My kids always beat me at Risk. You know, the classic board game of world domination where you expand your territory, crush your opponents, and inevitably spark family arguments?!
Church planting can sometimes be portrayed as a game of Risk. Different networks and denominations rush to plant their flag in 'strategic' towns and cities — sometimes without considering whether healthy churches from other networks are already thriving there. While this may be a slight ‘straw-man’, there is sadly some truth to it (according to my study, just over 1/5 spoke of vision 'issues' between their network and the ground-level reality of what was needed).
The problem lies in the difference between making plans based on a ‘high-level-Google-Maps-view’ and actually zooming in to ‘Google-Street-View’ to see what’s really happening at ground level.
When your church plant is failing...
We don’t often say it out loud, but church planting is deeply vulnerable. We go in with dreams, hopes, vision …