Please read The Hardest Thing You Will Ever Do for the context of this post.

One thing I’ve had to learn to let go of while launching Fulcrum is the “flinch reflex” I picked up while working with established churches for 12 years.

I’m easily bored with the status quo. I’m wired to try to new things and to tinker with whatever is already in place. I can’t help it. I go crazy if I don’t. One of my favorite statements is, “Let’s try it and see what happens.” My favorite question is, “What if?”

I’m one of those who believes that “change for the sake of change” is a good thing. I preached a sermon once that said as much and justified it theologically by saying that regular change keeps us from falling into the trap of idolizing whatever remains static too long. Not many bought what I was selling that day, even though I had a mountain of scriptures backing me up.

I’ve also been, at times, easy prey to the accusation that I’ve made an idol out of change or novelty. So there.

When I graduated from college I was fascinated by the creative process. On my shelf are several books from back in my early days of ministry when I thought that creativity would be useful in church work. I haven’t opened those books in a long time.

To be fair to the churches I’ve worked with, both gave me ample freedom to be creative in my preaching. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I got away with in my sermons. Remind me some time to tell you what I did to a communion table. If preaching hadn’t been a creative outlet for me, I’d be developing real estate right now.

That being said, the longer I worked in established churches the less creative I felt. Finally, I just gave up and stopped asking “what if?”

Why?

Because I got tired of running into road blocks.

“What if we try this?” I’d ask.

“We can’t, ole so and so might leave.”

“What if we moved this?” I’d suggest.

“We can’t. We’ve been doing it this way so long it would confuse everyone if we changed it.”

Several times, I’d use whatever leadership capital I had and push forward anyway, only to be overwhelmed with unrelenting criticism and complaints.

If every time a mouse goes for the cheese, he get’s his head smashed in the trap, he’ll eventually stop going for the cheese, especially if he has ten heads. (Feel free to tweet and re-tweet that one ad nauseam.)

Eventually, when I came up with a new idea I’d automatically flinch in anticipation of the difficulty and frustration that would accompany its implementation. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with myself where I throw out a wild and crazy idea and then systematically talk myself down from the precipice of a creative leap by listing all the reasons it wouldn’t work and how much opposition I’d have to overcome. Those conversations always left me exhausted, as well as with the feeling that everyone in Starbucks was afraid to make eye contact with me.

As we dream and plan for what Fulcrum may someday become, I’ve had to fight against the flinch reflex. When I have an idea now, I don’t have to talk myself out of it before I ever go public with it. Instead, I can give each idea the room it needs to fully form and then either take off and fly or be turned into mulch that will fertilize future brainstorming sessions.

I still have plenty of ideas that will never be implemented. Some are too expensive. Others would undercut our values in the long run. Others are just goofy. Regardless, I love it that i don’t have to abort an idea for political reasons or because “we’ve never done it that way before.”

This is one of the biggest differences between launching a church and working with an established one.

How long will this last? I don’t know. There could surely be a day when the Fulcrum Community becomes so set in its ways that it begins to stymie creativity. I may even be the one who becomes resistant to all these changes suggested by the young bucks. I hope not. We’ve tried to make experimentation a value of the Fulcrum Community from the very beginning so that we’ll always be willing to try new things in the future.

Will it work?

I don’t know.

Let’s try it and see what happens.

One of the questions I’m occasionally asked is, “How is starting a new church different from trying to turn around an established one?”

The short answer is that it’s different in every way imaginable.

In the next several posts, I’ll explain why.

Every time I start writing something like this I worry that some of my friends in established churches will think I’m throwing rocks at their churches or thumbing my nose at them because they’re working in an established context. This is never my intent.

It’s so easy to create an either/or between the two. I’ve had people in established churches question the entire enterprise of church planting. Such a great conversation starter with someone who has just swallowed hard and stepped out in faith to give it a go. I’ve also heard church planters talk about established churches like they were shacks condemned by the city. These same planters seem to have a hard time raising support from established churches. Imagine that.

I worked with established churches for 12 years. One was a small congregation in the Northwest whose growth had been hampered by past conflicts. The other was a larger church whose perceived “better days” were behind it when I arrived. In each case, I was asked by the leadership to help the church find its missional groove.

I struggled in both contexts. Not because there was something inherently wrong with either church, but because I lacked the temperament to flourish in those settings. So I have absolute respect and admiration for those pastors who are able to not only survive, but thrive in their work with established churches. Their job is stinking hard and so many of them do it with a kind of patience and grace that escapes me.

One of the things that is common at church planting conferences like Exponential, which is happening in Orlando, Florida even as I type this, is that speaker after speaker will stand up and tell potential church planters that planting a church “is the hardest thing you will ever do.” It’s meant to be a scare tactic that will weed out those who shouldn’t do it. This assertion is true in so many ways. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I started struggling with lower back pain after only a couple of months on the job here in Austin. However, doing the hard work of pastoring a church over the long haul is also “the hardest thing you will ever do,” just in a different way.

To church planters who’ve used the “hardest thing you’ll ever do” line on me I’ve wanted to say in response, “Try preaching at my last church for six years and then get back to me.” (It’s a joke Garnetters! But let’s not kid ourselves, those six years were hard on all of us. I gave as good as I got. Or maybe you were giving as good as you got. Hmmm.)

Launching a new church doesn’t mean I’ve given up on established ones, but rather it’s my attempt to be true to a calling I struggled against for over a decade. To all my friends in my former church I say, “It’s wasn’t you, it was me!” I think I have a personality designed to be perpetually frustrated in established churches while also being a perpetual source of frustration to many people in them. As I talk about some of the ways church planting is different than my old way of life, I think this point will become clear like crystal.

Before I talk about the differences between the two, let me start with these similarities. Both are good. Both are necessary. Both are hard. Neither is for the faint of heart.

At some point, both will require the use of an ice pack.

Because of the twice a month schedule of Cafe Fulcrum, I have a couple of Sunday mornings open each month for being a guest speaker. With summer coming up and knowing that many preachers will be making summer vacation/sabbatical plans, I thought I’d post the dates I’m available. If you think I might be a good fit to be a guest speaker at your church or event this summer, let me know by leaving a comment below or by sending an email to wadehodes at gmail.com

One way to look at this is as a way to support our efforts to launch Fulcrum. I’ve heard from plenty of churches who are in our corner but don’t have money in their budget to help support us financially. However, these same churches may have money in their budget for a guest speaker. By inviting me to speak (and providing a generous honorarium), you’re getting a quality guest speaker and supporting a church planter, all at the same time.
 
Open Dates:

June 13th and 27th
July 11th and 25th
August 8th and 22nd