Video Transcript: Getting a Meeting People Plan

So, today we're going to talk about getting a meeting, people plan. And in some  ways this this topic is one of those assume things about church planting that  you're actually going to meet people. And theologically, we see that in the Bible  in the start of the new church and the book of Acts, one of the most common  threads in the book of Acts that you will see again and again and again, you will  see it so much that you will actually miss at times of significance is the whole  part about meeting people? It Peter, the apostles, meeting people, lots of  people, the apostle Paul, he's on his ministry, meeting people, and when, when  Acts is written by Luke, it's interesting how new people come on the pages,  often Paul would say, and so on. So we met Lydia. We met this person, we met  that person. And then at times, people were brought into their lives, like  Cornelius brought into the lives of Peter, um, through vision, and then Peter  seeing the vision, but what's underlying that is still about meeting people. So as  a church planter, you are going to learn how to meet people. And in right now,  let's say you're not the most comfortable with meeting people or meeting people  is not your favorite thing, or you or you've done this personality test and it says,  oh, no, you're an introvert, that I can't plant a church because I'm an introvert.  Well, you can look like that and say, Well, you know, that disqualifies me, or you  can actually get a meeting people plan. There are plans for extroverts, how you  can be more effective. There are plans for introvert, introverts how you can be  more effective. Meeting people does not necessarily mean that you need to be  an extrovert, like me, I'm an extrovert. I like to meet people and meeting people  is very natural. However, I have seen church planting introverts, even extreme  introverts. meeting people. One introvert that I have seen plant churches and do out he has done outstanding is another one of our professors here at Christian  leaders Institute, Steve Elzinga. He is a thorough going introvert. He's doesn't  necessarily go out to look to meet people, but he has been very effective at  planting churches, even though he's an introvert. So extrovert, extroverts, like  me, plant churches, introverts, like Steve, plant churches, and people like you  plant churches. So today, we're going to talk about a meeting people plan. Now,  the first thing when we talk about it is understand that meeting people, and  being a witness for Christ and planting churches, all those things go together.  Who are people, and I want to talk about that real quickly. People are not just a  beautiful mountain to look at. They're not not just a hassle with obstacles and  walls. People are the crown of God's creation. People are created by God, and a soul, a life brought in to serve Christ. To me, there's nothing more beautiful than  that. To see a father reached a mother, children reached a household reached.  That's powerful. It's beautiful. So as a church planter, you get the opportunity to  master meeting people. You know, sometimes church planters will come to me  and say, after they've planted a church, the most cool, most awesome thing, in  their experience, is to get over their walls of meeting people, reaching people  and all the friends and all the friendships they have now because now they are 

over that wall of meeting people. So there's a lot of reasons for you to overcome this wall. And right now, I'm going to talk about some pointers, some tips, some  ideas by which you can, no matter who you are, get better at meeting people so  

you can proclaim the gospel. First of all, I want to tie this into kind of an  understanding of meeting people and the seven connections operating system.  So when you put together your meeting people plan. First of all, think of it as  what would your intentional plan be relative to yourself? That is, let's call that  connection one, you yourself, have a certain responsibility and can come with a  certain methodology of how you personally can begin to meet people more.  Now. Now, let's say you're an introvert. And you're wondering, well, you know,  how how, how does that gonna work? Well, first of all there, even if you're an  introvert, there's some basic skills that you'll want to master. When meeting  people even if, you know in some ways introverts meet people as effectively as  extroverts. And I'll give you an example. Here's the problem with extroverts. And  we're going to talk about extroverts in a little bit. Extroverts are chatty, talkative,  a lot of times we'll meet people, all right, but people have a hard time getting to  sometimes connect with extroverts, because they're just kind of too forward. too  pushy. Introverts, the great thing about introverts is introverts are more  comfortable, often listening. So as a introvert, all it really takes is, is the ability to do a few basic skills, such as Hi, I'm Henry. And then there are basically like  questions, like questions of why, how when, how long? Where? Where are you  from? One of the things that when I've counseled introverts, one of the things I  will do is, is we'll have like little role playing. And it's kind of like, ah, you know, I  just, I don't really necessarily want to talk to people when, but the bottom line  often is, I'm not comfortable. So what we'll do is we'll have the more of an  introvert type person, memorize how when, why, where, how long, just several  of the why, how, where, why, you know, those types of questions, just memorize  them. So and then do a little practicing. So you walk up to someone, and you  basically, you know, ask, Hey, who are you? Simple question. John. Oh, John,  where are you from? Toledo, Ohio. Oh, I was in Toledo, Ohio, once notice how  you, you you build off of, you know, just a simple answer. Oh, I was in Toledo,  Ohio. You know, I really noticed so and so about that city. So why are you here?  How long are you staying? You see just simple questions. And you can do this at the supermarket. Just talk to someone. Now, why is this so important? Well, the  skills of meeting people, and actually holding conversations are vital for sharing  the gospel. You know, there was in the past kind of a methodology to  evangelism that was event based, where essentially someone else, you know,  the professional, the pastor, would would go in and proclaim the gospel to  groups of people. Now, while God has blessed that too, because God's Holy  Spirit blesses what God's Holy Spirit blesses. And we see in Pentecost, you  know, that methodology is utilized. In general, though, it's about meeting people. And as a church planter, you want to whatever your walls and meeting people 

are, you want to actually get over them. Let's say you're an extrovert. You know,  your thing is you can meet a lot of people. But just because you meet a lot of  people doesn't mean that you're actually going to develop the relationships and  the connections, to get those people to a place where they're going to hear the  gospel, or come to your church. An introvert I notice is one who, when you  actually accomplish meeting someone, you understand more of the depth and  you'll go more often more in that way. In extroverts, we just meet this person, the next person, next person, and a lot of times with an extrovert. You can kind of  come off a little more superficial, meet people move on, meet people move on.  So an extrovert meeting plan has to really focus on discipline, meeting people.  Meeting them again, setting up another meeting, praying for the people you  meet, and actually creating relationships with these people. Now let's talk a little  bit more about like church planting and meeting people. You know, in connection one as the church planter meeting people is something that that the The wall of  it you need to overcome in the weaknesses of your personality or extrovert you  need to overcome. But a lot of times meeting people, for church planting is a lot  simpler than you think a lot of times that when you plant a church, the people  you're going to meet are already in your life. So I just spent a little time on  making new relationships, and in building into new groups of people, but I want  to talk about your already existing people that you already know. Have you ever  actually got a piece of paper and let's say you're called down to plant a church,  and you're thinking to yourself, like, who would come to my church? You know,  what you can do is get a pad of paper and start writing down all the people you  know. Okay, George, my cousin and his wife, Sue. So you got relatives? People  I know at work, okay, write them down. Oh, people that I know, in my softball  team. Okay, write them down. So you write, this whole list of people they know,  the insurance agent. The guy I know, who runs the grocery store? Oh, I'm in a  speaking group that I've learned how to, you know, do public speaking? Oh,  write them down? Oh, I did. I did some network marketing there for a while, Oh,  I gotta write that down. Oh, I homeschool? Oh, I have to write down the people I  know there. All I'm part of a business, community group. Write down names  there. If you ever write down all the names of the people, you know, you might  have 100 people. Now, when you're a church planter, you're looking for people,  people that you can proclaim the gospel to. So you might say to yourself, well,  you know, why don't I just put this together. And if they come, they'll find out  about it. You know, what I have found is that unless someone's invited, they  often don't think that what you're doing is anything to do with them. That was an  assumption I made so many times as a young church planter, where I would  assume well, they know I'm planting a church. They know that the church is  going to meet at so and so's house when it starts out or later on, it's meeting  over there. And so many times people said you never invited me. So what I  would suggest to do is to write down everybody, you know, just as the planter 

now, after you write them all down, give so and so a call and say, Hi, this is  Henry. And hey, how you doing, George? Great. Hey, you know, I wanted to call  you and tell you what I'm getting into. And they would say, Well, what's that? I  want to be part of planting a new church. Oh, now here's the type of responses  you will get. One response you'll get is no. Okay. The other response I get is  maybe. And the response I get is, Oh, what's this all about? Maybe I'm  interested. Now let's talk about the no, if you get a no. Use often you don't leave  it there is no you can say, Oh, so you're not interested? Do you know of  someone that you that might be interested? And I have found some of the  people over the year that we are allowed to reach came Out of those nos. No,  George tells me but you know, Sam and Pam, they might be interested in this  because they were just talking the other day, that they're kind of looking for  something spiritually in their life, and they're looking more for God and church  and all that. And they kind of need something. Let me talk to Sam and Pam and  get back to you. Sure, go right ahead. If so many times. People have got back to me and said yes, Sam and Pam are interested. Here's their phone number, give  them a buzz. So nos aren't necessarily a dead end street. Nos are often an  opportunity to you know, have somebody else. Here's the thing about no. Last  time she will say no now, but no is not the permanent. No. I have seen that over  20 years of church planting. I'll ask someone and and I'll you know say hey, do  you want to come and they say no. Two months later, they show up. But the  bottom line was, is they were asked the church planter asked them You know,  it's fascinating. When you actually call your list of people, what God does a lot of times to what I have found is that I had a prayer time with someone who I talked  to, and they said, things like, you know, maybe we'll come or maybe we're not  really interested right now. And then I'll even close the conversation with  something like, is there anything to pray about? In that? And somebody will say,  Yes, we pray for this, and I'll pray right there on the phone. And God blesses that in a relationship is created, in some ways, church planters are about making  relationships. One more thing, and I want to talk again, about specifically as the  church planter, a plan. So here's your plan. First part of your plan is, what what  walls do you have about meeting people get over some of those walls, you  might even want to on that, as I sum up that plan, or that part of the plan, you  might even want to buy, like a book called people smart, or just books that  specifically help you overcome your fear of people. It's not that big of a deal. And once you actually start doing it, you'll actually have fun with it, you'll conquer that it's over. It's out of your life, you know, new people a breeze. Okay, so that's part one. Second part of your meeting plan, personally, as a church planter, is  making a list of all your people that you know, who are they call them up, ask a  question, I want to give you a little tidbit on this to a little extra tidbit, call them,  don't just send them a card. Or if you're going to send them a card, call them as  a follow up, a lot of times people will send a card and say, well, they were 

invited, or they'll put things in a public notice. And I don't have a lot of faith in just you know, sending a card alone or giving a public notice. Because it's like, you  know, you get so much mail or send an email a lot of times that personal. When  you have a list, if you Send an Email fine, but actually do the calling. actually  find out connect with somebody. So number one, what about your own walls of  meeting people? Number two, make a list. Number three, put a discipline in your life to actually meeting people personally. One of the things that I've mentored  church planters in over the years is having a these habits of meeting people.  Like for instance, if you get gas in your car, somehow someone else is usually a  lot of times filling up gas at the same time. Those are excellent times to there's a habit you have to fill your car up with gas. Okay, so you're somehow or other,  somebody's standing there bored, you're bored. They're bored. They're both  filling gas in your car. And you can simply say, wow, we're having a rainy day,  you will find that that is enough to often spark conversation. Yeah, it's been  raining a lot recently, hasn't it? Now you can say, where are you from? Oh, I'm  from I'm from, you know, Beecher. Oh, that's right down the road. I'm from Monee How long have you lived in Beecher, it, you start a conversation and a lot of  times, the Holy Spirit takes that conversation and moves it onto another level.  And eventually you're asking them about things that that really matter, you know, even times is bringing up things a lot it almost at times, incredibly quickly, where  you're saying, God was we're at work there. But it's a habit, you know, form  habits. I remember when I was planting a church in, in Oregon once. And it was  interesting, I had this habit called five, three. I was going to meet five new  people a day, and schedule three meetings a week. Now this is at the very  beginning. And my wife is on board. We're all on board we're in so I don't want  to blow you bi vocational guys away, because you may not have time to do five,  three, but I'll tell you how it worked. You know, this was what I did. I was I had  raised the salary so I could do this. So I want to tell you the story to five new  people a day. Well, that was how I thought about it. So whether it be the grocery  store or whether at the gas station, you know, I went to a racquetball court went  in, you know, so I would just tally and that would work on three meetings a  week. Well, one afternoon it was 4:30 in the afternoon, and I was like, Ah man, I  haven't met hardly anybody today. I haven't had no I had no habit to meet  anybody that specific day. So we know what I did is I just got out the phonebook  and I figured, I'm just gonna call somebody because then I can meet somebody  telemarket very, very at times and effective. So I thought where should I call  someone. So I looked in the phonebook and I thought, Well, nobody's gonna  know me. You know, I happen to be Dutch by background. So I figured, you  know, so if you're German or Italian, you know, you have something in common  with someone, I happen to be Dutch. So I went to the Eugene phonebook. And I  went over to a Dutch name in the Bs. I looked at one I know that the Dutch  name, so I called this person up and said, Hi, I'm Henry Reyenga. I'm planting a 

new church. And I'm Dutch and I saw you have a Dutch name. Now, the person  on the other end, they don't go, they didn't go to church. She actually married a  Dutch man. The Dutch man was from Southern Netherlands whenever they  immigrated, some form of Catholic background. But nonpracticing I might add.  And so I talked to this gal a little bit, the wife and, and next thing, you know, they were over at our house for a cookout. Next thing, you know, this family came to  our church became believers. If I want to have the habit, I wouldn't have had any reason to call but habit, I have a habit of meeting people. And meeting people is  always a good thing. And, and sometimes, you know, and sometimes it gets kind of funny, because you have to have a habit. And you've said that you need to do it, and you actually do it, you're surprised at what can happen in response to  those habits. So a good meeting people plan includes getting over your own  walls, getting a list and actually doing it. You know, every Saturday, I'm calling  somebody. Every Wednesday afternoon, I'm going to be walking into the park  with my children. And I'm gonna have a lot of fun with my children. But while I'm  there, who might I meet, it's a habit, I'm going to go to this Co Op group, I'm  going to go to this support group, I you know, and my habit is to meet people.  Now, I want to make one thing really clear. You may say, Wow, this is like  business, you know, you're gonna you're like a realtor who all they think about  is, you know, getting the next sale. And isn't that kind of sad that you know, that  you'd be thinking about that? I want to address it. At one level, you could look at  it that way. And think this is just like business or marketing and, and our whole  life is about, you know, having some agenda. And so you're learning to meet  people, because you have some agenda. I would not look at it that way. I look at it this way. The time is short. People are dying and going to hell. Who can you  meet? If you put habits into your life and get over your own walls. So what?  Meet people. The other option is to not meet people. The other option is say, oh, I want to plant a church. But you know, somehow, it's just going to happen. Oh,  it's going to happen in God's calling you as a church planter, to lead the way.  Now, I want to talk about the other connections real briefly. If you personally  have this plan, okay, so let's say you have a spouse, how is your spouse  including this, maybe she is like, Oh, I don't know if I want to meet people? Well, here's the thing is, if your spouse commits with you to plant a church, it's kind of  fun for your spouse. And I really agree with this, that if you are called to plant a  church, your spouse is called to plant it with you. Okay, so, if you're married,  your spouse has to overcome your spouse's walls to meet people as well.  Because you know if you let's say you're meeting someone, and you bring that  person home and your spouse is not interested is militantly against you. I would  really question whether or not you're a church planter. That connection together  is very important in this now what does it mean to have a supporting spouse?  Well it means to have a supporting spouse is is your spouse is interested is  involved is excited. When you go out to eat your spouse is there. My point is is 

that that maybe your spouse doesn't need to be need to be some superstar, that least your spouse has to pray about the love of people. Here's the other thing.  Sometimes I noticed that an introvert marries an extrovert, and that's wonderful.  So a lot of times God will use your spouse to fill in the blanks where maybe  you're not, or vice versa. Your family, your family has a key. You know, one of the things that that I believe very firmly is as you have children, and those children  grow up and, and mature part of your kind of discipleship is teach them how to  meet people and teach them how to be hospitable, teach them how to be  friendly, if in your life as a church planter, the energy of your life is meeting  people, that's something that needs to be supported. There's something also a  silver lining in that if you teach your children how to be hospitable and meet  people that will do well for them throughout their whole life. Now, what about  connection four as you know, your your friends, you know, as as, as you model,  that openness, that non clickiness that everybody is included in the Gospel,  there's the generosity of meaning people as church planter, you'll find your  friends to do the same thing. And you can even be intentional about this, you  can do things. If you're the early core group and the early launch team, you'll call it you're kind of friends in this church planting endeavor, you can do things that  are about interacting with people, like an English country dance, for instance,  you can sponsor something like that and have all your core group as you're  starting the church or your launch team, invite everyone to English country  dance, and when you're there, at this country dance, it's about meeting people,  and they can participate in this, or, or your church. You know, a lot of times, if  you actually get to the point where you're now planted a church, and the church  is now taking off, to have a culture of meeting people, when someone new  comes there as a church planter, model, meeting them. And then as a church  planter, introduce them to people with your church, in some ways, you're you're  like the Border Collie who's going around, and someone's come in looking at  your church and you're like, you know, who can I herd, okay, a new person  comes, see you can go there as a pastor and meet them. But better is that you  meet them and say, oh, you know, you are similar to this person over here. Let  me connect you two so that your people become part of meeting new people  and the kingdom of God, you will find that that, that as you will meet other  believers and other parts of the country and other churches, that what we begin  to start having is a culture of people, meeting people and encouraging people.  And then the last thing is evangelism, this all those earlier six connections, your  personal, your marriage, your family, your your launch team, your friends, your  church, interacting with other people is still always about is looking for the lost,  finding a way to connect to them, finding a way to meet people to understand  that the gospel is spread through relationships. So as we think about our church  planting plan, it's not just something where you write down five things and put  them to memory. This is something that you do you have habits, you actually 

you know, and I've only mentioned and in a short amount of time that I've had  with you. I'm only mentioning the tip of the iceberg. Whether you buy books to  help you, but it's about practice. It's about failing. It's about practicing some  more. It's about trial and error. It's about getting out there. It's about taking the  risk, it's about meeting someone we don't want to but you take that risk and see  what the Holy Spirit will do. So as you think about your people plan, you can  look at it one or two ways you can look at as Oh, I gotta have a hassle or you  can look at as this great opportunity to grow like you've never grown before.