The art (or the sweat) of the start

This happened a few years ago now but I remember it vividly.

I was at our local recreation ground in South London. A VW van drove into the car park and a tall athletic guy in sports gear, running spikes and a backwards baseball got out. He opened the back of the van and pulled out a harness and cable, put on the harness, attached himself to the front of the van and started to try to pull the van. Like they do on World's Strongest Man.

He leaned forward, strained every sinew, pumped his legs. And nothing happened. He keeps straining. Eventually, the van moves a fraction. He pumps his legs and strains again. Finally he overcomes the inertia, gets some momentum and is able to start walking the van across the car park.

I've no idea what he was training for but whoever this guy was, he was reminding me that getting something started is hard.

That's where entrepreneurship and church planting are similar. Or starting any new thing, any good endeavour, any gospel work. You're starting stuff from scratch. There's nothing there. There's no understanding of what should be there. So you'll have to do a good job of clarifying and communicating vision. There's no team so you'll need to gather them. There are no systems, no awareness, no momentum - so you're going to need (under God, in partnership with brothers and sisters) to generate it.

Praise God that he specialises in bringing things out of nothing. He is the great Starter and it's his zeal that will accomplish everything.

But he doesn't generally do it alone. Amazingly he chooses to use weak sinful men and women as his means and instruments. The Son entrusts his great wealth to his servant-partner-friends and loves to see them invest and risk and multiply it.

So here are a few resources, particularly drawing from the common grace of the business world as well as the wisdom of the Word:

Entrepreneurship in church leadership on The One Thing Podcast (22 min listen) which references this interview with Luther Symons on mission momentum and this HBR article on traits of an entrepreneurial leader
Considering the good - SMART targets (6 min read)
Actually doing it - implementation (5 min read)
Why changing may be more faithful than persevering (5 min read)
What is lean start up? (1 min 45 sec video)
Project Management Triangle – article (9 min read), video (6 min view)

Comments

Holding together restlessness and optimism

Piper has a great section in his Marks of a Spiritual Leader where he holds together two vital biblical leadership virtues: 1. RESTLESS Spiritual leaders have a holy discontentment with the status quo. Non-leaders have inertia that causes them to settle in and makes them very hard to move off of dead center. Leaders have a hankering to change, to move, to reach out, to grow, and to take a group or an institution to new dimensions of ministry. They have the spirit of Paul, who said in Philippians 3:13, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Leaders are always very goal-oriented people. God’s history of redemption is not finished. The church is shot through with imperfections, lost sheep are still not in the fold, needs of every sort in the world are unmet, sin infects the saints. It is un...

Matt Perman on Management and Leadership

These are quotes from the What's Best Next Toolkit ( mobi file ) - a free resource of online extra chapters and articles that accompanies Matt Perman's must read book “Leadership is not about you. It is about serving others, building them up, and making them more effective. “if you keep trying to do the sorts of things you did as an individual contributor, you simply won’t have time to lead at all.” “Now, the leaders should sometimes, frequently even, pitch in directly by working along side the people on his or her team. But this shouldn’t be the main thing the leader does. He needs to be setting direction, looking out ahead, and aligning people.” “Leadership in the pastoral role is practiced primarily through the ministry of the word and prayer.” “every week or so, review the org chart and reflect what actions you can proactively take to keep things going in the right direction, or to help make someone more effective, and so forth.” “There is a significa...

What's Next? Consider Christ

We've been going through a series thinking about the question What Next? Consider yourself in gospel ministry Consider the range of gospel work roles Consider the range of places and needs Consider the range of training possibilities Consider others But ultimately there can only be one answer to the question What’s next? For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21) Paul didn’t know what was next for him as he wrote the letter to the Philippians. He had resolved that continuing on this earth to work for people’s progress and joy in the faith was most necessary (Phil. 1:24-25 - notice there that he's considering others and considering need ) but he knew that there were two alternatives – life and death (Phil. 1:20-23). Whatever was next for Paul, it was consumed, defined, filled by knowing Christ, having Christ, being found in Christ. What’s next? CHRIST! Christ the radiance of the glory of God Christ crowned with glory and honour Christ our rescuer who has sm...

Looking at Christ

Search This Blog