Church Planting - Intentionality in the Face of Attack
I am starting to enjoy Eric Taylor’s blog, even if he is an Auburn fan. Eric is a church planting pastor in Auburn, AL. His church appears to be one of those “purpose driven” churches that is all the rage right now. I am not sure that it is the sort of church that I want to attend, be he has a passion for reaching people who do not know Christ, and that is great!
In a recent post, Eric talks about being attacked. No, not by Alabama fans, but by the Devil.
He’s been attacking me personally, my family, our church (health issues, marital issues, financial struggles, etc)… He’s coming after us hard… He’s whispering to me this statement: “if you’ll tweak this or that, you could get more Christians and have a bigger crowd and more money. Then you’d be successful like (insert name of a church planter). I can’t tell you how much I’ve thought about this over the past few weeks… I struggle with wanting to grow faster or have more money, or adding staff.
In the past couple of months our church has dealt with this. We are a church plant that is about two years old. We have had several of our leaders struggling through job issues, or health issues, or burnout. We have had a couple of families move on. We have begun to get distracted by details, instead of focusing on the bigger issues. These attacks and distractions are simply a part of the terrain in church planting.
Eric concludes his post with the resolution to continue at his mission and not back down. This is a great challenge to anyone involved in a church plant:
I wrote this so I could remind you AND me that our enemy, the devil is constantly prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour… and if you and I are focused on what God’s called us to be and do as a church, we’re cutting into his action. But the battle is worth it… the effort is needed… and our commitment to fulfilling the mission of Journey Church will honor God and impact His Kingdom.
I love this conclusion. In the next few days, I hope to post some thoughts on how our church is striving to be more intentional in being outward focused and on trying to draw people into relationship with Christ.
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I am a new church planter in NYC. Just started in Sept. so we are in the beginning phase. This afternoon has been discouraging (lost a big financial giver because their pastor does not believe in giving to other church plants). Maybe it’s feeling alone in a big city during the holidays. Maybe it’s just realizing that everyone is sure correct about what hard work this is. Maybe it’s the devil asking us what in the heck we we doing here. Anyway, I have wanted to church plant for many years and for some crazy reason God called us here. Would you please pray for my wife who is feeling lonely and my children in a new school still missing friends. Appreciate your blog.