Multifaceted

When I was part of a church plant back home the Pastor said to me once, "It takes all kinds of different churches to reach different kinds of people." This I have found to be true. When this Pastor arrived he went to several churches within the city to inform them that he was starting a church but also to partner with them. I believe he was promoting a sense of unity and just trying to work together with the other Pastors in that city to achieve the same goal of reaching people despite the fact that his church may be different from their churches. Through this I learned that it does take several different types of churches to reach a community. The reality is who cares what style your church is as long as life change is happening. I have met many people who believe that church can only be done one way. The problem with this is that our world is multi-everything. And I believe our God is also. Just look at the number of different races in the world, or different types of plants and trees, and crazy bugs and animals. Sometimes I watch the discovery channel and see some animal that they are researching and I think to myself, "what in the world is that?" I believe its a declaration that God loves variety.

Principles...#3

Today I was reading in 1 Kings chapter 12 and was reminded of a great principle for ministry. In verse 6 King Rehoboam (Solomon's successor) was seeking wise counsel to rule his people well. He chose to ask the older men who counseled Solomon, but also his young advisers. The older advisers counseled well and the young ones gave foolish advice. Reading this made me think of one of my professor's advice to always have someone older you can go to for advice and accountability. For any ministry it is a life saver in a sense. I thank God that I have had this til now in my spiritual mentor, Steve Vaughan, and another church planter Scott Weatherford. Their advice and insight has been a real gem.

Principles...#2

Im reading the book, Breaking the Missional Code by Ed Stetzer and David Putnam. So far the book is great and what I believe is a great resource for any pastor/church planter. One of the points in the book was that how as pastor's we need to be willing to learn from others, including other pastors and even church members. It is obvious that there are many pastors out there who are unteachable. This I would have to believe is a terrible downfall. From an individual's unwillingness to be teachable can stem an attitude of arrogance which will often result in a spirit of disunity, something Jesus was strongly against. I believe that Jesus' one proof he left of himself was our love for each other. In other words our unity proves God.

Principles

One of the most difficult things that I find in church planting is understanding the people around you. Exegeting the culture is a crazy hard task. Sometimes when I am trying to engage someone in a conversation about Jesus I find this total blank mindset of how do I begin. Everybody is different and not everybody needs a "gospel presentation." Its so hard to understand what people need sometimes. In New Orleans there is a real lost sense of hope. Somehow we have to bring that hope to them.