Planting Space

I am frequently asked by church planters “How many people should we expect?”

The trouble is that every church plant is different. While there are some things we see consistently in church planting, God can, and in fact does, do different things through every church plant. There are many reasons churches that seem to do the same things get different results. I can’t even begin to list them all but sometimes it is just because His plans are bigger than ours.

I think conferences often contribute to setting expectations too high… we go to a conference and hear a speaker talk about how they launched with 600 people and think, “I’m as smart as he is, I can do that!” What we often fail to remember is that those guys were asked to speak by the very nature that their plant was spectacular. If their plant was “normal”, we wouldn’t ask them to speak. How often do you see a speaker at a conference get up and say they launched with 75 people and so can you!

So where does this leave you? We’ll I’ll share a few more thoughts tomorrow but ultimately your expectations are between you and God. Maybe He’s more interested in growing you as a leader than having 500 people at launch. Maybe He just doesn’t want to give you more than you can handle? Maybe He simply has something else in mind… or just maybe, He does want to do something spectacular through you. Either way you must celebrate every person that comes to hear about this great big loving God we share.

featured on newchurches.com

Tags: No Comments