The Mindset for Planting
Tim Keller...a church planter in New York City...tells of the mindset a people need to have to "naturally" church plant.
By "naturally" he means something that they consciously plan to do...like its really a part of being a church...learning to multiply and plant another church. He gives a two point mindset;
First, the ability to give away and lose control of money, members and leaders. Hate to use a cliche, but it's true--Paul "empowered" these new leaders. He gave them ownership and thus lost a lot of control. This is a huge barrier for churches. They cannot bear the thought of money-giving families being lost or key leaders or just friends. Ministers are also afraid of giving away glory. If your ministry adds people and you: 1) assimilate them into your church, 2) turn them into Bible studies under your church, 3) spin them into new ministries in your church, it swells your numbers, and you get both control and glory. If you organize them into churches, you are losing money, members, numbers, leaders, control. But that is just what Paul did. An additional problem--when you let go, you lose direct control, but you can't really avoid responsibility for problems. It is like being the parent of an adult child. You are not allowed to directly tell them what to do, but if there is a problem, you are expected to help clean it up.
[Church planter manuel]
Point two tommorow.
posted by Dale Callahan at 5:53 AM
2 Comments:
Something in this reminds me of tithing. When you give 10+% of your income to a church that you may ro may not fully trust to handle your money in a responsible way, you surrender up control (and for three years, we were tithing to a church I had very little confindence in - the Anglican Church of Canada). But ultimately, we were giving our tithes and offerings to God. The ACC stood accountable about what they did with it after we gave it out of obedience to Christ. Our money came from Him in the first place and so we were giving a portion back to Him and sybolizing in this giving that "all things come from Thee, Oh Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee". This is much like a church planting a sister church. Any of the members of the planting church came because God sent them and would have left in another way if God called them. Any of the resources were only there by God's blessing and could be removed at His will in another way. So when a church plants another church and surrenders up control of people, money and resources to this new church plant, they need to recognize that they are ULTIMATELY (in the grand scheme sense) only surrendering up control they never had over people that were not theirs who gave money that belonged to God to accomplish ministry that they couldn't control. Again (in the big picture sense), its not like the money and people are gone. Rather it is like moving troops from one part of the battle field to another where they are required for strategic purposes. To a sargent, it might appear like he is losing men but to the commanding General of the entire army, no one is being lost. It is just that He is moving some troops to where they are required for the sake of the cause they are fighting for. These troops ought to be sent off with fanfare and hearty support, not begrudgingly and with sadness.
How's that for mixing metaphors.
Good food for thought Dan, we need to lose our competition mentality.
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