Tactical Patience: A Church Replanter's Greatest Asset
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I spend a great deal of time studying church replanting, and, for me, it’s more than academic interest. No, I haven’t replanted multiple churches (just one), but I am hooked. It’s exciting to see God bring renewal and growth, opening a new chapter in the life of a local church that may have feared there was no hope for its future. One aspect of church replanting that particularly interests me is the characteristics that make a successful replanting pastor. One trait that comes up over and over again is patience—tactical patience. If delayed gratification is not your thing, being a church replanting pastor is probably not for you.
As Bob Bickford and Mark Hallock
write, “progress and pace are unique are unique in church replanting. Some
things can be addressed immediately; others have to wait—either for the
congregation to be ready to move or for the resources to be present.”[1]Tactical
patience requires knowing when to change something and when not to change it. Tactical
patience recognizes that some hills aren’t worth dying on. As Mark Clifton
observes, a church may need facility modernizations, a new website, updated
bylaws, and a host of other changes. However, changing everything at once is
not only impossible, it is inadvisable. Says Clifton, “A replanter must realize
that this is not a short-term mission trip; this is his life.”[2]
Church planting—the founding of
new churches—is a vital ministry and can have some intersection with church replanting.
However, the church replanter should be careful not to get into the business of
comparing his church with that of a planter because the pace is entirely
different. A church plant that does not gain traction within the first three
years probably won’t make it. However, it takes a church replanter an average
of four or five years before he feels like he’s even gaining attraction. The
church replanter cannot become discouraged when it takes a long time to
get the church moving—because it’s going to take a long time, maybe even a
really long time.
I’ve heard that we often overestimate
what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can accomplish in five or
ten years. The tactically patient church replanter must always keep the long
view.
[1] Bob
Bickford and Mark Hallock, Am I a Replanter?: 30 Days of Discerning God's
Call. Littleton, CO: Acoma Press, 2017.
[2]
Mark Clifton, Reclaiming Glory: Creating a Gospel Legacy throughout North
America. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2016.
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