Church Planters evolve. They really do. Sure, church planting is evolving. Our methods are changing. We are getting better at creating buzz, organizing, launching and assimilating people into our churches. More importantly church planters evolve. Evolve simply means "to develop or achieve gradually: evolve a style of one's own." Evolving a style of one's own is essential to leading a healthy missional church. While the best leaders are constantly learning, and even borrowing from each other, at the end of the day they are coming into their own. There is an ease about how they connect and relate to others. It shows up in their spiritual, emotional, relational, financial and even physical lives. There is something disciplined about them. It is obvious that they are on a mission, but not just any mission; a mission from God.
When it comes to church planting you can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, have the coolest name, the best meeting place, the slickest marketing, all the bells and whistles, but if you are not evolving as a leader, the church can tank. On the other hand it is amazing to hear how some of these guys got started. At Mountain Lake Church where I serve as one of the pastors we just turned eight years old. I must confess, we are not the same church we were when we started. You talk about humble beginnings. I was reminded of how important it is for us to evolve as leaders as I listened to our Founding and Lead Pastor, Shawn Lovejoy, talk about our journey as a church. There was nothing slick or extraordinary about it. We couldn't help but laugh and then smile at God's great work. There are two things apparent to me; God was in the middle of it and our leader evolved. Shawn allowed God to do something in him in order that he might do something through him. There are no shortcuts to evolving into a godly leader. It takes time, hard work, endurance, and discipline, to name a few. Be encouraged, you may not have all the resources in world, but remember you too can evolve.
This is exactly what we are talking about at our February 18-19, 2008, ChurchPlanters.com Evolve Conference. Here are a few things we are most fired up about:
1. Our main sessions and the guys who are talking about it. These guys are really evolving. I know them and watch them. They are serious about taking care of themselves. They understand that if they are going to lead others, they have got to first lead themselves. In my opinion these guys model the way. So don't miss Steven Furtick, Bil Cornelius, Mark Batterson, Darrin Patrick and Shawn Lovejoy. It is going to be awesome to connect with and hear from these guys.
2. Our breakouts and the guys who are leading them. Each year we offer a variety of breakouts that focus on blocking and tackling when it comes to planting and growing new churches. Here is a list of some of the guys who are leading breakouts and what they are talking about:
- Gabe Lyons - unChristian: What Young People Really Think About Church
- Devin Hudson - Doing Ministry in a Modern Corinth: Taking the Gospel to a post-Christian Culture
- Gary Lamb - Eliminating Portability as an Excuse
- Mel McGowan - Tearing Down Walls to Disconnected through Church Design
- Casey Graham and Louie Lovoy - Small Group Ministry from the Ground Up
- Chad and Autumn Ward - Changing the Way Children Think About Church
- Eric Bramlett - Implementing the Big Idea
3. Our partners. All of our partners are awesome. Frankly we couldn't do it without guys like Details Communication, Catalyst, ISS, Equip, Portable Church, Leadership Network, Strong Tower Financial, and Church Law Group just to name a few.
4. Our host church. Mountain Lake Church is an awesome place to serve. We have the best volunteers and the ministry team in the world and during Evolve they will converge on this event and serve their socks off.
5. Our church planters. One of the things that give us the greatest hope is the hundreds of young church planters, who have a vision for changing our world. They will show up at Evolve. They will come from all over the country. Some will be blowing and going, while others will be struggling to survive. Some will be up, others will be down. Most importantly they all will leave encouraged, revived and better equipped for the future. Did I say Evolving?
For more information on Evolve go to www.churchplanters.com.
