Video Transcript: How to Start a Church

All right, we have been studying this whole area of compensation, doing  ministry. Of course, ministry is something that everyone does. You're in this  training at CLI, and maybe, maybe you want to do this full time eventually, but  you have to start somewhere. So we've been talking about how you might be  compensated. We looked at how you might start volunteering and eventually  maybe get hired. We looked at starting your own ministry. Another way to get  compensated is to start your own church. I started a church in 1988 but I did it  through a denomination. So my denomination sponsored me. I already was a  pastor in another church. They sponsored me, they paid me, they gave me  some money to start up. And that might not be an option for you. You're taking  classes at CLI maybe your church doesn't even recognize what you're doing.  They're not sure about your training, or you don't have necessarily a specific  degree that people recognize, so you're just an unknown. So one way to get  compensated is to just start a church. I want to just talk about some of the  basics of starting a church. The first thing that you need is a calling, and the first  kind of calling is an inner calling, the kind of calling that Samuel got. You  remember the prophet Samuel when he was a young boy, he was under the  tutelage of Eli, the priest, and one night, God came and spoke to Samuel, and  he didn't know who was speaking. He thought it was Eli. Eventually, Eli said,  maybe God is talking to you, and when he speaks again, just say, Yes, Lord,  Your servant is listening. Speak, Lord, I'm listening. And so eventually God calls  God specifically called Samuel. God specifically called Moses. Remember  Moses, and when God called him in the burning bush, Moses said, I'm not gifted enough. I can't speak. And God said, I will be with you. So God specifically  called Moses. And then God, I have on your thing, God called Gideon. I love the  story of Gideon. Gideon is one of the judges, and he was complaining about  how Israel was being raided by the neighboring nations, and he was  complaining about how things have fallen down. And then the angel shows up  and comes to Gideon and says, I've chosen you. And then Gideon goes into all  his excuses. I'm in the smallest tribe in Israel. I'm in the smallest family in the  smallest tribe of Israel, and I am the least of my entire family. And God says it  doesn't matter, I'm calling you. So if you want to plant a church, you have to  have first of all, this sense that God is actually calling you to plant a church. And  what does that look like? It might be a clear thing. You might actually hear God  say, This is what I want you to do. Or it might be just a feeling, a sense.  Sometimes, we have to act first before we realize that God is, in fact, calling us  maybe, maybe we just don't know, but we go with our gut instinct. So you want  to start with the inner call, the call of God, and then that is followed up by a  calling, an external call. Acts 14:23, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders from  them in each church, and with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord in whom they had put their trust. So there were elders, leaders in the church that  God had in mind. God called them, gave them an inner call. But then these 

leaders were also recognized by Paul and Barnabas, and so Paul and Barnabas appointed them. So in your case, maybe you have a strong sense of the inner  call of God. You feel like God is calling you to actually do this, but the external  call is a little iffy. You're in a church, and they're busy with their things. They don't even know what studies you've done or your potential. Maybe they're afraid to  invest in you to do a church plant. So what you need to do is try to confirm some kind of an external call. One One way is to get the ordination through Christian  leaders Institute. That's one way to get sort of recognition. But then to take that  recognition farther to your local level, why not approach your own church and  say, This is what you want to do. I want to try to plant a church. I'm not asking for money. I'm just asking for your prayer support and your encouragement, and  maybe a few people to help me get started. I mean, why not? You know, and if  you can't convince some leaders in your own church, then maybe, maybe you  have to keep working at that. And you don't really have the external call. Maybe  God is getting you ready, but you're not ready to quite do it. Alright? So number  three training, Acts 22 :3, Paul writes these words, I am a Jew born in Tarsus of  Cecilia, Cilicia, but brought up in this city, I studied under Gamaliel and was  thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as  any of you are today. So he's giving a speech to some of his own and he's trying to make a case that look, I was raised like you. But my point is he, he did study.  He studied under Gamaliel, who was probably the number one teacher at that  time. He studied in the law, which is the Old Testament, the first five books of the Old Testament, and then all the other added laws that the Pharisees sort of  added to the law. Now this training wasn't specific, specifically Christian. Some  of it was bad training, but my point is, Paul had some training. He didn't just  arrive out of nowhere. He had a lot of training. And he was, he was going  against God, going against God's plan. But then God turned him around, and  certainly God used all of the training that he got originally. So for you, you want  to, you want to plant a church. You could just go without any training. There are  plenty of people who go off and plant churches that don't have any training at all, but a lot of times, people will go and do that, and because they don't know  what's coming, they make a lot of mistakes. Why not learn as much as you can? So you're taking courses at CLI I would encourage you to keep taking more  course courses. Be prepared. Know your stuff. The better leader you are, the  better you're going to have people follow you. In some ways, planting a church  is really the test of your leadership. When I became a pastor, was in 1982 a  church called me. A church called me in 1982 to take a church that already, that  already existed. It existed for 50 years. There were people that got it going.  There was a building. Everything was there, and I was called just to lead it. It  wasn't a true test of my leadership. Because people were there. It was a test of  my pastoral abilities to actually communicate and get connected to these people and help them grow. But it wasn't a test of my true leadership. Four years later, I 

went off to Vancouver, British Columbia. There I went with my wife and my three  kids, and we decided to plant our own church. Well, we had no followers, and to  get followers, well, that's a test of leadership. People aren't going to follow me  unless I'm worth following, and so having as much training as you can to be a  leader worth following. You know, is perhaps your number one goal at this point,  get your training. Get as much training as you can be a leading leader worth  following is people aren't going to join your church unless you are worth  following. Okay, basics, number four, vision. You have to have a vision for what  kind of church you want to plant. And I just put there's a lot of different visions for planting a church. One is entitled, or I've sort of coined it this way, build it and  they will come. That's a vision. And then there's the seven connections. You've  heard about the seven connections before I, I, I My first church was an  established church. It was 50 years old. I went in there, and the church doubled  in size over the four years that I was there. And it doubled in size just because it  was friendly. Is a friendly church. So I thought, wow, if you could just start a  church from scratch with the idea of reaching out, how much better could it be?  So four years later, I went off to Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. I was in Michigan before that, and I went off to plant a church with my spouse, with my  three kids. And what I saw before is, if you make a nice service and you preach  relevant sermons, and you start having good music, people will come. You build  something good and people will come. And so that's what I did in Vancouver,  and we had great music. And my wife is an excellent musician. She built a team. My sermons were relevant and full of life. And, you know, stories, things that are  funny, things that are sad, you know, trying to make the text relevant. And our  church, in three years, grew to 500 people. I built it, you know, we built it with  some people, with a team of people, and people came, they liked it. The whole  goal was, you know, you've come to church now, we want to give you a good  experience so that you come again next week. We want you to come next week. We want you to come the next week and the next week and the next week. So it worked. But I remember three years into it, I was preaching on prayer, and I had eight sermons on prayer, everything I can think about a prayer, everything the  Bible says about prayer. And then I went to visit one of my parishioners homes,  and we just before we ate, he said, Pastor, could you open in prayer? And I said, Well, why don't you just do what you do in your church or in your home? And he  said, Well, we don't do anything. I said, Really, you've been coming to our  church for three years, and we just had this sermon, a sermon series eight  weeks on prayer, and you don't even open your dinner with prayer. You feel  uncomfortable with that. And he said, After three years of coming, he said, Well,  we're not ready for that. And I realized that I built it. And people came, but they  were spectators. They were sitting in the bleachers. They were watching me go  through the Bible stuff. They were watching our band sing its songs, but they  weren't walking with God themselves. They weren't walking with God in their 

homes. They weren't singing in their homes. They weren't reading their Bibles in their homes. They weren't praying in their homes. They weren't playing the  game in their own home. Build it, they will come. If you make it really good, they  will come until they find something better. I had people, you know, they were  coming. They loved it. And then they got a ski pass on Sunday, and they went  skiing every Sunday with their family, because that was better. So along with  Henry, we sort of refocused our whole view of church planting, and we came up  with the seven connections. You remember what those are? Connection one is  your personal walk with God. Connection two is your walk with God, with your  spouse. Connection three is your family walk with God. Connection four is your  support group, your small group. Connection five is the church service.  Connection six is the kingdom. Connection seven is the world. We refocused our whole way of church planting starting with a walk with God. We have to give  people a walk with God. I can't have people coming to my church, listening to  sermons, participating in the prayers on Sunday, in the singing, and then they go home and they don't even dare lead their family in prayer. So we started  teaching people how to personal devotions, marriage devotions, family  devotions, and the church service was the support system for what goes on at  home. The way I thought about it before, is everything that you do is the support  system for our church. We want all the talent, all the gifts, and everything is  focused in on our church building. Let's make our church building the light to the  community. Well, that's the build it, and they will come mentality, the other vision, the seven connections. Vision is no, let's have the church be the support system for people's homes, for people's lives, for when people go to work. Let people's  homes and lives in workplaces be the light. The Church is the backup system,  the support system. After, after being the light all week, they come to church,  and we encourage one another, and we go out. Well, that makes a total  difference in terms of how you're going to plant a church, the one way you're  focused on, how do we make a service relevant for people who don't want to  come? So the other way is, how do we build people? How do we build people  up? It makes a difference with every program of the church. Our youth program  is not let's take all of your kids and do something good with them, because you  as a parent can't do it. No, we take your kids and we try to do something, but we include you as a parent, because we want you involved in the education and  training of your child. It's your child, and you're the greatest influence that your  child will ever have. So how can we help you as a parent succeed as a parent?  So if you're going to plant a church, you have to come to grips first of all, with  your vision, you have this call, inner call, you have the external call. But then  you got to figure out your vision. What are you going to do? Are you going to be  focused on a service? Are you going to focus on people's actual walk with God?  All right? Number five, team, no one starts a church on their own. When I went  off to Vancouver to plant a church, I didn't go by myself. I went with, first of all, 

my spouse. My wife is an integral part of this. You need your family on board. I  Timothy 3:5, for if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take  care of God's Church? Henry and I used to do these training seminars for how  to plant a church. And we'd get these guys who wanted to plant a church. We'd  have like, 15, 20, of them in a room, and we would talk to them and go through  the seminar for a two day thing. And they would be enthusiastic, and they were  

excited, and they were going to go home and do it, and it was fantastic. And  everyone was on this high and then we would call these people who attended  the seminar like, you know, two, three weeks later, and they a lot of them, had  done nothing. They were going to do it. They were excited. They were  enthusiastic. They get home and they do nothing. And you know why? Because  they come home, and if the lot of these were men, they came home, they were  really excited. And the first person they talked to was their spouse, their wife.  And they said all these things, everything that they were going to do, and how  this was going to work. And the thing is, these spouses had heard this kind of  language before, and nothing happened. So there, they didn't experience the  seminar, they didn't see the vision. And they've seen their husbands go on and  on about stuff before, and it didn't really work out, so they're sort of stepping  back. So the problem number one was selling it to the spouse. And so from then on, we decided, if we're going to do these seminars, we're going to insist that  the spouse is there. We have to convince both of them together, because you  need them as a team. And I've seen so many pastors who are, you know, on  board. They have this vision, the strong vision, to do something, and then the  spouse is not and it just doesn't work. You need your spouse on board. You  need your children on board. Your family has to be on board with doing this, or  it's not going to work. Why? Because your family is the building block of other  families. Other families are going to watch your family. You're building one family at a time, one couple at a time. You need a mentor. Now, in those days, I didn't  have much of a mentor. I was hired by my denomination. I had a program leader that was sort of in charge of me, but he had never planned planted a church of  his own, and so I had this entity called home missions in charge of me, and I,  you know, they didn't know much about church planting, so I didn't have a  mentor. And that hurt me. I'll tell you how it hurt me, and we don't have time to  go into it a lot. But the problem, what happens when you start forming a group is the best people in your group will want to be like you, and if you're the king of  the hill, because I didn't have a mentor, I didn't have someone that I was  honoring, that's above me, because I did never mentor, I wais the king of the hill, and my best people, they, too, wanted to be like me, the king of the hill, so  eventually they want to fight with me, because I didn't model servanthood to a  mentor. So you really need a mentor. Secondly, you need a partner. You need a  part. You can't do things on your own. problem with planting a church is you  have this grand vision, and then you start getting a few people, and then you get

this strong person. You need a strong person, but that strong person has a  different vision than you do, and you only have 20 people in your group, and that strong person just has to convince a couple people of his way, and the whole  group will go that direction. So people will try. I but if you have a partner who  shares the same vision that you do, doesn't have to be a paid person. It can be  just a person that's helping you plant this church, but a strong person who  believes the same thing you do see. One person is a prophet crying in the  wilderness. Two people is a movement, two people is a movement, two people  saying the same thing. When a new, strong person comes in, they're less likely  to, you know, project their own vision for how the church ought to go. I'll tell you  that'll save you a lot of fights. You need a core group. You need some people  that you can depend on. You want to reach out. The purpose of planting a  church is to reach people who don't go to church. But in order to disciple those  people who don't go to church, you need people to help you. You need people to help you. So start with a core group. The best place to get a core group is the  church that you're in. That's I'm saying, Go to the leadership and say, Hey, I'd  like to plant a church. Do you think if I could convince three or four or five or six  or 10 people to come with me that that would be okay, we'll be a daughter  Church of yours. We're not asking for money, we're just asking for a few  supporters, or maybe some people who will help get it started, but maybe won't  be the ones that stick with it. They'll just help get it going. You need some people to get things going. You can't do it all on your own, okay? And then you need  support, two different kinds of support you need, or three different kinds you  need, prayer. Don't just do this church planting is, is, is giving the devil a black  eye, and he knows it. So you start planting a church the devil and his forces and his hosts will be against you. So don't do it without, without prayer. Get, get the  people you know, get your relatives, get anyone that you can to start praying for  this endeavor doesn't mean you're going to succeed. You don't have to present  this like some big thing. Hey, we're going to we feel God is calling us to plant a  church. Maybe we're going to start small and see what happens. Would you be  willing to pray for it? And then you need, you need people. You need the support of people. You need some people, again, the core group. And then finally, you  need some patrons. These are people who might be willing to pay something,  because to start anything, once it starts growing, does cost some money. Okay,  start. Where do you start? Start with a house church. You know, don't, don't start thinking, Well, I'm gonna go plant a church, because I want to get, you know, a  ministry job. I want to be compensated with a ministry job, and so I'm going to  start a church. No, start by getting something going in your own home. You don't have to rent anything, you don't have to get chairs, you don't have to get sound  systems. It's all right there. I Corinthians 16:19, the churches in the province of  Asia, send your send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the  Lord and so does the church that meets at their house. It's a nice I mean, you 

can start with just your family. You already got a good start. Just invite one other  family sit down and say, Hey, maybe we could start meeting together. We'll have a little Bible study. And then you get another family. Get another family. You got  four families. You know, a full house seems like success. You go rent some  space, and you take four families that feels empty, start in your own house, if it  never goes beyond your own house. That's still a blessing. It's still a great thing,  but start there next only do those activities that you have leaders for you don't  have to have a nursery, taking care of little kids during the service and Sunday  school and this program and that program, you start small, big churches have all the bells and whistles, they have a program for everything. You can't do that be  a church that does less, in fact, take pride in that we're a church that does less.  We don't have all these bells and whistles, but we do the one thing that a lot of  these churches don't. We're going to help you grow spiritually in your own home. That's our goal. Next. As the group grows, perhaps there might be the possibility of compensation. If you want a ministry job, you're growing your own ministry  job, but you're starting out small. Is it going to work? I don't know. Maybe after a  while, you'll need more training. Maybe you need more effort, or it's going to  take a while. You just go as long as you can. But if it grows, you start taking  offerings. They can start supplementing your time. You can start part time, and  then gradually, who knows what's going to happen. So compensation is  something that you sort of earn your way to. It doesn't just happen. And then  finally, if you are interested in getting paid to plant a church, you need to take the church planting course. Okay, we have a church planting course at CLI. This is a course on enterprise and tent making, and how you might do a business on the  side and get a church started, or a ministry, or you might plant a church. I just  wanted to give you a taste of many options that are before you, and this is one  of them. But if you truly feel called to plant a church, then I would not just based  on one little lecture here, I would take the whole course on church planting. Take that whole course and then see if God is calling you to plant a church. And also,  there's another option to you, if you're thinking of starting with a house church.  We have a whole house church network and a course that you can take and and how you can be compensated is you start a house church, and then you help  other people start a house church, and then you become like the apostles. You  know you're helping getting several house churches going, and then collectively, they support you as their apostle. So there are a lot of different ways that you  can do this. We're talking just about how to get compensated in ministry and  certainly pursuing a house church, or maybe going full bore and trying to plant a  church with the support of others, is one way to do it.