Viral Jesus

Reason #6 Being Too Much of a Leader

My friends Mike, Gooch and I were planting a new church in Burlingame, CA. This was a church plant that had started from a contact we had made at another church the three of us had planted about three months before. I thought things were going well. We were having spiritual conversations. We were studying the Bible. We were doing a little praying. We had one non-Christian who was making strides towards having a personal relationship with Christ.[1]

Mike, Gooch and I decided to invite our wives, and Gooch’s girlfriend to our church planting experience to get their observations and feedback. After the meeting, each woman individually gave the same feed back to us in the cars as we left. It went something like this. “You guys talk about letting Jesus lead the meeting, but you did all the talking. You say that you want dialog, but that was more a series of monologues and you guys were doing the talking.” All three of these women are much kinder than that, so they said it much more nicely; but that was the idea. And they were right.

Mike, Gooch and I all have the same weakness when it comes to church planting. It is not an insurmountable obstacle, but it is a real one. We are used to being church leaders. We all have training and experience in leading in traditional church contexts. We are used to teaching and preaching. That would seem like it would be an advantage in a simple church planting context, but in my experience it isn’t. It is more of an obstacle to be overcome.

Why would this be an obstacle? Because we… OK, I have a tendency to get in the way of Jesus’ leadership. Honestly, I was the worst offender in this situation. I love to plant churches. I love to teach and disciple new believers. I’d do it rather than take a vacation. But when I do all, or even most, of the talking, I am sending some very dangerous messages. I’m tacitly teaching new believers how to be passive listeners rather than active participants. I’m teaching them that they need to have special training and knowledge to participate. I’m teaching that there are two kinds of Christians, clergy, the anointed few, and normal people who should just listen. I’m teaching them that the Holy Spirit can’t use them until they are much farther along in their spiritual development. I am teaching them that the need me to connect with Jesus. I am seriously risking teaching them to be passive converts, rather than active disciples of Jesus. I would never intentionally do any of these things, but I risk all of these things by falling back into patterns I was taught in my past experience.

What do I suggest instead? I suggest training in “Jesus connecting skills” instead of teaching information. Teach them to obey Jesus, not merely know about Jesus. In a word, train them to be Jesus’ disciples; see Why Simple Churches Don’t Work, Reason #4. I suggest learning to ask a few questions and being willing to wait through clumsy silence. I suggest spending social time with your new friends, not just “church planting” time. Let your life speak as much as your words. And I suggest letting Jesus lead. Don’t do too much planning. Let the Spirit take each meeting where he wants. To do that you will need to spend a lot of time in prayer. You might even consider making a discipline of asking Jesus what’s next on his agenda; then listen for his answer. Even then be prepared for him to go somewhere else. After all, he is the leader.

For more posts on the practicalities of simple church planting read all of the post in this series Why Simple Churches Don’t Work as well as: Four Keys to Church Planting, Building on the Right Foundation, Starting on the Wrong Foot, and Ministry with Jesus as Lord.

• Have you ever been too much of a leader? 
• What are other negative lessons people can learn when we play the “clergy” role? 
• Do you have any other suggestions for being “too much of a leader?”