You’re tenacious like Paul.
The Apostle Paul just didn’t know when to quit
Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. I have traveled on my long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.
After the third or fourth beating, any normal person would have said, “Well, that’s about it for me,” but Paul wasn’t a normal person, he was a church planter.
The single biggest difference between a successful church planter and one who doesn’t make it is tenacity. The ability to continue to work and change and adapt until he finds a way to reach people far from God and mold them into a local faith community. This is different than doing the same thing over and over and hoping this time things will work out differently (tenacity versus persistence). Church planters are crazy, not insane.
You love your city like Jesus.
Jerusalem, the city that rejected Jesus more than any other, was the city he loved most. Not long before he was crucified just outside the walls, Jesus wept over the city he longed to save. He knew returning to Jerusalem for his final passover sealed his fate, but he loved the city and what it represented so much he refused to stay away. And it cost him his life.
The truly successful church planter, the one who makes a lasting difference, is willing to lay down his life for his city. His heart is broken by the lostness he sees and he can’t imagine ministering anywhere else. If he has to work two jobs to feed his family, he will. The one thing he won’t do is abandon his city.
Are you a church planter (or someone who will help plant a church)? Are you obsessed with a city? Are you willing to do anything to reach that city? Can you take a punch? Can you mold a group of losers and outcasts into a band of mighty men? If you’re just that crazy, then yes, you might be a church planter.