Lunch with Ed Stetzer

A few weeks ago I was privileged to have lunch with Ed Stetzer, a pastor, church planter, facts guru, and President of Lifeway Research. He spoke at my church and stayed for a luncheon with several of us who are ascribing to be a part of church planting. Here are a few church planting thoughts I walked away with.

1. 3 People you will invest time: the Leaders, the Lost, & the Leaners. If you are not intentional about your time, the Leaners (those who require counseling and those who require high maintenance because they are not happy about issues in the church) will take up all your time. While they are valuable people, Jesus spent the majority of his time with leaders and the lost.

2. Your wife has veto power to terminate ministry. She will speak truth into you that no one else will.

3. Have a weekly mentor to help steer and hold you accountable.

4. Church planters are normally very gifted and we usually over maximize our capacity to serve.

5. 3 Warning gages in ministry to let you know something is out of balance: your wife, your kids, and your health.

6. Keep your identity on the gospel, not your success or failure as a church planter.

7. The preaching gift is immensely valuable for a church planter.

8. Hold the mission strongly, hold the methods loosely.

9. Go with 20, not 200, so you will be more missional.

10. A team and more $ does not guarrantee success and survivability.

11. Everything rises and falls on leadership.

12. The typical church plant stays below an attendence of 100 for the first four years.

13. Most church planters are bivocational, which is a healthy model. It is easier and better, concerning momentum, to stop being bivocational rather than having to start being bivocational after the church has started.