Video Transcript: Who Should Plant Healthy Churches? (Part 2)

We are continuing now on part two of who should plant churches. We've already looked at why plant healthy churches, we are now talking about who should  plant churches, we are going to continue our bootcamp or our intensive training  on church planting with what does the church we're going to establish look like?  We're also going to look at what steps should we take to plant a church. When  we look at who should plant churches, we've already looked at several of the  basic features of that, and what a successful church planter looks like. We've  looked at visionary, we've looked at self motivated, we've looked at involves  others that a church planter reaches non believers. And we've also looked at  have spousal support. So now we're going to continue with who is a successful  church planter. So as you think about church planting, let's continue on our  discussion we're going to talk today about relates well with others, one who is  dedicated to holistic church growth. One who responds to the community, one  who uses the gifts of others. One who is flexible, are you flexible, are you one  who maintains the unity of the church adapts to the context and practices their  faith. So we're gonna continue now with our dedicated to the holistic growth of  the church. So the planter of healthy churches believes in holistic church growth, he or she seeks not only numerical growth, but also organic and spiritual growth, the church planter should grow in the following areas, the believers grow  spiritually, the church should grow organically, the church should grow  exponentially. And bringing that all together is the importance of follow up.  planter who is given to hospitality. Now, when we talk about holistic growth, what we're talking about here is that when you grow a church is not a program, like  the program of a church, it's very much about people is very much about  growing spiritually. If someone comes to you, there's a reason they are  interested in coming to your church. And there's a relational group of people that are involved with you. And when you're growing, you're not dying, it's very much  organic, it's very much something that happens, spontaneously, something that  happens exponentially. And these are these things that are a dedication of the  church planter. And if you're dedicated to that holistic approach, it can be very  effective in reaching the community. The church planter needs to respond to the  community, the church planter should know what the community is like and  guide the church to relate to it. The planter responds to the needs of the  community. This enables him to get to know more and more what the community is like, and how the church can serve it. congregations that get involved with and focus on the needs of their community are going to going to have a greater  penetration into the community and will be more accepted by them. As it says in  Mark 8:1-2. During those days, another large crowd gathered, since they have  nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to him and said, I have compassion for these people. They have already been with me three days and have nothing to  eat. Here is Jesus looking at the needs of his community. Now when we respond to the needs of our community, one thing I want to make very clear is we are still

responding to that village that were called to reach. Because we can best  respond to the needs of that village. When Jesus fed the 5000. He knew exactly  what they ate, he knew how best to serve them. Sometimes church planters can get into the idea where I'm really part spiritually of this one community. And I go  to another community that I don't even understand. I don't even understand the  needs of the community. We're going to talk about that later in this course about  how to understand who your community is, and how to reach your community  appropriately. A church planter uses the gifts of others. The successful church  planter knows how to use the gifts of others in different aspects of ministry. He  or she motivates and involves others according to their gifts in order to  accomplish greater results. Ephesians 4:1-11 says Is he Who gave some to be  apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some of the pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of  Christ. So utilizing the gifts of others is very, very important in helping people  find those gifts. You know, there are many types of tools out there for  identification of gifts and church planters would use those tools. But most  importantly, they have this idea that they're going to identify other people's gifts  and put them to use for the glory of God. church planters are flexible, are you  flexible, the church planter recognizes that the thing that things do not always  happen according to expectations. And even less so than planting a community  of believers, he needs to be able to make changes as situations required. Now I  just want to put two recommendations out there for you one, working with  human beings requires flexibility since each person has his own will his own  ideas and her own desires. Remember that and also, the church planter should  not interpret the suggestions of others as mandates, because every idea is a  good one. Being willing to consider people's ideas does not mean doing what  other whatever other say without thinking things through. So in being flexible,  the church planter number one watches their expectations that the expectation  is going to be more like we'll see what God brings about. Let's adjust as things  happen. Let's hope for certain things. But let's expect what God does is what  God does, you know, as a church planter, after planting many, many churches  I've learned sort of to set lower expectations about what may or may not happen and celebrate what does happen. And then change change course be  teachable. If something's not working, say fine. You know, one of the things I've  learned is, when you when we start something, start something like Well, let's try one event and see if that's what we ought to do as opposed to let's create a  program with high expectations. And then if they fail, the church planter has to  sort of help people get through the failure rather than trying something is it is in  itself a success. Do church planters Do you are you one who can maintain unity  in the church, the church planter knows how to create environments in spaces to

foment commitment, and fellowship, he or she knows how to deal with conflict in a healthy way, modeling patience, good listening and respect for people with  whom he or she disagrees. Romans 12:5. So in Christ, we who are many form  one body and each member belongs to all the others. The church planter isn't  only concerned about bringing new sheep into the fold, he also works to unite  them into a single body. For a body to work well it has to be unified, joined by  the same cohesive understanding. The church is a cohesive body of individual  believers who need structure, reason, purpose in order to be joined together and Minister, the strength of the church is in its unity. I'll tell you, a church planter  who creates Division, who creates people that pit against each other. This  church will not stand a church where the big issues are the big issues and you  don't sweat the small stuff. These are the types of things that bring about church planting. Now I know in church planting, that's a big task because you we really  will have very different people in the bringing them on the same page can be  challenging, but maintaining the unity, seeing the big picture stuff. Seeing that as we say in the USA, the forest from the trees is very important in being a church  planter. A next characteristic is to show adaptability to the context where you are can you adapt the local organization to the specific culture where you live. The  church planter adapts to his environment and identifies with his new context. He  should be a Roman to the Romans and a Greek to the Greeks. Paul requires  Titus to submit to circumcision in order to not offend the Jews a good church  planter is willing to leave behind his citizenship culture and preference,  understanding his surroundings, accepting the necessary changes in order to  reach the lost. Now, having said that, I believe that when we think about this in a nuanced way, in various ways, if you are a church planter that's going to an  entire different group than your own village type, then you really have to be very  self aware of fitting in. If you are reaching those who are more like your village  type, then it's still important to adapt to what the unchurched people would  perceive their needs as to what the church people would perceive their needs.  So adaptability to the context is important across the board. A church planter is  one who practice they practice their faith, do you practice your faith, no  legitimate planter lose by his own efforts, but by the power of God, the planter  lives out his faith and believes in the faithfulness of God to provide everything  necessary to reach the goal, not by might, nor by power, but my but my spirit  says the Lord, Zechariah 4:6, some work hard for Lord, but forget that the Lord  is the one who does the work. The desired results do not always come quickly,  the church planter must have faith that the Lord will bring about the fruits at the  proper time. So really planting a church comes out of your walk your faith. Now  there could be other characteristics not mentioned. And you've seen these 13  characteristics. And maybe you can think of one that's not on the list, read over  the list of these characteristics and give examples of how a specific  characteristic was evident or not evident in a church plant or ministry that you 

may be aware of. Just sort of look at these different characteristics and see if  you can think of some that are not mentioned, you know, as a church planter,  who should plant churches, you know, you've seen a big list now, but I want to  

mention to you, that you might innately or you might feel comfortable with some  of these characteristics and uncomfortable with others in what I want you to do  is not say, I'm not a church planter. Don't feel like you're not a church planter,  because some of them you need to work on or you don't know very much about. If you're a church planter, you're gonna have a desire to grow in these  characteristics. And that's what this course is all about to give you the training, to adjust to see how you can change by God's grace, how you can see the world in a way to plant a church, whether your bi-vocational or whether you're vocational, who should plant a church, who God calls should plant the church. Are you one  of those called people