The Granola Factor

February 23, 2011

Church plants attract all kinds of people from every walk of life. Many times they also attract every freakish, nut-job in the community. That is the nature of the beast. These fanatics will come into your church with all kinds of presuppositions about how a church should be governed, what it should be believe and how attendees should dress. Some will want to argue end-times eschatology. Others will tell you that any music played in a minor key is of the devil. You may even have some fruitcakes come into your church who want you to trim your mustache to a certain length or wear white, long-sleeved shirts like Jesus. While many will come in your doors to experience something new and exciting, make no mistake, others will come in with personal agendas seeking to impose their will on you.

Jesus dealt with people like this all the time. The Pharisees wanted him to perform only the miracles and signs they insisted were proper. Jesus was never to perform any miracle on the Sabbath and he and his disciples had to wash themselves in the prescribed manner. Some of Jesus’ followers didn’t want him to talk about hard issues like eating flesh or drinking blood. Even, Peter himself tried to hijack Jesus’ agenda by trying to convince him that dying on a cross was foolish talk.

What do you do with people like this? You use them to fulfill the work of God’s kingdom. Building critical mass is the challenge of every church planter. It is imperative that a planter builds momentum as quickly as they can. That means you can not be too picky! I heard Andy Stanley once say that momentum is caused by the concepts of something being new, improved or improving. That is why church plants are so successful in the very beginning. No doubt, in every new church plant, there will be people who show up, get involved, begin to give and then show their true colors. But you need them to build what God has called you to build.

A new church plant will need everyone it can to join in on the fun.  Basically, when we started, if you had a pulse, we could use you.  We are not talking about providing care for our children but just about everything else was fair game.  We connected with and included many people in ministry that we would probably not put into ministry at this stage of the game.  We would even ask people to just show up and fill a pew.  Those first weeks and months are so important from an energy and momentum standpoint.  The more people involved, the more energy in the service.  When new people would show up, they observed all this scaffolding and thought, “There must be something going on here.”

Some of those new people will ‘stick.’  They will see the ministry going on, resonate with it, and join you in serving in the new plant.  But it can get kind of tricky trying to see through their ‘offer to help.’  On the one hand, some are genuinely looking for a place to serve and help.  Others may have a personal agenda or less than true motives.  Judging someone’s motives and intentions is a difficult and dangerous endeavor, but you must try to evaluate everyone who gets involved in the church. Trust your gut instinct, it is often right.
Some scaffolding needs to be removed as quickly as possible.  In fact, you want to try and indentify bad scaffolding before it goes up.  That way, you will not have to take it down in the middle of construction.  Never feel bad about asking freaks, fanatics and fruitcakes to leave. You cannot effectively build a church with poor scaffolding.

Many times, these freakish people want to serve but only on their terms.  Many come from a ‘congregational’ governance background. Others have a bad experience in a previous church, and want to make this new church to fit their liking.  They want to serve the church but they hav

Posted 2/23/2011 in Church Planting | 0 Comments - Add Comment