In this series, I am sharing about a survey that I have done with Church Planters that I know in different cities.  Here are a few more responses to one of the questions I posed to them: 

What are the three biggest lessons you have learned as a church planter?

Church Planter in Maryland

1. You need a solid team and care for them



2. Don’t neglect your walk with God



3. Success is not measured in numbers alone



4. Have think skin

Church Planter in Michigan

1. Ninety percent of the people who criticize your work are Christians from other churches



2. Don’t try to plant a church I the style of the church you are coming from



3. Plant a church that connects with the city you are planting in

Church Planter in Portland

1. Carefully select leadership (very carefully, and have others involved in the process)



2. Develop a network of trusted advisors outside the church (also connect with other church planters locally, nationally, internationally for mutual encouragement)



3. Lead not only by teaching/instruction, but by example in all areas (especially in faith, hope, love and humility)



4. Focus on equipping people for ministry as a primary part of your role while remaining engaged relationally with those who don't know Christ (this is a high priority)

I'm typing from Richmond, Virginia.  This week I have the privilege this week to help train 40 church planters as a part of the Ecclesia Network.  It is an intense but rich time.  During one of my last sessions I will be talking about Leadership Skills and Attitudes for the Journey.  One of the things that I did in preparation for this talk was to survey a number of church planters that I know and work with around the world.  I asked them five questions.  One of the questions was:  What are the three biggest lessons you have learned as a church planter?  I thought I would take some time to share some of these with you in this series.

Church Planter in Los Angeles

1. Dependence on God



2. To be faithful and create an atmosphere for growth, letting God be responsible for His part



3. Know that there are going to be unexpected difficulties

Church Planter in Amsterdam

1. Don’t over complicate things, keep it simple



2. Focus on prayer, outreach and basic discipleship



3. Watch out for disunity! It will kill a church plant, communication is a key to avoiding some of the pitfalls of disunity

Church Planter in England

1. What it takes to get them is what it takes to keep them.  (In other words if you invest a lot of time and energy I developing a relationship with someone and they become a part of your church plant, they will come with the expectation that you will continue to invest that kind of time and energy on them.  When that doesn’t happen they’ll be hurt, feel rejected, and in most cases they will share their ill will with others.)



2. You are not desperate for people (If you live as if you are desperate for people to be a part of your church then you will lower your standards, compromise on non-negotiables, etc. etc. etc. to get people to take part.)



3. Who you are in private is far more important that what you say and do in public

I will be sharing more lessons that people have learned in part II.  If you are a church planter, what would be your top three lessons you learned?  Help us add to the wisdom from practitioners.

Here are a couple more tensions in Servant Leadership that John Ortberg mentions.  Here is my summary.

3. Resourcefully Dependent – Leaders need to be resourceful people.  They just have a knack for unlocking resources.  They have a way of challenging people without apology to give and contribute. They stay up nights figuring out ways to tap new assets. They’re creative and inventive.  They find resources.  This is good thing. Nehemiah is an example.  But the danger is over time this resourcefulness, the ability to get things done and make things happen, can lead to a sense of self-sufficiency and of arrogance and destroy the deeper truth, which is that I am utterly depended on God.  Jesus looks for people who are dependent, resourcefully dependent.  A lack of dependence on God is lethal.  Check out the story that starts in Acts 12:20.  God wants leading servants who are resourcefully dependent on him, who are just on their knees. Questions for You:  How is your prayer life?  Do you recognize that all you have is a gift from God?  Are you humble?

4. Relaxed Urgency – God wants to use us.  Some people just drift through life. There is no sense of urgency. We live in a world that the Scripture says is locked in a battle between good and evil, life and death.  These are very real and create in us a deep sense of conviction and urgency.  But the danger is that while I need to take my mission and my calling from God with great urgency, I also need to take my appearance, my visible success, my reputation, my little set of ambitions, my resume – real lightly.  God calls us to do his work with passion, but god is not anxious about his kingdom at all, He is not biting his fingernails to see what you’re going to do next.  Servant leaders have a burning sense of relaxed urgency.

"A cheerful heart is good medicine."  Proverbs 17:22 NLT

A friend of mine by the name of Aby shared this joke with me.

On watching the American ads for drugs (Advair, Lipitor, etc.), a friend visiting from India said, "This sounds like marriage. The drug ads say take this brand and you will never have problem with backache. And, then as a side note they say that the side effects may be heart attack, kidney failure, nausea and headache. This is how marriages are, they come with side effects."

Dear heavenly Father,

We ask you now to give us all your Holy Spirit, and to give it continually, that it may awaken, enlighten, encourage, and enable us to dare to take the small and large steps of moving out of the comfort with which we can comfort each other and into hope in you.  Turn us away toward you!  Do not allow us to hide from you! Do not let us do anything without you!  Show us how glorious you are and how glorious it is to trust and obey you!

We would ask the same for all people, that the nations and governments may bow to your Word, and that they will be willing to work for justice and peace on earth, that your Word may be understood and taken to heart by all those who are poor, sick, imprisoned, troubled, oppressed, and unbelieving; that through word and deed it may be made known to them; and that it may be perceived by them as the answer to their sighs and cries; that all Christian churches and confessions may learn to recognize it anew and serve it with renewed faithfulness; that its truth may be and remain bright here and now in all of humanity's error and confusion, until such a time as it shall ultimately enlighten all people and all things.  You are glorified, you who make us free in Jesus Christ, your Son, by confessing and standing on this: that our hope is in you.  Amen.  From Fifty Prayers.

Continuing on the series John Ortberg brings up four tensions that we need to wrestle through as servant leaders.  I will mention two of them in this post and two in the next post.

1. Decisive Submissiveness – Leaders must make decisions, they have difficult calls to make, when leaders abdicate making decisions it can be disaster. That is one side. The danger is dominating people and making self-serving decisions.  Jesus made decisions but was submissive to his parents and His father in heaven.  He exercised decisive submissiveness.  He was not wishy-washy, nor did he had a defiant willfulness, but he had a decisive submissiveness.  Questions for you:  What people do you submit to?  Are you submissive to scripture?  Are you submissive to the Spirit?

2. Tough-minded Accountability and Tender-hearted Compassion – Leaders must give to the people that they serve what one guy who writes about leadership calls the gift of accountability. There is an aspect of fallen human nature that unless I have people in my life who challenge me and stretch me beyond myself and say, “Here’s the covenant that you agreed to live up to and your not doing it,” I’m not going to grow the way I could.  That is one side. The danger is if I’m always in the position of judging and evaluating other people, there’s the danger that I can become so obsessed with accomplishing tasks that people become a means to an end.  There just tools. There needs to be tender-hearted compassion as well, loving those on our staff, in our community.  Questions for you:  Would the people in your sphere of influence – your work, your home, your area of ministry – would they say that you love them?  Not just that you value them because they’re able to perform, but that you love them?

You can make a guess of what the picture represents on the left.  In today's post I am sharing the five most popular posts this past month, in case you missed one of them.  Also, I have found that some of you who follow this blog enjoy learning about the other people who visit this site, so I try to give a monthly report of the top 50 cities that have visited this blog in the past month.  So here are the top five posts and top 50 cities.

TOP FIVE POSTS IN APRIL
Is Conversion a Four-Letter Word? Series
Finding Truth in a Sound Bite Society
Why We're Not Emergent By Two Guys Who Should Be Literary Review
Need Inspiration?
A Celtic Prayer

TOP 50 CITIES VISITING THIS BLOG IN APRIL
Richmond, VA
Los Angeles
Amsterdam
Herdon, VA
Vancouver, BC
New York
London
Atlanta
Dallas
Fayetteville, NC

Boston
Plano, TX
Chicago
Mt. Laurel, NJ
Ann Arbor, MI
San Francisco
Bronx, NY
Snohomish, WA
Irvine, CA
Grass Valley, CA

Blacksburg, VA
Bethpage, NY
Sydney, Australia
Tulsa, OK
Washington D.C.
Marysville, WA
Columbia, MO
Sanford, FL
San Jose, CA
Waterford, MI

Houston
Redmond, WA
Columbus, OH
Toronto, Canada
Austin
Portland
St. Louis
Seattle
West Palm Beach, FL
Phoenix

Roanoke, TX
Overland Park, KS
Media, PN
Minnipeg, Canada
Auckland, New Zealand
Singapore
Calgary, Canada
Bangkok, Thailand
Pasadena, CA
Miami, FL

When it comes to understaning Servant Leadership, we can learn a lot from the One to whom we are call to imitate and follow. Here are some more thoughts from John Orberg.

“From the beginning of eternity to creation to the outworking of redemption after the Fall to the end of eternity, the end of time as we know it, the Father, Son and Spirit pour themselves out in humble service of each other and creation and even fallen creatures like you and me.

All who watch are amazed and filled with awe and wonder and bow their knees. Jesus is the greatest servant that ever lived for it is the nature of God to serve -- that's who God is. Paul says people can't see that without being awed and broken by it -- that God is a servant.

At the same time, Jesus had the strongest character of anyone who ever lived. He was never intimidated. He defied those who held immense power without batting an eye. He threw full-grown men out of the temple area with a whip. He is a servant, but he had impact and led like no one else who ever walked the earth.

He calls us, calls his followers to be people of impact to leadership that is a form of servanthood, to what a guy named Rob Banks suggests what we might call "leading servanthood." We've heard about the idea of servant leaders. Really, servanthood is what will go on forever and ever. One form of servanthood is leading in the right way.”

In the next post in this series, we will look at some of the tension points when it comes to servant leadership.