One of the most critical steps in planting a new faith community is discerning your call. Is this what God is really calling you to do?
If so, He will have been preparing both your heart and your hands; your motivation and your skills for perhaps much of your life. That doesn’t mean that you have all the skills that you need to plant a church, but it does mean that you will have perhaps unique skills and strengths that will help you.
Your Life Mission Statement
I felt like I had a pebble in my shoe, irritating me when I read Ephesians 2:10 which says:
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (NIV)
I had to get rid of that pebble!
I came to see that God had been preparing both my wife Sharon and myself as a master craftsman would. He was preparing and shaping us without us even realising it. And I came to realise that there were specific works that He was preparing me to do.
To say that I became agitated is an understatement. I had to know what God was preparing for me to do. I didn’t want to be a square peg in a round hole! That pebble in the shoe needed to be cleared out to stop the agitation I felt.
The Life Mission statement that I have today is basically the same as the statement I first wrote around 30 years ago. And I am thankful as it has guided me through life and ministry, helping me identify the good works God has been calling me to do. It has helped me know what to say yes to and what to say no to.
How Do You Discover Your Life Mission?
The starting point in ascertaining your life mission is in identifying your burden. This is different from your passion. I often say that a person takes hold of a passion, but a burden takes hold of the person. To put it simply, you can’t easily put down a burden and pick up a new one. Your burden will provide you with the motivation and drive necessary to keep going without being led in a different direction.
The next place to go to is to identify the strengths, gifts and skills that you have and how they could be used in pursuing your burden. Strengths, gifts and skills can always be added to and increased. In fact they should be. As an example, if your burden is to minister to families in need, it may be that developing greater counselling skills and doing courses is a natural fit.
Having identified your burden and strengths, it’s time to identify the range of opportunities that will help you use your strengths whilst addressing the burden that you have. It will likely be that there are a number of opportunities that are a good fit. For example, getting involved in a particular ministry, developing resources, running workshops, partnering with others or planting a church may be options.
It may also be that there might be a number of opportunities that you engage in concurrently, but that the time that you devote to each does change over time. That was certainly my story; planting and leading a church whilst developing resources for church planters, running Intensives / Learning Communities for church planters, and becoming involved with a church planting movement in a developing country.
Different Vehicles For Different Times
It’s also important to note that God’s call on your life is greater and longer lasting than any organisation, church or ministry that you lead or belong to. They are all vehicles carrying you on to the destination that God has for you.
Over the years I have shared the following analogy with many people. Imagine if you had to travel to another city for a meeting. You might find that you take your car to the airport, catch a flight to the city, then an uber or taxi to the destination. The destination is different to the vehicles that carry you there. The vehicles carry you towards God’s purposes but His purposes are not contained by them.
Other Important Considerations
As you come to understand the call that God has for you, the important question is “is planting a church consistent with what God is calling me to do?”.
Next it is important to ask whether or not God has wired you to be a lead planter, or perhaps part of a church plant team? Taking an independent assessment is critical to obtaining an impartial perspective here.
Equipping and coaching should also be part of the journey to help develop and grow skills and strengths.
And of course prayer is critical. Whatever God’s plans for you might be, He knows them better than anyone! Spending time in intimacy with Him will see His guidance, wisdom and discernment being made available to you.
My prayer has frequently been that I am carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). May that be your prayer also as you seek to discern the call of God on your life and whether it involves planting a church.
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