Every day I get people to ask me for secrets and tips and pointers for things that I’ve done well as a church planter and pastor of Courageous Church. My wife and I giggle because so many people treat us like we’re experts, but we usually feel like bumbling, idiotic amateurs most of the time! Don’t get me wrong, we’ve done some things well and the grace of God has really been on us during these first three months, but I’ve made a ton of mistakes! A TON!
If you are as bull-headed as I am, you church planting types will probably makes these exact same mistakes in spite of my warnings because church planters are notorious for having to learn from mistakes they were warned against (and for reinventing the wheel), but you won’t be able to say that I didn’t try to help save your sorry butt some heartache :-)
10. I completely, totally, absolutely (did I say completely) overestimated how much money we would be raising from week to week. 50% of the people that are a part of our church are unemployed. A huge percentage of the employed adults that attend are either in a financial crisis or are a bit skeptical about giving to churches. We’re working on solutions for all of these things, but I made many decisions based on these estimates and soon found myself in a bit of a leadership crisis without the financial resources to support the decisions I made.
9. While I would give our team a big ‘ol A+ for creating buzz and momentum leading up to our Grand Opening on January 11th, I channeled nearly 100% our early attention to creating this buzz and gave almost no attention to putting in place the programs, systems and structures that would keep our momentum going. While I am glad that we had a huge grand opening, I regret not putting in place simple things like information cards, follow up emails, a clearly defined system for baptism or membership/partnership, etc.
8. I was told by a few gazillion people that launching and pastoring this church would be like working two full-time jobs. I thought that was stupid. Turns out I was a bit stupid! I did not properly plan for just how much time and effort it would take to plant and lead this awesome community.
7. I made a few really bad hires and put some people into leadership positions that I would not wish on my worst enemies. Because we are a brand new community, we just didn’t have time to get to know some people that we put a lot of trust into. This is very, very tricky. From this point forward, I will make sure that we are very, very picky and much more intrusive before we make any hires.
6. I underestimated the need for office space. I have heard a lot of different opinions on this and regularly read that it is not advisable to jump right into having an office, but we need it. With a family of 6 in a small urban townhouse, my home is a terrible makeshift office space. We will still make use of public space, our house, other homes, etc., but a dedicated office space is pretty essential in my opinion.
5. I really regret not having a very clear, well conceived definition of what it means to be a member/partner of our church. Some of this really stems from my own personal hangups on the idea of membership. However, I am thinking that I through out the baby with the bathwater on this and we are now working hard to define what this means in our context.
4. We spent way too much money on our first Sunday morning facility. Nobody in the world could have convinced me of this. Nobody. Even though we have some very legitimate reasons for creating poor projections for our income, I still think that our first facility simply cost too much money. If we were raising more money maybe I would be thinking differently, but I doubt it. With all of this said, it was really the only choice that opened up for us in January and we had to do what we had to do.
3. We didn’t launch with a functional assimilation system that would really channel excited attenders into committed volunteers. We are just now starting to get this together, but I think we burned out a few volunteers in the process.
2. We weren’t courageous enough and being courageous is essential to who we are as a community. Atlanta really doesn’t need another church doing the same old stuff that reach old people. When we started to have some stress and systems challenges after our launch, I started to fall back on default church mode and lost touch a bit with the unique call that God has for us. I feel strongly that SERVOLUTION helped us get our mojo back!
1. I wasted way too much time either thinking about & engaging my critics. This not only got me distracted from the work of God, but really put me in an unhealthy place emotionally. I think I was surprised that the public criticisms started so soon and regret even caring in the first place.
by Shaun on April 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Church At The Park
Dear Family and Friends: We are so excited to be able to announce that in January 31, 2010, Amica and I will be planting a brand new church in RTP area. We are writing to ask for your prayers and your generosity to help us launch this new church, which will be called Church At The Park. In order to plant a self-sustaining, life-giving church, we will recruit a team of 35 and raise $75,000. Would you be willing to help us plant this church? First, we would like to ask you to commit to pray for us daily. Second, we would ask that you consider contributing financially to our launch budget. We have a matching funds donor that has agreed to match every dollar up to $35,000, so your gift will be doubly valuable to us at this time. Of course, your gift is tax-deductible. Just contact us through our website by joining our launch Team.
No gift is too small.
Sincerely, Raphael ‘the Church Planter’ Yon
http://churchatthepark.tv
No gift is too small.
Sincerely, Raphael ‘the Church Planter’ Yon
http://churchatthepark.tv
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Jesus, the Ultimate Example of Faith's Results
"The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary…The Lord God has opened My ear…I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed." (Isaiah 50:4-7)
In our previous prophetic verses, we saw that the promised Servant of the Lord would undertake His Messianic mission through faith in His heavenly Father. "My God shall be My strength" (Isaiah 49:5). These verses depicted Jesus as the ultimate example of faith. Now, a corresponding prophetic passage reveals the blessed consequences of trusting in the Lord. Herein, we see Jesus as the ultimate example of faith's results.
Once again, the prophetic parties are the Messiah and His heavenly Father. The confessions of Jesus (trusting in the Father) comprise the prophetic statements. "The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned." Jesus was "discipled" day by day by the Father (certainly using, in part, His godly parents). "The Lord God has opened My ear." This equipped Jesus to minister to burdened lives: "that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary." In fact, people were amazed in general at the manner in which He spoke. "So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth" (Luke 4:22).
As Jesus would trust in the Father, He would also be prepared for the mounting difficulties that He would face. "I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting." In approaching the cross, these prophecies of Jesus (and the enablement He found through depending upon the Father) were fulfilled. "Then they spat in His face and beat Him; and others struck Him with the palms of their hands" (Matthew 26:67). Though He knew all of this awaited Him before He came to Jerusalem that last time, He put His faith in the Father. "For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed." The Father helped Him. He marched on resolutely to keep His redemption appointment at the cross. "Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). These are the wonderful consequences of faith.
written by Bob Hoekstra
In our previous prophetic verses, we saw that the promised Servant of the Lord would undertake His Messianic mission through faith in His heavenly Father. "My God shall be My strength" (Isaiah 49:5). These verses depicted Jesus as the ultimate example of faith. Now, a corresponding prophetic passage reveals the blessed consequences of trusting in the Lord. Herein, we see Jesus as the ultimate example of faith's results.
Once again, the prophetic parties are the Messiah and His heavenly Father. The confessions of Jesus (trusting in the Father) comprise the prophetic statements. "The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned." Jesus was "discipled" day by day by the Father (certainly using, in part, His godly parents). "The Lord God has opened My ear." This equipped Jesus to minister to burdened lives: "that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary." In fact, people were amazed in general at the manner in which He spoke. "So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth" (Luke 4:22).
As Jesus would trust in the Father, He would also be prepared for the mounting difficulties that He would face. "I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting." In approaching the cross, these prophecies of Jesus (and the enablement He found through depending upon the Father) were fulfilled. "Then they spat in His face and beat Him; and others struck Him with the palms of their hands" (Matthew 26:67). Though He knew all of this awaited Him before He came to Jerusalem that last time, He put His faith in the Father. "For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed." The Father helped Him. He marched on resolutely to keep His redemption appointment at the cross. "Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). These are the wonderful consequences of faith.
written by Bob Hoekstra
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Meet Chris Hodges
March 13th, 2007
by Craig Groeschel
Meet Chris Hodges
I’d like to introdue you to my friend Chris Hodges. He’s the Senior Pastor of Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, AL. He and his wife, Tammy, have been married for twenty-one years and have five children.
C. Hodges
I interviewed Chris and this is what he had to say…
* What are the three greatest leadership lessons you’ve learned in the six years of your church plant?
There is no substitute for the anointing coupled with integrity. A leader must have gifts in order to do ministry and character in order to
sustain ministry. Temptations always follow times of blessing. The devil is always looking for an opportune time.
You not only have to be a leader who has vision, but you have to be able to communicate it in a compelling way. The vision must be simple enough for everyone to do it, clear enough that everyone knows about it, and effective enough that it actually works.
Teamwork makes the dream work. Relationships will determine whether or not you reach your potential. So in order to accomplish something big, I need to let go of my ego and be part of a team. Creativity must remain a constant. The message is holy but the methods are not.
* What are the books that have influenced you most?
Good to Great – Collins
Today Matters – John Maxwell
Courageous Leadership – Bill Hybels
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Lencioni
Explain briefly your philosophy of generous ministry?
At the heart of who God is – He’s a giver (John 3:16). The best way to get your people to give is to model generosity – not ask for them to give. So we give away everything – t-shirts, CD’s, etc. We tell our congregation that they can’t buy it because they already bought it when they gave their tithes and offerings. The result – they end up giving more than we would have charged. My old Senior Pastor – Roy Stockstill – said this: “Never ask people for anything – ask God and God would ask people.”
What are you doing to plant churches?
To me one of the best ways to make the most of your missions dollars and gain the respect of your congregation is to leverage the money they give. In other words, instead of just giving to missions, give to plant churches that give to missions. In 6 years, we have planted 40 churches (independent churches – not campuses) with a group of pastors called ARC (Association of Related Churches). Our investment has been a little over $600,000 and the 40 churches have already given over $6 million to missions. I believe that planting life-giving churches with a heart for the world is the best way to reach America and finance world missions.
What excites you most about the future?
What excites me the most is the opportunity to reach young leaders and play a role in training them and helping them reach their full potential. The purest calling on my life is to help people see their ministry potential and help them find a place to make a difference. Our intern program (24/7), training leaders around the world with John Maxwell’s EQUIP organization, and our Church Planters Roundtables excites me more than anything else I do.
by Craig Groeschel
Meet Chris Hodges
I’d like to introdue you to my friend Chris Hodges. He’s the Senior Pastor of Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, AL. He and his wife, Tammy, have been married for twenty-one years and have five children.
C. Hodges
I interviewed Chris and this is what he had to say…
* What are the three greatest leadership lessons you’ve learned in the six years of your church plant?
There is no substitute for the anointing coupled with integrity. A leader must have gifts in order to do ministry and character in order to
sustain ministry. Temptations always follow times of blessing. The devil is always looking for an opportune time.
You not only have to be a leader who has vision, but you have to be able to communicate it in a compelling way. The vision must be simple enough for everyone to do it, clear enough that everyone knows about it, and effective enough that it actually works.
Teamwork makes the dream work. Relationships will determine whether or not you reach your potential. So in order to accomplish something big, I need to let go of my ego and be part of a team. Creativity must remain a constant. The message is holy but the methods are not.
* What are the books that have influenced you most?
Good to Great – Collins
Today Matters – John Maxwell
Courageous Leadership – Bill Hybels
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Lencioni
Explain briefly your philosophy of generous ministry?
At the heart of who God is – He’s a giver (John 3:16). The best way to get your people to give is to model generosity – not ask for them to give. So we give away everything – t-shirts, CD’s, etc. We tell our congregation that they can’t buy it because they already bought it when they gave their tithes and offerings. The result – they end up giving more than we would have charged. My old Senior Pastor – Roy Stockstill – said this: “Never ask people for anything – ask God and God would ask people.”
What are you doing to plant churches?
To me one of the best ways to make the most of your missions dollars and gain the respect of your congregation is to leverage the money they give. In other words, instead of just giving to missions, give to plant churches that give to missions. In 6 years, we have planted 40 churches (independent churches – not campuses) with a group of pastors called ARC (Association of Related Churches). Our investment has been a little over $600,000 and the 40 churches have already given over $6 million to missions. I believe that planting life-giving churches with a heart for the world is the best way to reach America and finance world missions.
What excites you most about the future?
What excites me the most is the opportunity to reach young leaders and play a role in training them and helping them reach their full potential. The purest calling on my life is to help people see their ministry potential and help them find a place to make a difference. Our intern program (24/7), training leaders around the world with John Maxwell’s EQUIP organization, and our Church Planters Roundtables excites me more than anything else I do.
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