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Church Plants - To Join or Not To Join

This blog post was adapted from TheResurgence.com:

Top 10 Reasons to Join a Church Plant:

  1. If you want to see Jesus do something new and are sick of the status quo.
  2. If you dream of being part of something bigger than yourself.
  3. If you want to get into a fight/enter a battle for the kingdom of Christ.
  4. If you feel a constant itch to see people who don’t know Jesus come to know Jesus and you believe church planting is the best way for the gospel to advance.
  5. If you want to give your time, money, energy, and talents to starting something new and you want to make sacrifices to see a mission to succeed.
  6. If you fully support the vision, mission, doctrine, and leadership of a church plant.
  7. If you want your faith to grow and you want God to fundamentally meddle with and change your life.
  8. If you want to love your city.
  9. If you want to watch God move in ways you never imagined and you want an adventure (with all it’s discomfort and risk).
  10. If you’re not afraid to bank your life on Matthew 16:18 (“I [Jesus] will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”).

Top 10 Reasons NOT to Join a Church Plant:

  1. If you’re looking for the next cool thing in town (We want to grow by conversion growth, not church-goer transfer growth).
  2. If you’re a Christian and you don’t like your current church (You will find reasons to not like this church).
  3. If you have a bad track record at churches of being unteachable and causing problems (You won’t change here, you’ll repeat the pattern).
  4. If you’re a consumer wanting to “go to church” once a week for a nice show (We are not a Sunday show, we are a community of disciples on a mission).
  5. If you want religion (This church will be built on the radical gospel of grace).
  6. If you have an agenda (We have our vision, our mission, and our values—your private agenda does not supercede them).
  7. If you’re a wolf (We will sniff you out).
  8. If you think this will be a nice little church that stays the same size, where everybody knows your name and you have my cell number on speed dial and we have a picnic lunch together every week (By God’s grace, we want to grow).
  9. If you think this will be easy and smooth (This will be hard and difficult; this will be a fight, a battle, and a challenging mission).
  10. If you want to hold onto your comfortable life (You must lose your life).

Also, a quote from Sir Ernest Shackleton, from the advertisement he used when recruiting men for his expedition to Antarctica in 1914:

    Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.

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