Contentment is a required spiritual practice for church planters.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “playing the long game”? My guess is we’ve each heard it thrown around in different venues. The saying is not new. It’s been used to describe throwing the football down the field or driving the golf ball toward the green. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying used to describe a person taking his or her time in pursuing someone for dating or by a certain financial planning firm hoping to drum up more business by sharing how unprepared we are for future retirement.
No matter where we might hear it, the phrase “playing the long game” generally means having a long-term plan, long-term goals, or doing things now that set you up for the future. Most church planters have a clear vision. Whether that is to be a multiplying sending church, a mega-church with big budgets and lots of resources to help advance the gospel, or a neighborhood church shepherding a community, serving and loving them toward gospel transformation, the vision is there.
The question is: When the mission becomes stale, when the money begins to run out and attendance seems to plateau, what will keep us focused on playing the long game? The answer might be in our ability to be content in all circumstances.
When my wife and I knew church planting was a reality rather than a dream, we started working on our strategic plan, our prospectus, and envisioning the type of church God would build. Being more of a visionary, entrepreneurial leader, like most church planters, this came easy and was energizing.
Even as we launched and first started doing fundraising, casting vision and dinner table planning was something I looked forward to each day. Most of our time was spent on planning the first two years of ...
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