You party like Matthew.
When Matthew realizes Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, he doesn’t build a church, he doesn’t call a priest and he doesn’t write a poem; Matthew throws a party. And based on the guest list, Matthew’s gang of tax collectors and sinners, it’s likely a party to be remembered. The cops may or may not have been called.
Church planters who reach people who aren’t church shopping, people who don’t even think about church, know how to throw an epic party. There is music, there is laughter, things sometimes get a little out of hand. Church planting and party planning seem to go hand in hand.
Evangelistic church planters tend to party hard.
You can lead a band of misfits like David.
“David and his Mighty Men” sounds like a great title for a superhero movie. We have visions of brave soldiers straight out of the movie 300 with square jaws, bulging muscles and wills of steel. But that isn’t who David’s mighty men were. Here’s their description from 1 Samuel 22:
So David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. So his brothers and all his other relatives joined him there. Then others began coming—men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented—until David was the captain of about 400 men.
These “mighty men” were worthless malcontents running from the law. This was David’s leadership pipeline.
Church planters build leaders from soon-to-be former drug addicts, deadbeat dads and unemployed blue-collar workers. The John Maxwell leaders play golf and attend a megachurch. Leaders in a church plant work the night shift and hang out at a bar. When I was trying to grow a church in Huffman, Texas, my leader/misfits were a guy hiding from the IRS, a recovering cocaine addict and a guy who smoked a joint before church every Sunday morning to calm his nerves.
You’re passionate like Peter.
Peter meets Elijah and Moses and responds, “Let’s build a hotel right here!”
Jesus instructs Peter on foot washing so Peter says, “Give me bath!”
Jesus says that all the disciples will leave him and Peter proclaims, “I will never deny you!”
Peter hops out of boat in the middle of a lake, cuts off a guy’s ear, cusses out a servant girl and sobs his guts out when he realizes the depth of his betrayal.
Everything Peter does, he does with passion.
Church planters lead with their heart. Their heart breaks when a marriage fails, they party like its 1999 every time someone commits their life to Christ, they get so excited they can’t stand themselves after every baptism. Church planters are obnoxious on Twitter because their emotions are on display for the world to see. I haven’t met a successful stoic church planter. I’m just glad Peter didn’t have a Facebook page.