29 first time visitors today on their Celebration Sunday I think 47 in attendance! That’s stinkin awesome! Not to many 26 year olds could pull that off in the South let alone Ireland! Praise God and way to go, Travis. I’ll be preaching his missions conference in October and am very excited.

#2. I am writing the details BEFORE Bro. Gardner. Just for the record.

We’re all pulling for you Travis!

I am sitting at my house at 10 pm after a satisfying day. No one was saved but there was progress.

The church service which usually starts in the late afternoon started at noon today. It is starting early for Ramadan. At 6:30 pm or so the streets are empty, and I mean empty. Almost everyone fasts all day and then gather in their homes to break the fast at sunset every day of the 30 day month. As soon as the call to prayer is made everyone eats one date, takes a drink of milk, and go to pray. Muslims were told by Mohamed in the Koran to break the fast with dates and milk so they continue that tradition until today. Next week we are scheduled to have the evening meal at two families homes. I guess we just won’t be as hungry as they will be. Typically they eat a all their traditional foods: Harira (a soup with meat, tiny noodles, tomatoes, etc that they eat all over the Muslim world), taijin, many different types of bread, spoof (almond mixture), shberkia (a cookie covered in honey), boiled eggs…you get the idea.

Aaaanyway, I told you that the church met early because all Christians still belong to Muslim families. So if they didn’t show up for the meal it would be like not showing up at home for thanksgiving or Christmas morning. Most of their families know that they are Christians. In fact all the Christians present today at the church their families know their Christians. So they don’t pray but they show up for the fiest. It is a very uncomfortable time for the Christians that require them to take a stronger stand for Christ.

Last week they asked me to preach the main message. Since the service goes for sometimes 2 hours there might be side, short messages. This time I was the main event. I was pretty nervous about it. In the end it turned out alright, I hope. I preached on Tabitha and how to be remembered: through serving others. Acts was the second book in the Bible that I read in Arabic so thus, most of my lessons I have preached here come for Acts and John. It was really a big milestone for me. I have preached at meetings I have organized and recruited for but those are easy because those people had never heard any other sermons. These people I preached to today, though, meet twice a week for preaching. They have an Arab pastor and he’s a fireball pray-er and preacher. Those who have visited us know what I mean. Bro. Gardner says Tony Howeth used to pray like that…before he lost the Holy Spirit I guess.

After arriving home from that meeting at 5 pm, I had dinner with the fam and back to our meeting place for another Bible study at 6:30. We met with two guys who are really searching for the truth. That is strange but these are the ONLY two guys I have met here that are so far away from their Muslim God that they don’t do Ramadan. So I drove through a ghost town to our meeting place and as over 1 million Muslim broke their fast and prayed in the name of Mohamed… we had a Bible study!

These guys have both been to our Bible studies before. Typically what I do when we have a Bible study is hit a quick one-liner that present them the gospel in 45 minutes or less. I guess because I am #1 Afraid I’ll never get a shot with those present again and/or #2 Hoping to see if they will get an epiphany and accept Christ as their Savior on the spot. Here are some of my One-shot-accept-or-reject-it sermons:
-Ye must be born again
-Jesus-the second Adam
-The forgiveness of Jesus
-The Resurrection
-The Crucifixion proof in the Old Testament
-Being a Son of God
-The prodigal son
Etc

All were structured to get a response on the first shot. But it has never happened. Usually it is met with one of two responses: #1: A blank stare. Usually meaning they have no idea how to filter what I just said into their Muslim brains. #2: A push back. Usually like my sister used to fight with me: yes huh, no, yes huh, no, yes huh, etc. Just a blunt denial of what I just said. “No, Jesus didn’t die. No, Jesus is not the Son of God.” Neither one of those responses get me anywhere.

So these two guys have a different response: They come back. They just don’t understand anything I have been saying. (Maybe it is my Arabic.) So when we met tonight I really had no idea what to tell them. I mean, I have presented the plan of salvation to them multiple times. They LIKE it but don’t ACCEPT it in their lives. So what do you do with someone who LIKES it. As we sat down and prayed together I asked God to show me what to say to them. He didn’t say anything to me. So, I asked them, “You’ve been reading the Bible, right? Any questions?” They didn’t say anything either. Just a look that said, “Teach us.” So I got down the white board and started drawing. In one hour I drew the history of the Bible. 66 books. 40 authors. Old Testament. Moses. The law. The prophets. The New Testament. Everything. They lit up. They learned something that is starting to connect the dots of all the things I have said. We ended the study with a reading of Isaiah 53 to connect the Old and New Testament in their minds.

I think what I needed to do is put up a whole new structure for which they can hand these teachings on since their only current structure is the confusion of the Koran.

On the way home around 8 pm one of them said, “So Moses was the first to write. He wrote the first 5 books of the law. Then came 12 books of the history of Israel. Then 5 books by David. (I had to correct him there.) Then 5 Major prophets. Then 12 minor prophets. All pointing to Jesus who Mat, Mark, Luke, and John wrote about. Right?” Yeah, right. It was good to know someone was listening. I remember studying for a test on that in Bible college. This guys got it in just a few minutes.

So they both left excited about reading the Old Testament. We are still working at how to get the gospel across to their hearts so pray for us on that.

On a side note: I totally missed the Bengals game today. Turns out they lost 45-51! Since you are reading my blog to find that out, I didn’t want to disappoint!

Today is going to be an honest post. Not complaining, I hope, but honest.

I thought about not writing anything today. I scanned all the victories on my friends’ blogs from around the world and those I have never met and just decided that my day… well, stunk. So I was just going to keep all that to myself. But after thinking about it, I think it would be dishonest to write about all the victories and all the good times and none of the discouragements. You wouldn’t really understand what ministry to Muslims is like if I don’t talk about all of it.

Language school to begin with can be a spiritually low time. Your primary focus isn’t ministering the Word but just learning how to talk. This being the second (and last, Lord willing) time that I have gone through language school it is getting tedious. I get easily frustrated when I read blogs of people actually spending their time on ministry. Then I read about a my friend in China who thinks he can do both! And he is! (and then I unsubscribe from his blog. Just joking Jake. Love ya.)

After morning language school I spend over an hour meeting and witnessing to two guys. It was all the same old stuff. “Have you become a Muslim yet?” “Jesus wasn’t the Son of God. God doesn’t have sons.” “Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Mohamed said so.” (That last one is a real good point by the way…yeah right!) I try to get in enough gospel so they could respond if they ever want to do so in the future. I left wondering what I often wonder on days like this:

“Does God hate Arab Muslims?”
“Should we be wasting any time and money on Muslims?”
“Would God be mad at me when I get to heaven if I decide to be a Calvinist?”
“That youth pastor position is looking pretty good right now.”

I would never write this in a prayer letter. Luckily, prayer letters come out once per month. Something good is bound to happen in a month that I can write about. But when I write on a blog everyday I have to choose to skip days or to be honest.

So those are the real thoughts that the devil throws at me, just so you know. So what are God’s thoughts:

“He doesn’t want any to perish.”
“My job is the process. God’s job is the product.”
“God loves me and is proud of me…no matter what.”
“The flywheel is going to start turning some day. The gold is just a few more dynamite blasts away. Must keep working.”
“The leanest and hardest times are the ‘before’ picture. The times of blessings are the ‘after’. No ‘after’ pictures without ‘before’ pictures. So I need to trust God and look with expectation to the future.”

Now…I’ll just keep saying that to myself. If you find yourself in a rough spot…just keep thinking on “these things.”

Be on time. Being late means either it’s not important to you or you can’t be relied upon. Tony Dungy

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I want to ask you all to pray for a man who has had an influence on my life and many others. I grew up with Al King’s family. His son, Ryan, was my best friend as kids and is still a close friend from a distance. Al always knew God wanted him to go to Russia as a missionary. Maybe 10 years ago they packed up with their 4 kids without raising much support, lived on their savings, and went Simferopal, Ukraine.

He was preaching the other day back in the states on a furlough and ended up in the emergency room that same night. They found cancer on his brain and did surgery last week. He has stage 4 malignant cancer and needs your prayers.

The doctors have given him a 25% chance of making it 2 years. Please pray for him, his wife, their ministry in Ukraine, and their four kids. The radiation and Chemo is expected to cost him about $10,000 over the next two years.

Well on Vision News I gave an idea about how to get your staff to work and then this morning I came across this blog and web site. You are not going to believe it. If you as a pastor or missionary are doing this then –oh well!!

watch the video

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