Video Transcript: Challenges a Church Planter Faces

If you're thinking about being a church planter, understand that there will be  challenges. And it's probably good even before we get into greatly into the  material, that we look at some of these challenges, challenges that could  bankrupt that is Shipwreck your ministry in church planting. One of those  challenges is the ego challenge. Now we all have an ego, I have an ego. And  ego is about this sense of wanting to accomplish something that is core within  our eye. And this ego either can be filled with God, or it can be filled with ourself, we want to make a name for ourself. In church planting, it is about God. Now  God wants us to have a healthy ego in that we are glad who God made us  thankful for the gifts that we have. But be very careful about your own ego  because your own ego can get in the way of church planting. Dennis Crumbly in  his book, Church Planting 101 talks about this as well. The apostle or  entrepreneurial person is needed, but Crumbly says, if not bridled with wisdom,  temperance, and a good healthy team of leaders around you who are capable  and free to speak to your life. That same gift will eventually be the downfall of  everything you have built. It will turn you into a mean spirited, bully, domineering  and leaving you with followers instead. Leaving you with followers who instead  of having love and respect for you, follow you because they are afraid of you.  Eventually effective ministry will come to a crashing halt in 30 years of being a  church planter, meeting other church planters. I have found that some church  planters who basically have that domineering ego, eventually just get Yes,  people followers who follow out of fear, and eventually their church implodes.  Here's some key truths to settle your ego. Crumbly says first of all, understand  that other pastors and churches are not the enemy. Sometimes we're that ego  attack happens the most is of other pastors and churches in the community. The same number two is with other church plants, and their leaders are not the  enemy. You know, I've been to a lot of pastors conference, local community,  Pastor conference, local church planter and get planted church planting  gatherings. And there are some church planters who come to these meetings.  And it's as if these meetings are dreadful to them, because they really have their ego on the line every time they are around other pastors or church planters.  Number three, your church is not called to conquer a city, it is called to be the  gift to the city. Now in saying this, know that Christ is the conqueror, in love, and  through the cross and the resurrection, His conquering power extends to every  city. But for you, you do not have to have your ego responsibility to think that you are the conqueror of the city or your church is. It is God who is in fact, you are a  gift to the city. Number four, success is not determined by the size of your  church. This is a big problem that many church planters experience, where what you'll see happening is that if their churches not growing, they go depressed, or  their ego strength is such that they will do whatever it takes to get numbers and  warm bodies, but only in the end it doesn't succeed because they're not  developing leaders. Here's this key truth to remember, the people God sends 

you are not just sent to build your ministry. On the contrary, they're sent to you  so that you can build theirs. I'm going to say that again. The people God sends  to you are not sent to just build your ministry. On the contrary, they are sent to  you so that you can build their's the main point keep that God given super ego  

that I have yours in check. Now it is God given but keep it in balance, pray in the Spirit a lot. Surround yourself with great leaders to help you. You know, there's  another challenge that strikes church planters. And that is the significance  challenge. Crumbly writes, this challenge is one that many just simply have to  learn by going through the proverbial school of hard knocks. But I'm going to talk about it anyway. He says, I fear that many people get into ministry because  they're trying to fix issues in their own lives. Ouch, I know that hurts a little even  to read it. But I would rather have you're hurting now. Or at least think about it  than hurt a bunch of other people later, including yourself. This significance  challenge is one where you have sort of low self esteem for some personal  reason or psychological reason. In church planting sort of lifts you up. So you  get lifted up by the success you have in church planting. Remember, your  significance does not come from the church, you pastor or the ministry you lead. Our significance comes from God, and from the pursuit we have of his  presence, period. That's it. We're in God's team. We're faithful, God takes care  of the results. Our significance is enhanced. He makes us who we are.  Remember, you build on God's team, God does not build on your team. You do  not have to feel like your significant because of any result. I Corinthians 3:14. If  what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. Another challenge that  church planters have is that walk challenge. You know, we've talked a lot here at Christian leaders Institute about a connection or a walk with God, that it's in our  lives, in the seven connections, our personal life, our marriage, our family of  small group in that church, through the kingdom and extending to the world. But  know that in church planting, it is gonna get busy. And it's going to challenge  your closeness with God. But never forget that the church is first the church in  your own life. May that be strong, vibrant, may you vibrantly be connected to the God of the universe, talking prayer, listening, hear his word, repeatedly, habits of that in your life memorization. Keep that going. Keep that creativity in that life  flow of walking with God in your life and never let it go. Because in the end of  the day, you can't lead others where you yourself are not located. If you're  located with God, people will come in and want what you have. Develop a  prayer team, a walking team that goes beside you. Crumbly writes, If you will  learn to get into God's presence, and allow Him to be the one to sustain and  meet all your needs. You will be amazed at how refreshed, that you will be and  how much better a leader you will become. You know, as we think about these  challenges, I have to mention some challenges that I've noticed many church  planters struggle with. And one of the challenges the next challenge is the  conflict challenge. These conflict challenges come immediately when you're 

leading people, whether it's conflicts in the music team someday or whether it's  conflicts in the leadership, these challenges are real. Another challenge is that  being teachable challenge. You're gonna fail many, many times. And when you  

do, fail forward, stay positive. Learn quickly. Oh, you'll have many new  experiences to learn. Remember, Proverbs 8:33. Listen to my instruction and be wise. Do not ignore it. You know, a church planter. The fact of the matter is, is as you grow and reach people, there will be it feels like hundreds 1000s of new  things that you'd never before realize that you needed to learn and you can  learn them or you can get hard and bitter and hurt. Be teachable. Put your ego  on the shelf, be self aware. When a failure comes the first time cease to blame  someone else. Don't do that. Firstly, Hey, Okay, Lord, what did I do right here?  How can I change? How can I be more effective, I want to listen to your  instruction God and be wise, I don't want to ignore it. Now, many times it's other  people's fault. But you can look at that and say, their fault, I don't learn or you  can say, I am going to learn something through it. Maybe there's your personal  struggle challenge. Everyone has them. And they could be everywhere from  over eating, to things that that you struggle with since personally, can be fear.  There's so many personal struggles that we have in Christ is Victor over every  one. Or it could be that Christ is Victor in your life, the victorious life in many  areas of your life. But there's this area that you still struggle with, really be  transparent. Now, when I say be transparent, don't go telling everybody  everybody your struggle, but have confident trust in people that you're  transparent with, that help you grow. Do not let your personal struggles get in  the way of your ministry. Keep in that moderate path. And you know, let's talk  about that just a little longer. It seems like if I were going to talk about this in this  church planting class in even more detail, but what often torpedoes a pastor and leader, a church planter are something that they personally struggle with,  crosses the line, beyond the personal sin struggle that everybody has in it starts  becoming public, it starts becoming habitual, it starts becoming an addictive  behavior. And we all are going to have personal struggles is keeping those  personal struggles in that place of moderation. And more and more through the  path of sanctification. have God take those struggles away? II Corinthians  12:10. That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses in insults and  hardships and persecutions in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Now what is amazing about personal struggles is those personal struggles are  what sermons come out of those personal struggles is how we relate to others  who have personal struggles, when we were weak. God allows us to stay weak,  we're not perfected in every way now. But we are being made perfect in Christ,  but in our difficulties and weaknesses. Those are amazing platforms for  proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ because we know that we will always  need a savior. There's the tongue challenge, until you watch our expectations. A  lot of times the tongue will spill out all kinds of things because essentially what 

we expected in what reality is different. So right away react to those  expectations, not met with out lashing or saying something or being negative.  The fact is, is we all have tongues and they all at times can be unbridled. But it  says in James to bridle that tongue and Proverbs. 12:18, reckless words pierce  like a sword, but the tongue of the wise bring healing. So here we are  challenged with our own lips, in what we say will really matter. I remember when I was an early church planter, it wasn't even negative things. I said, sometimes I  oversold my tongue oversold, what I could not deliver. So I set higher  expectations than what reality would come about. So what happened is people  eventually were frustrated by that. You as a church planter be faced with social  gospel challenges. You know what that means is right now there's so much talk  and there's issues out there and how how the gospel of Christ will face an issue  in our society or politics and, and what can happen is church planters can get  caught up in an issue or politics or something out there, and it can sidetrack our  ministry bring bring controversy to our ministry. And there are many of them out  there.I Corinthians 1:23, says, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block  to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. So we're going to talk later in this  class about avoiding these issues that take away from your church plant. And  finally, the spiritual warfare challenge. Remember, all of these challenges are  common to us. Ephesians 6:12. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,  but against rulers against the authorities against the powers of this dark world  against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm. Fact of the matter is, is  each of us, called by God, to plant a church, if that's your calling, you will face  many spiritual warfare and these warfare will not be against that person God  brought to your church, sometimes you feel like that. No, you will not be against  that neighbor who doesn't know Christ. It is a spiritual warfare, because Christ  has won on the cross. And the victory continues in the forces of God and His  angels are still there. until Christ comes back, we will in real time experience  that warfare. I have noticed many times in church many times in church planting  that if there's a special event, the night before I am attacked, and my wife is  attacked, like we have a bad night of sleep, and then we pray in the name of  Jesus, Lord, protect us and, and we even have cast out, we felt attack in our life, and we're getting attacked. You know, you're gonna have many experiences of  this. But remember, Christ is the victor. He is Lord, He is your Savior. There is no other way to turn. And if you're taking this class, because you may be a church  planter, know this, God will be with you if you're taking this class, because you  want to find out about church planting, or you're just interested in the subject to  get a certificate or diploma here, praise God. But know these challenges are  real. God is real. You know, I want to ask God to bless you. And as you process  your ministry calling, process the challenges because in a lot of ways these  challenges can be experienced by all ministry work. I will ask in your behalf, that God will lead you through these challenges and bring you to a wonderful place I 

like to pray with all of you right now. Lord, God, these challenges are so real at  times. That whether it's ego challenges or significant challenges, or challenges,  a walk with God, that sometimes we just don't get on that right path, and we  don't stay on it. Whether it's challenges or personal struggles, whether there's  challenges, here or there, or things that weren't even mentioned today. There's  challenges from the past, or challenges that that are so quiet and private that no one even wants to mention them. We know that there is sin, we know there is  spiritual warfare. And I pray for every student in this class. Whatever ministry  they do, that you will help them by the power of your Holy Spirit to overcome  these challenges. Again Lord every time that someone watches this, I pray that  again and again, this prayer, given here now, will will become relevant to the  challenges that our students face and that they will in Christ in you be the victor.  In Jesus name. Amen. Thank you very much. And God bless you