Maestas Matters

It has taken me five years to write this. It has taken me five years to come to a place healthy enough to admit without qualification, I failed. Why, without qualification? From the very day after we closed De Soto Community Church, the first and only church I have planted; the first church I literally gave blood, sweat and tears to, I could admit failure, but only while including others in the existing “blame.” Yes, I had failed, but if this person hadn’t done (x), or if only I would have known (y), things would have and could have been different. As Joco Willinck and Leif Babin say in their incredibly true and helpful book, ‘Extreme Ownership’;

Any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.

I had failed. Worse than the reality of failure, is the failure to learn from failure. So, how did I fail? I submit the following reasons:

I didn’t pursue enough training

I am so thankful that the North American Mission Board (NAMB), has now created more pathways, and paid pathways, for internship and apprenticeship for those who feel a calling into church planting. When we began our planting journey, as I was completing my MDiv at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, there simply weren’t internships and apprenticeships available at the level they are now. Furthermore, I really didn’t know anyone in the city, planting anywhere in the city. For me to pursue more training would have meant a move to a different city for at least a year, and a need to raise support. While these realities are reasonable, and even incredibly necessary, the truth is I wasn’t disciplined enough, nor willing to walk this path. Not only did I suffer, but my church plant did as well.

I didn’t submit to a proper Assessment

As director of our local NAMB Assessment Center in Kansas City, I often find myself jealous of the high caliber of assessment our potential planters are now receiving. When we were planting, assessment was a requirement, yet there wasn’t a clear and defined expectation for what assessment should be. In my case, assessment amounted to meeting regularly with men I know and trusted, and receiving feedback from those men. While these men loved and cared for me, having a level of detachment from myself and my assessors, would have done wonders in pointing out areas of concern for our planting journey.

I didn’t count the cost effectively

While a certain amount of this is to be expected for anyone stepping into a new area of ministry, I allowed my hubris, pride and belief in my own ability and creativity overshadow the many challenges I saw on the horizon. Because of this, I didn’t plan strategically for how to confront the challenges I saw coming. We always fall to the level of our training, never rise to the level of our expectations.

I failed to raise enough support

When we began planting, we had no children and my wife was working a $12/hour job. Our needs were not very great and I simply wasn’t comfortable with the idea and mechanics of raising support. Therefore, I didn’t raise much support at all. While in the very beginning this didn’t seem like a large burden, it really hamstrung us down the road when it came to renting worship space, sending out material, and buying simple things like signage. While money isn’t the most important factor in determining the success of a church plant, the lack of resources can be detrimental, especially when needing to make a big “push” after creating momentum from ministry wins.

I didn’t recruit well

I typically took a Revelation 22:7 approach to recruitment, namely, “Whosoever will…come!” While we can laugh, or choose not to, at the very poor preacher joke; the reality is, this was a terrible way to call people into an act of spiritual warfare! Of those that initially came with me when we planted, not a single one remained when we closed the doors. Many of those on the initial team I recruited never moved to the community. This should have been an enormous warning sign! While not impossible to plant a church in a community you don’t live in, it limits the relational aspect of ministry exponentially.

The ones I did recruit, I didn’t train properly

Of the whosoever’s who came, I assumed a level of Biblical knowledge, missionary behavior, and ownership of vision they simply didn’t have. The failure of my team to be equipped in all of these ways is solely my responsibility. Since I didn’t adequately prepare and train them, it shouldn’t have surprised me when they failed, or consequently when we as a church failed.

Later  I’ll share the remainder of the leadership failures we experienced and some lessons learned along the way

Read Part 2 here

Read Part 3 here