Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Church of the Highlands Port Orange Launches April1
My good friend, Hal Haller, is a serial church planter. He has a catalytic gift that suits him for starting and multiplying churches. Hal is a passionate evangelist, prayer warrior and multiplying leader. This Sunday, April 1st, he and his team will watch God launch Church of the Highlands Port Orange. If you are free any Sundays in the coming months, I am sure that Hal would love your help and encouragement.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Don’t quit your day job
If you are thinking about starting a church, I want to encourage you to keep working as long as you can. If you quit your job in order to plant a church, you will soon start asking yourself two questions; “How can I raise money?” and “How can I meet people?” You don’t have to leave the marketplace to enter the ministry. Try not to think of church planting as a career change and the church as an economic system.
A New Testament church is a community of disciples of Jesus Christ who are living missionally 24x7. Therefore, it is not necessary for someone to leave a marketplace mission field in order to start or pastor a church. A church planter here in Orlando recently entered the work force to (as he put it) “fund my church planting habit.” Although economics was his primary reason for going to work, he quickly found that his job gave him plenty of opportunities to develop relationships with people who are spiritually seeking.
It has been my observation that most failed church starts in Central Florida didn’t die, they were killed. Most of them simply ran out of money. Their outside support dried up and the young congregations could not cover the overhead of rented facilities, advertising expenses and staff salaries. So, someone made the determination that “we are no longer church” and told everyone to go home. This has been such a pervasive problem that Orlando has developed the reputation of being a church planting boneyard.
What if you could start a church with 0 start-up costs and no monthly overhead? What if you could do it without wondering if you were going to get paid or could afford medical insurance for your family? What if spent your week-days in an environment filled with hurting people searching for answers and got paid to do it? What if you planted a First Century church in the Twenty-First Century?
You can keep your job and start a church. You don’t have to rent a building to be the church. You can gather small groups of people in your home, community center, break-room, a coffee house, restaurant, etc. You can be the church wherever God plants you.
A New Testament church is a community of disciples of Jesus Christ who are living missionally 24x7. Therefore, it is not necessary for someone to leave a marketplace mission field in order to start or pastor a church. A church planter here in Orlando recently entered the work force to (as he put it) “fund my church planting habit.” Although economics was his primary reason for going to work, he quickly found that his job gave him plenty of opportunities to develop relationships with people who are spiritually seeking.
It has been my observation that most failed church starts in Central Florida didn’t die, they were killed. Most of them simply ran out of money. Their outside support dried up and the young congregations could not cover the overhead of rented facilities, advertising expenses and staff salaries. So, someone made the determination that “we are no longer church” and told everyone to go home. This has been such a pervasive problem that Orlando has developed the reputation of being a church planting boneyard.
What if you could start a church with 0 start-up costs and no monthly overhead? What if you could do it without wondering if you were going to get paid or could afford medical insurance for your family? What if spent your week-days in an environment filled with hurting people searching for answers and got paid to do it? What if you planted a First Century church in the Twenty-First Century?
You can keep your job and start a church. You don’t have to rent a building to be the church. You can gather small groups of people in your home, community center, break-room, a coffee house, restaurant, etc. You can be the church wherever God plants you.
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