Ed Stetzer writes that his story as a church planter resembles the scene from the WWII film entitled Saving Private Ryan where Tom Hanks and some of his battalion have survived the first wave of carnage to get onto the Normandy Beach. Filled with heart-pounding adrenaline that feeds a conflicted combination of heroism, mental shock and stark terror, he assesses the next tactic is to rush through a gap and position at the base of the cliffs. One of his lieutenants screams above the deafening noise that such a tactic is unadvisable, but he barks the order and six men shoot the gap. We watch (in slow motion) as every man is horrifically cut down, ripped apart by a hail storm of bullets. He sends six more and they are all cut down. Despite the shouts of the lieutenant, Hanks sends six more, and a few make it..at least to the cliffs.
Stetzer goes on to say something that breaks my heart and I feel the sting of tears in my eyes as I think of my own story: I have seen a lot of good men cut down on the way to plant a church. Many crawled away from the ministry entirely; maimed spiritually, they bear terrible scars. Some have abandoned the faith or their marriage, and others "sold out" for either the pursuit of money or something less risky than church planting.
There are many reasons for the high casualty rate, but one of the chief reasons is a failure to understand that there is both an art and a science to planting a church and both sides must be honored. There is a cause that demands heroism and sacrifice and this appeals to many a young man's love for Jesus, longing for adventure --his own "Normandy Beach" to take. But there is also the science side to church planting that many planters "don't see coming" until they run out of funds or lose their way organizationally. Again the art of planting is creating an incendiary "Acts 2 Community"; missing the necessity of creatively shaping the community side is revealed in the complaints of once excited team members who lose heart because they find themselves casualties of the cause...but often miscreants of a failed community. They wander away muttering something about "not being fed."
At Hill Country Bible Church, we have created an Essentials Training Course, an 8-session Field Manual that addresses both the art and the science of church planting. Without the field manual, church planters land on the beach at their own peril. With a Field Manual, their odds improve dramatically. Combined with a "band of brothers" environment where fellow church planters can talk to a salty old sergeant, you just might make it.
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