Among other things that need to happen in the early stages of church planting is value setting.  Now, it’s easy to put too much emphasis on this, and as a result, become stuck as you determine what the new church will value.  It’s even easier to feel like the process is too slow and become very dictatorial by saying, “Here’s what I value and so will you.”  I can only say that for us at The Gathering, this step has been mostly frustrating, and will hopefully prove to be freeing.

The good and bad of the process to this point:

1. Collaboration, by it’s very nature, takes time.  You absolutely cannot rush this part of the planting, even though the passion and excitement for the new plant makes you want to.  You’ll find yourself tempted to give out a sheet of 5 values you’ve copied from another church just so you can start sooner.  Don’t.
2. If you do copy values from another church, pick them apart as a group and make them your own.
3. Sometimes people will not talk.  This makes it even harder to collaborate.
4. You must actively lead this part of the planting.  That means either you need to be a great facilitator or you need to find one on your team.  I’ve learned after the first 3 attempts with our initial launch group that I am NOT the best at this process.  Thankfully, one of our team members actually does this kind of stuff for a living, and so he’ll be leading the 20-30 minute value-setting exercises from here on out while I teach on them.
5. There’s a lot of information out there about why values are necessary, but very little that I’ve found about how to actually go about determining them for you church.  I’ll be posting some of what we do in the future.
6. There’s a temptation for your values to be different from the values of every other church ever planted in the history of church planting.  Just reading that sentence should reveal the absurdity in that thinking.  Since all values are ultimately coming from Scripture, they’re going to be similar.
7. You may have a lot of value statements, but they should probably all be grounded in a smaller number of core values. Here’s an example: At The Gathering, we recognize that we will know less today than we will tomorrow.  That’s a great statement based on the core values of discipleship and learning, as well as community because it demands that we give grace to others who are still learning.
8. This process will make your head feel like it’s going to pop off.  I think that’s normal, because this is the process made popular by 2 year-olds who ask “why” after everything you tell them.  It’s annoying and the biggest reason parents started using the phrase, “Because I said so, that’s why!”  Unfortunately, that may not always be the best answer when a first-time visitor asks you why you expect people to give in the offering.  Core values about community and generosity and Scripture may carry more weight.  It takes a lot of “whys” to get to the simplest and strongest answers.
9. Have lots of coffee and sit in comfortable chairs, preferably with cup holders.
10. Because they’re called core values, there’s an underlying pressure to say the right thing the first time because you don’t want to look like an idiot by saying something is core when it may not be.  You won’t have them right immediately.  It’s a process.  Say it, clarify it, and try saying it again.  And breathe.

As the B99 and I continue on this journey of a church plant here in Stanly County, it is, as anyone would tell you that has been down this road, an up and down experience.  We find ourselves one day ready to take on anything, and the next day cowering from everything.  Journeys of faith are hard to explain because they are better understood by experiencing them.

One of the obvious needs in a church plant is funding, but before that can ever be expected, a clear call from God must be in the heart of the planter.  So often we chase things that are crucial, but not the most important.  For Wendy and I, the clear call after 2-3 years of uncertainty has been the number one benefit that has come out of the journey so far.

All that to say this: in one week, after God made very clear to us the calling He’s placed in our hearts for a new church in Stanly County, He has miraculously provided the $30,000 we need in order to qualify for the matching funds available from the Assemblies of God’s Church Multiplication Network.  First, in a meeting about 704 (the youth center That Youth Thing is bringing to Stanly County), one of the men asked about the church plant and on the spot committed $10,000 to it.  Then, the next Sunday I was allowed, at the last minute, to speak to our church about what God has been doing in our ministry over the last few years.  I did mention to Pastor Bob that I didn’t want to make the formal church planting announcement that night, and he agreed.  Of course, he ended the Sunday morning service with, “You won’t want to miss tonight!  Paul’s got some exciting news to share!!”  Great.

I ended up sharing from Acts 16 about how God led Paul to Troas through a series of closed doors, and that in Troas – a place of wondering and confusion – God expanded Paul’s vision to include another continent before bringing Paul back to Asia, which is where he wanted to go all along.  I stopped short of saying our “new continent” was a new church, but did mention the need in our county for a church that could speak into the lives of 18-35 year olds.

When service was over, a gentleman handed me an envelope and said, “Acts would never have been written without Theohilus funding Paul’s ministry.  I’ll have this to you in a week or so.”  I looked down and saw $20K written on the envelope, and Wendy did the quick math and said, “You know we’ve got the $30,000 without asking for it, right?”

Miraculous.

Weird title, but a good book to keep in the toolbox.

Over the last few months, the B99 and I have been increasingly interested in the whole church planting movement, and so a few weeks ago I had coffee with a successful church planter in Charlotte to discuss all things church planterish (Hey! I think I just invented a new word!!). Mike Field is a quiet man full of tons of practical ideas about church plants, and has done a fantastic job planting Hope Church, which in turn has already planted another church in the uptown of Charlotte. The conversation was very encouraging, and when we were done Mike slid a book across the table and told me to read it, and so it became book #12 on my year long reading journey.

The Up The Middle Church: Playing the Game of Ministry One Yard at a Time, by Matt Keller, took awhile for me to really get into. I was a little hesitant to write that, but I am trying to honestly write about the books I read, and the writing style of this one wasn’t on the same level as what I’ve read in other books this year. Not that it was a hard book to read; it just felt cumbersome at times and didn’t seem to flow. Throw in a number of mis-spelled words and typos and I got the feeling that maybe this book got rushed out to the presses without a really good proofreading. But, all that being said, the content of the book is really good, and incredibly practical. No doubt that the B99 and I will reference this book often if we continue walking down the church planting path.

The basic premise of the book was that in the church world, and especially among church plants, the churches and leaders we always here about are the ones who, in Keller’s words, experience the “long-bomb.” These are the churches that start in a basement somewhere and then have 1,000 or more people attending within a year. Keller doesn’t say that the long-bomb is bad, but that it isn’t normal, and it wasn’t his experience in planting Next Level Church in southern Florida. Normal in the church planting realm is “up the middle,” a phrase which Keller uses about a million times over the 181 pages of the book. Up the middle for Keller describes their experience of building a church “one yard at a time” by doing the small things consistently and trusting God in the slow, steady growth. While not as exciting as a hail-mary, Keller says it is what most new church plants should expect so that they don’t get discouraged when they aren’t the next overnight success on the cover of every Christian publication in the free world.

Keller divides The Up the Middle Church into 4 sections: the Practical Side, the Process Side, the People Side, and the Personal Side. Throughout the book he discusses everything from how to create a buzz about what your church is doing to how to stop answering your cell phone every time it rings (a lesson most of us could benefit from, even if we’re not planting a church). I especially soaked up chapter 5, “Voices on the Field.” In it, Keller wrote about the need to turn some voices down (the negative, the skeptical, and the “old way” voices) while also turning some voices up by finding three distinct people to learn from: someone you want to be like, someone who is doing what you want to do, and someone who is a step or two ahead of you. Very good stuff in there.

Other notable parts:

We never want people to feel more acceptance at a bar than they do in our church. (p. 23)

We really believe our purpose isn’t to build a great church, but to build people. (p. 26)

At NLC, we define a win as having the ability to influence people over an extended period of time. (p. 61)

Being mobile doesn’t mean you can get away with sloppy. (p. 69 – speaking in reference to portable church plants)

Never cut corners on quality, especially in areas that directly touch people. (p. 74)

Don’t grow a church, grow a team. (p. 113)

Pastor your church as if it’s twice the size (from Ed Young, Jr.)…Don’t do at 100 what you can’t do at 200. (p. 151)

Success isn’t based on horizontal comparisons, but on vertical obedience. (p. 176)

For me, that last nugget about vertical obedience was worth the entire book. Wherever you are in ministry (staff member, pastor of an existing church, current or future church planter), you’ll benefit tremendously from picking up Matt’s book and taking the time to read through it.