Sharing the Plunder

This morning I'm going through my piles of notes and learnings. Today I want to share just a few of the nuggets that Pastor Shawn has shared with me. If you resonate with them make sure you're at next months churchplanters.com conference!
1 – You don’t need a new great idea to start a great church. Jesus has communicated the great idea, Love them and Lead them to me.
2 – You don’t have to be a charismatic wizz bang leader for God to use you. However you must stay focused on Jesus and His simple vision, and keeping the execution simple. Remember it’s simply not about you. Keep focused on the basics, the blocking and tackling, the “reaching and growing”. Be prepared to fight to the death for Jesus and His vision. Stay firm to what God has put in your heart. IF you don’t have that clarity of vision, get alone with Jesus and get it clear, so you can die for Him.
3 – There are a number of key core objectives that need to be equally pursued. At Mountain Lake they've boiled them down to the five G’s. What is it that God wants His Church to do? Know and focus on them.
4 – You need to live out your core values first, then write them down.
5 – Never change the Vision but always willing to change the strategy.
6 – The vision drives you step out and be willing to risk things to reach towards “Big Hairy Audacious Goals.”
7 – Visionary growing Churches are not the right place for everyone (attenders and staff).
8 – The best moves are made by leaders willing to take risks, experiment, fail and sometimes move ahead by accident. Getting it right is not the key, it’s being willing to make a decision and have a go. Making no decision is far worse. For God sake make decisions, nothing is worse than a leader who is not willing to pull the trigger. Sure, do your homework, but then make your decision and then work the plan. Remember no plan is perfect, but determin a plan and then work the plan.
9 – Home grown leadership is usually the first place to look for hires, but sometimes it is important and strategic to hire from with out simply for what they bring into the team.
10 – Visionary churches aren’t focused on beating others, they are focused on beating theirselves. You aren’t called to compare yourself to the other churches, you need to be laser focused on doing what God has called you to do and stick with it, fight for it and seek to improve and grow at your game plan.
11 – You can be a reaching and discipling church at the same time.
12 – Knowing Jesus and His vision is the first step, then it’s a life time of sticking with Him and fighting for His vision and always being open to tweaking the strategies.