The Church Planter's Foolishness
1 Comments
Tyler Jones and his wife Kimberley planted Vintage21 five years ago. After attending many churches in the area, Tyler and Kimberly noticed an absence of people in the 20-40 age groups. After much prayer and guidance, they felt God's call to begin a church with people of that age group in mind. (For more information about Tyler and Vintage21 visit: Acts 29 Church Plant: Tyler Jones - Vintage21 - Raleigh, NC)
At the recent Raleigh Regional Event, Tyler spoke from 1 Kings 18-19 about placing God at the centre of a church plant.
In 1 Kings 18 Elisha calls on God and he answers and comes down in a great fire. The response of the people watching this great event was not to bow down and worship Elisha but to cry ‘The Lord -He is God!' How often is it the case that when God works powerfully in the world we praise men instead of the one from whom all good things come.
Tyler unpacked this issue with specific focus on leading a church. He posed a number of probing questions:
- How do you make Jesus the hero of the church where you serve?
- Why are you planting or thinking about planting a church?
- Are you personally jealous for the ways of the Lord? (1 Kings 19:10)
- How will you lead a church that is jealous for the ways of the Lord?
Not delegating can be and often is disguised arrogance. Church planting is hard and tiresome work and Tyler recounted that it was not drugs he needs but Jesus.
Sharing some startling statistics about pastors' non-vocation bible reading tendencies and a bunch of stories, Tyler generously shared from his own experiences, both positive and negative, of planting a church.
Listen to the full audio here:
Acts 29 Regional events exist to:
- 1. Meet and learn from others who are planting
- 2. Care for planters (by teaching about the gospel)
- 3. Train planters and future planters
Find all other regional events and other multimedia here.
1 Comments | Login to Post Comments
Mike Watkins on Apr 18, 2008 3:17am
These are good and simple questions. Why are we planting the church and for whom? “Jesus” is the simple answer to both. When I was much younger in the Lord I was a mixed bag of personal ambition and desire to please God. God deals with this as we move forward, and after being in missions for 15 years I can attest that the only true joy and fruitfulness in the work is when we do it for the Lord. Any other motivation especially those of pleasing others, competition etc. are a snare that causes tremendous stress and spiritual fatigue.
Another principle that unfortunately goes against the popular grain is that we need to work ourselves out of a job. In other words, we must decrease as we let God increase in the lives of those whom we lead. Like William Wallace in Brave Heart we can’t act like the Nobles who believed that people existed to give them position. On the contrary, leaders exist to serve and equip others. God bless