Video Transcript: Church Planter Smart Wisdom

When I planted my first church, I wished that I would have had this presentation, church planter smart wisdom. We're going to look at in this presentation at this  planter smart wisdom for how to sort of build that organization in that first elder  Deacon board. This presentation is helped by James Griffith and William Easum in their book, The 10 most common mistakes made by church starts. Number  one, act your age as a church. Church planting is real life drama that requires  leaders in the church to act its age and size. Sure, they will be doing the right  thing. But at the wrong time, their impatience was leading them down a path that could only wind up in exhaustion, and a loss of a great team of leaders. People  can work 100 hours a week for just so long. Now, what is he talking about? In  this quote, What he's basically saying is, sometimes a church will act like they're at 200. When they're at 50. Offering too many programs, they're not ready to do  that yet. The buzz of the church is lost in exhaustion. So act your age, at all  times, make it be fun, to be part of your new church plant. If you have too many  programs, it won't be fun anymore. In a lot of ways, I always think about church  planting as the church planter, you're in a sense, the cruise director to use the  cruise idea where you're making it fun to be on the ship. Or you're someone who if the most enjoyable thing in life is to be part of planting a new church. You don't have all this existing structure and all this negative inertia. You're planting a new  church. You know, I've often seen over my years of ministry, how when pastors  get together, and some of them are talking about church planting, and then  there's a sigh, ah church planting. Church planting of really burned me out. So  much of it was because a church did not act its age, when you're new. You don't  have to have a lot of programs to wow, people to make an impact in the  community. So act your age as a church. Don't promise what you cannot deliver. Effective church planters don't begin ministries to Please guests it's better to just let them walk away than to overextend and burn out. It's also better than making promises you can't keep making promises you can't keep undermines your  credibility over the long term. Again, I wish I would have known this in my first  church plant. In the 1980s. When I planted my first church, there was all of these pre done church planting scenarios and what you offered in the community, you  did telemarketing and you you promise that so we had a program for that and a  program for that we did not have programs for this met, it was the potential  program for this. So here we are on the telephone saying that come to this  church where you're going to get this program, and we didn't even have it. The  best thing would have been as come to this church and be part of something  special. And we don't even know what it is, but we're gonna preach Christ, we're gonna worship the Lord. See, these are the type of things that are very  important when you plant a new church. In planting a new church, make sure  that your life the church planters life, in balance is very much considered very  important. The health of the church plant is in direct proportion to the health of  the lead pastor in his or her family and the staff. If any aspect of their lives is out 

of balance, sooner or later it will show up in the church. If the planter is  consistently pushing the leaders to expand beyond the age or size of the  church, more than just physical physical exhaustion occurs. It is essential is  essential the church planter find some balance in his or her life. You know, I look at my first church plant. I wish I would have had this presentation. I was so busy. I remember my daughter Brianna. It was just a little baby. And I think for like six  months, I felt like I hardly saw her because my life was so caught up in the  busyness of church planting. Here's another very important with word of  wisdom, way to to formalize leadership, formalize the leadership in the  organization of the church too soon is dangerous. Whether it's bowing to the  pressure by zealous supervisors, current unofficial leaders, personal  insecurities, or personal experience with a previous church, the net effect is the  same of a major, a major sea change in the life of the church, and more  importantly, redirecting youthful energies away from the mission to  management. Either way, formalizing leadership too soon, always hinders the  growth of a plant. Again, I wish I would have known that, because even before  we had the first worship service, we had a formal board. And many of the people who are asked to be on this board did not really buy the vision and the mission  of the church and what it took to reach people in our neighborhood. And we had  steering team wars and fights, and we were busy fighting about our  disagreements, rather than saying, where's it going to take in a lot of ways when you're a church planter? You are the elder or the deacon, you are the ministry  leader. Yes, you have accountability. This accountability needs to be somewhere in there. But in a lot of ways, when you start out, you're not sure who the elders  and deacons are really going to be in a church plant, it takes a little bit to find out so maybe in the beginning, you and your spouse are the elders, the deacons,  the leadership of the church, maybe have a supervisor, not at your church, but  at your local church wait to formalize the leadership to find out who's really there in who's really on team with the mission of the church. You don't need to  formalize ruling elders at first. Stage one is working the plan the church planting  plan. The real leaders cannot be identified right away. A case scenario that I  experienced is, is I thought I had a leader. But after a few months after on the  board leader didn't even believe in the direction didn't even believe the style of  music that we picked. That created all sorts of steering team wars. Do not rush  to appoint ruling elders, instead, appoint ministry deacons. The point being is, in  a sense, see who's there. See where we're at, let your elder cover be in the  sending group to begin. Most churches have a sending group whether it's a  denomination a mother church. Now again, if you have the independent, church  planter pioneer, still try to have a sending groups try to have a relationship in  your ordination. Maybe that says that's where the authority the biblical authority  for the eldership comes from. Number five, start developing future elders ruling  elders right away. Now when I say ruling, what do I mean by ruling? You know, 

when Genesis the man was the man and women were called to rule over the  earth, the fish of the seas and so forth really means like royalty, it's it's not this  authority thing. It's about leading. So when ruling elder is like the bishops, the  elders that make the decisions, the process. Rule ruling elder leaders must  prove themselves we read in III John 9, I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes,  who loves to be first we have nothing to do with us. So if I come I call, I will call  attention to what he is doing Gossiping maliciously, maliciously about us. Not  satisfied with that. He refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. Now, why did I quote this? Well,  Diotrephes was somebody who is a leader in the local church, and he got into a  position of leadership. And then what happened is, is his true heart came out.  And what happened is the create all kinds of dissension. Now, there's I  mentioned this for another reason. Here is the early church and the apostles  had leaders that didn't work out. You're going to have leaders that don't work out and if a leader doesn't work out, don't feel bad. That happened even in the early  church, ruling elders, the leaders, they must be vision supporters and the one  who can one who connects with your leadership. Philemon 7, Your love has  given me great joy and encouragement because you brother have refreshed the hearts of the saints. There the Apostle Paul felt the encouragement of, of  leaders in the early church. And when he writes in Philemon, you get the sense  that he's in partnership with his leaders, a ruling elder leaders, they must be  called to build the local church I Thessalonians 1:4-5. No brother is loved by  God, that He has chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply with  words, but with power with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. These are  substantive leaders who really want to build the church must have the gift of  leadership, not just management alone. And we read the qualification of elder in  I Timothy 3 and Titus 2, the ruling elder leaders avoid those with a chip on their  shoulder, about pastors leaders salaries such avoid those who asked too  randomly about this. I Timothy 5:22, do not be hasty in the laying on of hands  and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourselves pure. You know, I want  to talk about this too. There are some leaders who just don't want their pastors  to do well, in whether it's getting to the salary discussion, you know, if you have  leaders who basically want to sort of like keep you at the Bi-vocational level, or  see how cheap they can get you by you working harder at another job, hey, if  you're planting a church, and that church is growing, your leaders ought to be  saying things like, wow, someday we can give a beautiful salary to you. So you  can do the work, not thinking about other things. Now, this doesn't mean that  you're going to be this high paid highest paid person in your community, but you  will be receiving enough salary to lead you so you can be add, be one who  leads your family, be one who may be your spouse does not have to work if you  have younger children. The point being is not to think of if the church plant does  well, you're gonna make a lot of money. We're not talking like that. We're talking 

if a leader doesn't want you to do well, personally, that sort of leader maybe  shouldn't be a ruling elder. If they have a chip on their shoulder about pastors,  maybe that person should not be a ruling elder, ruling elder leaders, will they  follow you in recommending that? They take the free Christian leaders Institute  class of getting started or or if Christian leaders offers a elder class, will they  take that class, if they don't want to grow and change and be trained, that could  be a red flag, whether or not they should be a ruling elder. Here's the process of  selecting your first ruling elder board. And that's according to the book that we're looking at today. And again, usually it's after a whole year, maybe it's after two  years into the church planting process. First of all, a letter informing the church  that you're planting that you will be appointing the first ruling elder board. Ask  everyone to submit names for consideration. Now, if your conviction is that male  headship includes the ruling elder board, that's something you want to be very  clear about. And then share the scriptures and passage that supports that the  ruling elders should be men. So anyway, just know that right up front. Give them  three weeks to submit names, communicate what's expected of the board  members, I Timothy 3. Take the names, you nominate the elders, and you can  take the name sorry. And you nominate the elder slate. You are the first  nominator what I mean by that is you take all the names, but in a sense, you're  that first leader. And you maybe you and your spouse or that first leader group,  that first leader team. You are the first nominator because you're the pastor.  You've heard, maybe from other pastors, some possible leaders that have come  into your team. Get to know who they are, but you are The first nominator  consult with the sending leaders if applicable. That's what we talked about  earlier. Keep the first board small in number, and have those with specific  apostolic gifts. In other words, you want the people like Paul, who want to keep  growing the church, you know, looking for ruling elders who are ruling  managers, you're looking for ruling elders who have that apostolic gene in them, that spirit filled attitude of how do we keep extending and growing, stagger terms from the beginning with two year minimums from the beginning, or could be  three years. But the idea here is to stagger these terms right away. Don't add  elders too quickly, unless needed. So once you've got your group, stay with a  small group at first, make or update the bylaws, it consult. In concert in concert,  in constitution, it should say, after the selection process. So make an update that bylaws right away. Ask the candidates if they will take the Getting Started class  or that elder class if offered at Christian leaders Institute, if they say no, that is a  red flag, set up a formal meeting with each candidate and their spouse to find  out if this is a calling in their life, find out if they connect to you, your leadership  style, you're not looking for Yes, men. On the other hand, you're looking for  positive people. You know, I can look at that too. If I look at the failures of some  of the elders that had been in my life when it did not work, and it became a  problem. And again, I would say over the years, I don't want to make it sound 

like it's so hard, you should never do it. I've had wonderful leader boards over  the years. But where I saw that it didn't work is if somebody did not connect, you know, I'm sort of in many of you know, me now here a Christian leaders Institute, I'm sort of a positive person who's a little bit in America, they call it you know,  A.D.D. and high energy. If someone doesn't like that, and they don't mesh with  that style. I shouldn't have them on my elder board. Now. That doesn't mean that someone who meshes with my style is my Yes, man. In America, we call a yes  man who just says says, whatever you want to do, and they're not engaged in  the discussion. I don't want that kind of person. either. I want them to have other  thoughts than me to think differently, to have different temperament but yet, they still connect with my temperament. Number 13. Call for a time of prayer after the meeting, and then meet again for any follow up issues. Number 15. If the  interactions are favorable for all parties, ask if you can move forward to make  this name known to the congregation after the process and letter out to the  congregation. Let them know the names of the other candidates. Let the  congregation contact you, or your sending leader if there's a problem with one of the names again, you want to really get that first board to be all about what this  church plant is about. Send out a final letter list in the names of the candidates  and schedule a brief meeting, invite the attendees to vote for the group, not the  individual. Now, this is sort of interesting. invite those who come to vote for the  group, not individuals. The reason this is such a good idea if you don't want to  create this place where somebody is rejected one person's in, one person's out.  These are your recommendations. Set up a date for the commissioning the  ordination service, invite VIP pastors maybe who are connected to your mentor  to participate in the first service. So here's that selection after one year or two  years possibly. You know that picking of leaders does not have to be negative or a downer. It really what you're doing is you're you're part of a process, a process of creating stages for leaders so your church plant can do well.