<image courtesy of carbonNYC @ Flickr>
I have never met a ‘typical’ church planter.
Sure, assessment helps determine whether someone has a demonstrable history of the kind of gifting and passion needed to help find success in a planting endeavor, but beyond certain gifts, history, and focus, it seems there’s no real ‘church planter’ mold.
In most of the circles I engage, it seems someone who is an ‘ideal fit’ for church planting is a young, good looking, tech-savvy, trendy, incredibly oratorically gifted, overwhelmingly catalytic guy. But the real, flesh-and-bone church planters I know are different. They are women. They are men. They are younger. They are older. They are passionate.
But they aren’t the people you would probably chase down to start a new church.
Maybe I’m looking at this too much through my own eyes–when I think of me being involved in the church planting adventure, I see all the reasons I shouldn’t be here: I am too broken, too fat, too geeky, too awkward to be a church planter.
But, so far, those things haven’t really disqualified me.
In fact, I think God can use me to engage other broken, fat, geeky, awkward people in a way a ‘typical’ church planter may not.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Don’t let what you think you need keep you from pursuing a ministry God might have for you. He has a Great Adventure for you, if only you’ll jump in with both feet and let him use you…whoever/however you are.
You did it today. So did I. At least once. Probably without realizing it, we made an assumption about someone’s job–how easy or hard or menial or vital that job was; how untrained or overworked or under-appreciated or uncaring the person at the tollbooth, behind the counter, at the other end of the phone conversation, or in the corner office–having never really experienced it for ourselves.
