Pitfalls in Church Planting: Define Boundaries
Barry Keldie
Pitfalls in Church Planting: Click | View Series
You need to define for your church its open- and closed-handed issues early because they will all be tested. Determine which theological issues you are willing to lose people over and which issues you are not. These will help you decide which issues are closed-handed for you. Those things should be decided early and written down! If they’re only in your head, they don’t exist.
Get It On Paper
Create a document so it can act as an objective third party. This way people don’t have theological disagreements with the pastor, they have theological misalignments with the church. When your church is small, you don’t want people to come in a stand against the pastor. It’s too subjective and even when you win an argument, you lose people. When the church takes a stand on paper, there is no argument, only teaching and guiding. Use a good, biblical, well-thought out Statement of Faith to ward off wolves and false teachers.
In conclusion, plant more churches. Join a strong, bible-teaching network and get to work. There are estimated 120 million non-Christians in the United States of America, which makes us the fourth largest mission field in the world, according to The Lutheran. We need more gospel-centered, theologically sound, missional churches. Join the fight.
