Church Planting Wisdom

For those that haven't already come across this, I wanted to draw your attention to Derek Brown's blog. Derek is in the process of planting a church in the DC area and has demonstrated a great deal of his own wisdom and humility in asking other church planters for advice.

At present, he has compiled the advice of fifteen church planters in a section on his blog entitled Church Planting Wisdom (which even includes a brief contribution from yours truly).

I suggest that you place a bit more weight in the advice of those that have seen some fruit and longevity from their labors than my advice which comes almost exclusively from colossal mistakes that I made and watched others make.

The one piece that I wished would have come through stronger in my conversations with Derek is the advice that Cameron Crowe attributes to Lester Bangs in the film Almost Famous:

You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful (quote).

My advice, in addition to the things I shared with Derek-- is find some of Lester Bangs' friends and ask them to be ruthless in their analysis and critique. Beg them to continually critique everything from your character and personal life to church values and culture to aesthetics to music to preaching to what a first time visitor might think about your service format or logo. Find those friends, and listen to their advice. (and believe Lester Bangs when he says that "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool." quote)

Comments

[Derek]

Kevin: I've linked to this post. I think the advice Mr. Bangs has for us is great. I thank you for your kind words, the link, and your commitment to the Kingdom.