I was talking to another church planter today who went to a local church conference and had some push back to it. As I thought about the situation I remembered something that has helped me tremendously as a young church planter. Keep asking questions!!!
Questions, questions, questions. The biggest things I have learned in my life have come through questions. For example Hal Mayer, who planted Church @ the Bay, was a guy who I picked his brain clean when we were about a year out from launching. I still to this day call him just to ask questions. Relationships like that are worth thousands of dollars in mistakes I might have made if I had not asked questions. We need to be asking questions of people way out in front of us... I just got back from the C3 Conference at Fellowship and that was a place to ask far out questions. We also need to ask questions of people not so far out... I have a network of church planters called the Tampa Bay Church Planters Network that is a place to ask people like Hal questions. He is at 500 people. We are at 100. He is 2 years old, we are almost 1 year. Finally, we need to ask questions of people behind us that are up and coming... A lot of times they are up on new trends that we have missed. They challenge our systems and paradigms.
So my advice to him and you is ask some questions. The moment we stop asking questions is the moment we miss the chance to move God's church further down the field.
