Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

church planting

Sanctifying Your Ambition and Faith

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If you missed my last two posts on ambition, you might want to start there:

  1. The Paradox of Ambition and Faith
  2. Ambition, Faith, and Timing

Oftentimes God has to bring you through the desert before he can use you.

In other words, he has to sanctify your ambition and faith in order to use you for his purposes.

If you haven’t yet gone through a desert experience where your world has been turned upside down, then expect to. God uses these desert experiences to accomplish things through you that you would never be able to accomplish apart from them.

Oftentimes God has to bring you through the desert before he can use you.

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In fact, spiritual leaders find their greatest insights and contributions in these desert experiences.

Moving back to Canada from from Korea was definitely a desert experience for me. I felt like my world was turned upside down.

I knew that God had called us to Korea, but if that was really true, then why did he allow us to leave Korea the way we did? The ministry was multiplying, people were being transformed, and we had just signed a lease for a new place and bought all new furniture, only then to turn around and leave it all?

My wife, Christina, and I didn’t understand why God was allowing us to go through this, but by his unbelievable grace we did sense his presence along the way.

When we moved back to Canada, we were jobless, hopeless, and our savings were running out fast.

I was disillusioned with ministry and knew I needed a break, but I also knew my family needed to be fed.

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Ambition, Faith, and Timing

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Last week I covered the paradox of ambition and faith. Today, I want to add a third variable to the mix: timing.

What relationship does ambition and faith have with timing?

Although spiritual leaders can have ambition and God-placed faith, there’s still one major area they can mess up in—timing.

It’s easy for spiritual leaders to mess up in this one area–timing.

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Abraham had a significant calling on his life, and it was to be the father of a great nation, one that was intended to be a blessing to the entire world and one from which the Savior of the world would come. To even believe that this could be true, for him took a great measure of faith, and only a truly ambitious person would’ve even accepted this grand assignment.

The only problem was that Abraham was impatient.

I don’t blame the guy, though. After all, he was childless and seventy-five years old at the time God commissioned him (Gen 12:2–4). In the ensuing years Abraham moved, experienced a famine, lost his wife, then received her back, moved again, got into a fight with his nephew Lot, experienced war, experienced the destruction of a city, and moved again (did I already say that?), among many other things.

In and through these experiences, God reminded him multiple times about this calling that he had placed on his life.

God will often use your current circumstances to remind you about your calling.

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Eleven years later Abraham and his wife Sarah (their names were Abram and Sarai at that time) got fed up about continually hearing this calling and not seeing it come to pass, so they ambitiously took their faith into their own hands.

“Sarai said to Abram, ‘Since the LORD has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave; perhaps through her I can build a family.’ And Abram agreed to what Sarai said” (Gen 16:2).

Spiritual leaders understand that there are two different ways to understand time in the Scriptures.

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The Paradox of Ambition and Faith

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ambition mountain

A 7-Eleven Vision for Church Planting

“What’s your vision for the orphanage and for Thailand?” I asked the pastor of the orphanage.

“You know, whenever I think about you Koreans and South Korea, I get mixed feelings.”

I was starting to think that I shouldn’t have asked this question in the first place.

The pastor continued, “On the one hand, I’m astounded as to the spiritual transformation God can accomplish in a single country over a short period of time. But on the other hand, I’m upset because 100 years ago, Korea and Thailand were basically the same country—rural, economically challenged, and spiritually lost.”

After giving a sigh of relief, I paused, wondering whether I should interject, but then the pastor continued.

“Have you noticed that there are 7-Elevens pretty much on every street corner in Thailand?” asked the pastor.

I nodded.

“I have this dream that God would do such a transformational work in Thailand that, instead of 7-Elevens on every street corner, we had churches. And I want that work to start here in the orphanage with these children,” explained the pastor.

As I walked away from that conversation, I thought to myself, now that’s ambitious.

The Paradox of Ambition and Faith

What does an entrepreneur dreaming up a new solution for the next greatest app have in common with that pastor in Thailand dreaming about planting churches on every street corner?

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The Impact of Commuting on Church Planting and Campuses

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Garrett Dash Nelson and Alasdair Rae
Garrett Dash Nelson and Alasdair Rae

What happens when you plot four million commutes on a map?

No, this is not a bad joke. The answer is not exhaust clouds, headaches, or road rage. What you actually get is a different picture of the mega-regions—a cluster of interconnected cities.

A few years back, The Guardian wrote about this “endless city” phenomenon and how the mega-regions of this world are possibly going to be one of the most significant and problematic trends in the next 50 years. I mean, just consider the fact that Anna Tibaijuka, former director of UN-Habitat, discovered that half the world currently lives in cities, and by 2050, it’s estimated that 70% of the world will.

While moving into the city is definitely trendy, and a choice that many are making today, it’s not always affordable or the particular lifestyle choice that everyone wants to make. In fact, this is one of the reasons many millennials, according to 2014 U.S. Census Bureau data, are actually moving the opposite way—from the cities to the suburbs. (Think Millennials Prefer The City? Think Again.)

…which is why this new research on commuting and mega-regions is so insightful for church leaders.

While individuals may choose to move to, or stay in, suburban or rural areas, they are still commuting into the city for work. Hence, the rise of mega-regions.

Just take a look at the map (see above) from research that Garrett Nelson of Dartmouth College and Alasdair Rae of the University of Sheffield did using census data on more four million U.S. commutes.

What you see here is not a decline of the city, but an expansion of it, because of commuting.

Instead of abandoning the suburbs or rural areas to move into the cities, many are just choosing to commute instead. This is why, as you’ll see on the map, the commute distance into many of these cities can be quite long. For the commuter, they are not paying attention to city or county lines. Instead, as long as they have a road and a means of transportation, they will commute.

The Same is True for Our Churches

Why are we okay driving to church? Why do we commute to community? Why do we often pass several, if not dozens of churches, on our way to our church worship service on the weekend?

Why are we okay driving to church? Why do we commute to community?

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I’ve lived in cities my entire life. From the 2.5 million Greater Vancouver area that I grew up in, to the 4 million Greater Montreal area and 24 million Seoul capital area that I pastored in, to the 1.8 million Nashville metropolitan area where I now reside. If there’s one thing I know and have experienced, it’s city life. In fact, long commutes have always been a part of my life. So instead of dreading it, I’ve just grown accustomed to it and have learned to leverage that time. My wife, Christina, likes to call it time in the margins. So, while on the bus or train, I read. While driving, I listen to audio books, podcasts, and the Bible. And while walking from one location to the next, I pray.

As a result, when we moved to Nashville, we decided that I would commute to work, but not to church. We did not want to commute to community.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t always been this way for us. In the last two cities we lived in, we were at least 30 minutes away from our church. Growing up as children, my wife and I both remember 45 minute long commutes to church every weekend.

So how is it that people can commute to your church from a neighboring city or the complete opposite end of your borough, district, county, or however else your region is divided, and still feel like they belong?

It goes back to mega-regions. Commuting is just a normal part of life. Just like people are willing to commute to work, many are still choosing to commute to church.

Just like people are willing to commute to work, many are still choosing to commute to church.

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A Church in Every Neighborhood

Instead of kicking long-distance commuters out because you now have a neighborhood-missional-incarnational approach to church, what if you had a church or campus in every neighborhood? What if, instead of just having a heart for your community or city, you developed one for your mega-region? A missional-incarnational approach for your mega-region?

What if you had a church or campus in every neighborhood?

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Have you ever plotted your membership roll on the map to see where everyone is coming from using a website like batchgeo.com?

If you discovered that you had a concentration of individuals who lived in a particular area of your mega-region, what would you do? Form a small group or mid-size community and leave it at that? Or would you mobilize that community group to be a potential launch team, or core group, for a future campus or church plant?

In most cases, long-distance commuters aren’t making the trek to your church because there aren’t any other churches around. They’re doing it because they connect with your DNA and what your church is about. They’re doing it because they have relational connections and feel like they belong.

Instead of enabling their commute to community, in which they would probably never invite a neighbor to your church because the commute is too long, what if you saw their presence in your church as a seedling for a future campus or church plant in their neighborhood?

Rather than rejecting the mega-region for the sake of incarnational and missional ministry, what if you figured out a way to leverage it?

*My post here was originally published on Dec 13, 2016 in Christianity Today.

Church Planting! Is it for you?

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road

The question, “Am I called to be a church planter?” is not a straightforward one. It’s not like, “Should I breathe?” or “Should I love others as Jesus does?”

The question, “Am I called to be a church planter?” is kind of like asking, “Should I go into an Arts program, Science Program, or a Trade Program?” What’s implied behind this question is the importance of further education. So the question is more a matter of, “Which route will you take?”

Or it’s like the question, “Should I eat a pop-tart for breakfast?” Yes, obviously you need to eat food, but if you eat a pop-tart for breakfast, how is that going to affect what you eat for lunch? And how will you deal with the sugar crash and belly rumblings mid-morning?

When we look at the biblical commandment to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,” the natural outflow of that is the planting of new churches.

We see this through the Early Church and how the apostles preached the gospel, made disciples, and planted churches that then preached the gospel, made disciples, and planted churches. I mean, just look through the book of Acts! And then look at how the New Testament was written to new churches in their respective life situations. Essentially, the New Testament can be seen as an anthology of church plants. The fact is, just like we all need to eat food or we will die, we need to all be about church planting, or the church will die.

We need to all be about church planting, or the church will die.

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So the better question that we need to answer is, “Am I called to be about church planting?”

And let me make this easy for you. If you’re a follower of Christ, the answer is a default yes.

Now there are people who will object to church planting and will say things like,

  • “Isn’t one larger church better than a lot of smaller churches?” Well, the fact is, it’s not an either/or. Both are good and necessary, but according to our recent State of Church Planting research, we discovered that new church plants are extremely effective at winning people to Christ. So while there isn’t anything wrong with larger churches, there is definitely something wrong if we don’t plant new ones!
  • “We have enough churches!” Based on the census data from 2011, there are 11 churches for every 10,000 Americans. Now unless, there are mega churches in every neighborhood in this country, there simply aren’t enough churches. Add that to the fact that our population continues to increase, and the numbers speak for themselves.

We all need to be about church planting.

But the next question we have to ask ourselves is, “Am I called to be a church planter?” That question is a bit more complex.

In the second edition of Planting Missional Churches, we walked through a few of the characteristics of Paul, the church planter, throughout the New Testament. Here’s a few of his characteristics:

  • He was an evangelist (Acts 9:19-22)
  • He was entrepreneurial (Rom. 15:20-23)
  • He empowered other leaders (Titus 1:5)
  • He cared for people (Acts 20:17-21)
  • He stayed committed to his calling despite the sacrifice (Acts 16:25)

How many of those characteristics do you identify with? It’s not enough to just be excited about the idea of planting a church, being the boss, and not having to do ministry the way others do. Planting a church is much more nuanced than that. If those are the types of reasons that are pushing you to plant, you will fail, the enemy will have his way, and the cumulative aftermath will be devastating.

Planting a church is not just about being the boss!

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So who is the ideal church planter? What does a church planter look like?

There certainly isn’t one type of church planter, since there isn’t just one type of church. Depending upon the model you choose, and the context that you plant in, the type of planter will differ.

However, regardless of model and context, the fact is that every planter and pastor needs to first put themselves up against the biblical qualifications as outlined in passages like 1 Timothy 3. For example, planters need to be above reproach, able to teach, self-controlled, not lovers of money, and so on. Be sure to read through this passage and put yourself up against it.

There certainly isn’t one type of church planter, since there isn’t just one type of church.

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In addition to that list, there are a few other indicators that will give you a glimpse into whether or not God is calling you to be a church planter:

1) Starter. Do you have a pattern of starting things? Lemonade stands, Bible studies, compassion-based ministries, and the like? Are they still around after you’ve left? You will be doing this over and over again in planting.

2) Equipper. Do you always have to be the one doing the work of ministry? Or can you lead and equip others to do the work of ministry? How about leading others who lead others? This is our task as church leaders and pastors—to be equippers, not doers as we read in Ephesians 4:11-13. Without this, your church will never break the 50 barrier or grow beyond your personal leadership lid.

3) Dreamer. Do you long to make a greater impact and change this world? Do you see the world in a different way? Can you help people catch that vision? This hunger and drive is critical for church planters.

4) Doer. No I’m not contradicting myself from point two. Instead, I’m asking, Do you execute, follow through, and get things done? There are many pastors, church planters, and visionaries who love the dreaming stage so much that they can’t actually get things done.

If you see those four indicators in your life, God may be calling you to plant. If you see some, but not others, perhaps this is the best time to develop those competencies.

Now what if you said yes to all four of those indicators?

Well, you need to ask yourself a few qualifier questions:

1) Do I have a burden and a calling to specifically plant a church? In your time with God, is this something that God continues to bring up? I’m not asking if you’re interested in the idea. I’m asking if God is laying this on your heart.

2) Does my family support us planting a church? If you’re married, God will not lead you to start a church if it means you have to leave your spouse and kids. This is because you can’t see planting a church as your day job, and expect it not to seep into the rest of your life! On our New Churches Q&A Podcast, we recently received a question from a guy who became a follower of Christ after getting married, and who is now in ministry. His spouse is still not yet a believer, yet he feels called to plant. The answer is, “Not yet! Wait!”

3) Does my church support me? Do others affirm this calling? If your church and friends are hesitant about your calling and gifting to plant a church, then you should also be hesitant. Are you allowing others to speak into your life? Are you currently sitting under the authority of another pastor, denomination, or team? If not, then why? If yes, then what are they saying about your decision? Involve them into your decision-making process as soon as possible.

If you answered yes to all of the above questions and indicators, then here are a few next steps that I would encourage you to consider:

Now let’s remember. We are all called to be ABOUT church planting, but we are not all called to be church planters.

God may be calling you to be a student minister, an executive pastor, a worship minister, a launch team member, a funder, an elder, or to be pastor of a church that multiplies and sends out church planters. Regardless of your specific role, the fact is we are all called to be ABOUT church planting.