College Football and Church Planting

What a wild weekend of college football... My Auburn Tigers put it on the Gators, and tons of other upsets really rocked the polls this week.  It's amazing the difference a few weeks can make.  Just a few weeks ago, Nick Saban was the second coming of Bear Bryant, now, listening to Sports talk shows... some folks are questioning his coaching ability.  Of course when Auburn lost to South Florida and Mississippi State, people were ready to gas up the plane to go look for another coach.  Now, after beating Florida, Tommy Tuberville is popular with the fans again.  Who knows what's going to happen at Michigan or Notre Dame.

If you're a church planter, you can approach what you're doing in one of two ways:  Like the fans do...or like good coaches do.   If we, like the fans, we can be rabid and excited and passionate about winning the world for Jesus... but what happens when it doesn't happen exactly like we planned?  What if it's slower than we think it should be?  What if we don't reach our target audience?  What if we get hit with a couple of early losses?  What do we do then?  Do we pack it in?  Do we give up on the season?  Do we question if this is what we should be doing?  Do we doubt God?  Do we wonder how long it will be before God shows up and does for us what He did for Steven Furtick or Perry Noble or Gary Lamb, or (insert the name of the church planter you're currently comparing yourself to).  If you have weeks where the attendance is low and the offerings are even lower, you may have a tendency to react like some of the football fans that call into the Sports Talk Shows.  You're ready to jump ship, question your calling and sometimes slit your wrists.  Now, people were questioning both Saban's and Tuberville's coaching ability over the last few weeks... but I'm pretty sure, they weren't concerned because they had the Big Picture in mind.  That's how great coaches approach things.  They are focused on building a winning program, not just winning a single game.  They want to win EVERY GAME... if they don't, they don't coach long... but they understand the big picture and sometimes losses can be valuable in helping the program get better. 

For church planters,  if we take this approach, we won't get freaked out and go on suicide watch when attendance drops.  Instead, we look at what happens in the course of a season... we celebrate the wins, evaluate the losses and see what adjustments we can make from them to help us get better and reach our ultimate goal of impacting the world with the Gospel. 

If you're a church planter, I want to encourage you to plan, execute and evaluate every week... we all have to do that... but, I've learned over the past year... it's sometimes a LOT slower than you think it should be, sometimes things don't work out like we anticipate they will (insert "losses" here), and if we freak out over EVERYTHING... we'll burn out and be good for nothing in the long haul.  I'm learning to look at numbers as trends and I'm spending my time listening to more stories of life change.  While I still want to see our numbers go up fast, I have resolved myself to not be reactionary if they drop a week or two... but to be patient... Things grow at different speeds. Our attendance was down a few weeks ago and I was bummed, but someone reminded me that just a few weeks before, we were praying for that many people... now I'm disappointed with that number.. Just like college football fans, church planters are never satisfied.  So,  instead of  just trying to get to a certain number or level, quit comparing yourself to the church down the street or across the country... God has given them a specific task... just like He's given us a specific task...be faithful in whatever He calls you to do...be diligent, be proactive, be strategic, be visionary, lead and execute the game plan He's given to you in your specific context.  Then, over time, as we're faithful, God will bless us with more... maybe not more people, money or fame... but more of His Favor.  And when we're all through, we'll here "well done".   And it will not be based on how many "wins" or "losses" we have.

(I wrote this in the context of church planting and for Church Planters because I've got some friends who are struggling right now and I wanted to encourage them... if you're not a church planter, the principles can be applied to whatever you do too.)

Comments

[Emily]

Great post Eric! You are right, God is going to bless you and Journey. . .and I am thankful to be a part of it! Thanks for letting us an thanks for being faitful to the Lord

[John Simons]

Great post! It's a shame you're an Auburn fan. It is even more of a shame that your Tigers outplayed my Gators this past week.

[Dave Anderson (moviepastor)]

Spot on - I needed to read that