Advice to a church planter

Brian, my name is [personal information deleted] So What's up with me?.., straight to the point: we're prayerfully considering a mid-week gathering here in the [deleted] in which we want very intentionally to hit hard the campuses that surround us.

We're inside (literally) the "Univ.-Triangle" [between campuses with 8k, 10k, and 18k students] Plain and simple don't rob me with the short of it...I got time to read and value all your words...but give me the 5 or some (don't care about numbers) biggest awareness, philosophically-practical paradigms, "been-there", about diving in head first with this ministry.

PS: not trying to cram or short-cut anything, idolizing a model, much less cheat with culture and natural time.., just yearning to hear from your heart as Paul did with Timothy. Simply the " - Marcus know this; think about this; don't forget this.." please write me @ [deleted]

--OK. Here’s what I’d want to say to any church planter.

1. Ask yourself what the gospel is, and then ask if you’re sure that’s what the gospel is. If you’re not, there are no shortcuts – you have to rethink things, go back to Jesus, etc. I hope my new book, A Generous Orthodoxy, would be of help to you in that rethinking process.

2. Build a team that’s not working from a model-mentality, but that’s on a journey mentality. They want to journey with you, explore with you, think and learn and grow with you. That’s an important difference.

3. Think about what kind of people you want to form. What do you want them to look like? Not look like?

4. Think about how people like that could be formed. What kinds of experiences, services, activities, practices, traditions, rituals, learnings, involvements, and forms of community would form people in the desired way?

5. Think about how people who will subvert your mission can be politely redirected. Decide whether you will take adequate action in this regard, and realize it will be costly.

6. Take whatever timelines you are thinking about and multiply them by 10, or maybe 20 or 100. In other words, prepare to be patient. Fast results are usually about ego needs, not effectiveness for the kingdom of God.

7. Stay close to God. Smoke what you’re selling (as my friend Rob Bell says): in other words, make you number one priority to actually live the kind of life you want people to live through your church.

I hope that’s helpful.