I danced like a monkey at their request for three years, and nothing I ever did was good enough. By the time they left the church, they had run just about everyone else off. People who are on a mission to reach their community won’t stick around if they see the pastor is more interested in meeting churchy demands than reaching the lost. Because I waited so long to let them go, the church plant couldn’t recover from the damage they had done.
4. I didn’t have the guts to make bold moves.
If you speak Christianese you might say, “I didn’t have the faith to make bold moves.” My second time around, I found myself saying one phrase over and over again: “If it were easy, we wouldn’t need God.” There are times when you look at your situation, talk to experts about it, pray about it, and are convinced a change needs to be made. It might be the service time, meeting location, staff member or whatever, and you know making such a move won’t be easy.
If you are not often faced with a decision that requires God’s help/intervention to come through for you, then chances are you’re on a slow path toward the demise of your church plant. One of the things I was unwilling to do at my failed plant was move locations. We had a good relationship with our school, and it was close to where most of our core members lived.
But the city had put another road in near our school that diverted 75 percent of the local traffic away from our location. I brought it up it a few times in leadership meetings but was shot down due to their fears. Instead of making a bold move, we opted for a slow death.
When I started Essential, the first thing on the agenda was to move. Once again, all the naysayers were there with reasons not to move. I boldly proclaimed, We’re moving. Sure enough, they were right. There wasn’t any place to go that we could afford. I was shot down by every available place in town but one. It was a school that had booted us out three years before. During my prayer to God before going over there is when I first said: “God, if this were easy, I wouldn’t need you. But I really need you.”
God moved the heart of the same principal who booted us out to now welcome us back in. And this happened on the day before my deadline. The naysayers were also right about something else. When we moved locations, a few people quit coming. But in the second month, Essential started it was running double what New Hope averaged over the previous year.
When you allow fear rather than faith be the primary factor in making decisions, you are not following God’s leading. Keep in mind I’m talking about decisions you’ve thought about, prayed about, talked to experts about, ran it through Scripture, examined your motives, talked to people who know your church and situation, and concluded it’s a decision that needs to be made.
At that point, if you are unwilling to make the decision due to fear of failure, fear that people will leave, or whatever—then you’re moving toward the slow death of your church. Be willing to trust God can do things you never thought possible if you are willing to follow where he’s leading you.
5. I didn’t care about our image.
To me, things like logos, website design, foyer layout, signage and so on were too superficial to worry about. I didn’t want to be one of those churches where image is everything and where it was style over substance. The problem with this mentality is that if you’re trying to reach lost people … well … to them, image is everything. They will judge a book by the cover.
They will visit your website and decide whether or not they will come on Sunday. Studies show they will decide if they like your church within seven minutes of pulling in the parking lot. That’s before they’ve heard you preach, listened to the praise band, or seen that really cool creative element you have planned at the end of the service.
