Yesterday I was chatting with a friend about how great it would be if some of our dying churches just took a sleeping pill, put themselves out of their misery and called it a day.

Because they are sitting on millions and millions of dollars worth of assets…

Then!!… the assets could be sold up and put in a fund to resource church planters willing to try risky and new things. It’d be like a safety net for those who weren’t too sure if their dreams would fly.

And therein lies the problem.

As I was dreaming I realised that the last thing a pioneer / adventurer / entrepeneuer wants is a ‘safety net’! If there is no chance of failure then there is no real risk involved. If the whole deal is underwritten by ‘big brother’ then the personal cost and sacrifice that seems to be so much a part of EC planting evaporates.

And then…

Its just a gut feeling, but I reckon if we made it easy – even financially lucrative to plant churches then we’d do it with the wrong people.

It could well be that to be an apostolic leader you need to be prepared to suffer – to go without – to at very least put it all it on the line. Maybe removing the potential for pain would blow it up.

A few thoughts from a well know missionary:

2 Cor 11:23-28 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. {24} Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. {25} Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, {26} I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. {27} I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. {28} Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

Of course the question arises – can we do both?

Can we have a fund that assists but doesn’t remove the spirit required to enter missional church planting. I’d like to think there is a way!