The story so far Part 1

I got the crazy idea of Church Planting way back when I was a teenager, basically I thought I knew everything and thought I could change the world and so I would plant a church and everyone would bow the knee at Hans Kristensen's preaching.
This planting thing never really took wings until I was going to a midnight Jam Session in the middle of Kings cross on a Thursday night. There I met a lot of friends who really loved the ideas of spirituality, God and Jesus but were mainly turned off by a lot of the religious goings on they had seen. A weird thing happened one night when I was going home from this Jam, I was driving a long when I had this question ringing in my head 'Who is going to share the love of Jesus with my friends?' I began to weep for my friends and so because I had the heart for these people and I was thier friends I thought Ishould plant a church that would hopefully reach these people. So after checking with a few men whom I trusted and would tell me straight whether or not this was good Idea I started putting down on paper what I wanted to do with this church.

I then brainstormed a list of over 100 quality people who I knew from different churches in sydney. I then pruned this list down to about 30 people and started to ask them to join the church plant. Luckily for me about 9 said yes. One decided a few meetings in that he didn't agree with my ecclesiology and left. We are still mates and I can still kick his butt at Basketball so everything is cool between us. Another guy I asked to leave because of theological differences. He said he was thinking about leaving anyway because of these differences and we are still great friends who love to argue about Rob Bell, Obama, Postmodernity and theology. He is a dear friend and I still wish we could have worked it out but God is using him in powerful ways to help poor people in other countries which is his hearts cry! Another member of the team was going to Spain and was a great help in sorting out constitutional stuff out and chatting through church discipline issues.

The people I have on team are a Lawyer who grew up on the north coast to musician parents, who has been great at helping with the legal side of things, a singer song writer who has always got the cool bad hygiene look happening, he has been great in challenging me to think more humbly and careful about how my theology and how I present my theology impacts peoples lives. We have a Girl who works at the Australian bureau of statistics. She has been a band manager and a door wench for a few goth nightclubs round town. Her sister is also one of the up and coming DJs in Sydney. She has been great in helping me think trough women's ministry and some of the pastoral care issues, she has been great to in making sure we keep focusing on what church we want to be and not just reacting against other church models which I deem (in all my lack of experience and wisdom) to be ineffective at reaching our culture. Next we have a dude who is teacher and a great guitarist/singer songwriter, he kinda looks like a dude who could go bear hunting with a twig and come back with seven carcases. He is getting married soon to a gem of a chick and he has been a great support as a friend, which all church planters sorely need. Next we have a girl who just finished a music business degree, she is currently in Africa serving on a Short term missing which is awesome!! She is great in caring for people and she knows a lot of musicians through working at an industry newspaper and managing a heap of bands!

If this church plant succeeds it is first and foremost because of the sovereign grace of God but on a human level it is because these guys have been so great in getting this thing together. I love them and I have a blast whenever we meet!!

The thing that I have learnt as a leader of a church plant team is that you must always pick the best people you can to be on team. It sounds obvious but it seems like the planters I have talked to have been desperate for anyone to be on team. My church plant team is very small compared to some but we are all on the same path, we work great together, we have blast when we get together and we love doing this church plant thing. There were about 20 others who wanted to be on team but for different reasons I told them they couldn't be on the team. There were also people that liked the sound of the plant and the vision but were either wishy washy in their commitment or they couldn't be stuffed coming to a meeting or a vision afternoon. And so even though I wanted more people to be on the team these were the very kind of people that could derail the vision and therefore even though it was sometimes embarrassing to talk to other planters who had core teams of of 20-30+ I am glad that I got the right people on board and that I didn't take on anyone else who might have been a weed in the midst of my plant.

So if you are thinking of church planting make sure you get the right people around you. You will make mistakes and the right people will help you figure out what you did wrong and how to make amends. You will lose heart and the right people will encourage you. You will make stupid decisions and the right people will correct you on these. But the wrong people will be argumentative, lazy, ungracious, distrustful, power hungry etc.

As Jack Welch the CEO of General Electric said 'The team with the best players wins.'