Our team recently began discussing the characteristics of the people Motion Church will attempt to attract.

We took a close look at the demographics of Tampa and Riverview and began listing ‘Motion Mo’ and ‘Motion Molly’ (yeah, that’s from Saddleback Church).

Here are a few that we came up with:

• 18 -45 year olds
• Families: younger children
• Men: restoring masculinity
• Financially Middle Class
• Spiritually intrigued but don’t like church

What does a typical member of your church look like?

In order to have the greatest impact on your community, begin to market to your ‘Motion Mo’ or ‘Motion Molly.’

The Purple Cow by Seth Godin brings a great question to the surface. (He didn’t raise the question, but it’s infured upon for church leaders):

Why would someone go to your church and not the other churhes in town?

What is it about your church that is unique?  What is it that your church offers that can’t be found anywhere else in the city?

Matt Keller says (about the point of Godin’s book) that:

“if you and I drive through the countryside and see 2,000 black and white cows grazing on the hillside, we won’t think a thing about it.  But, if we see a purple cow standing in the field grazing next to the 2,000 black and white cows, we’ll stop the car, jump out, grab a camera, take a bunch of pictures, and call all our friends to come and see it.”

We should not attempt to out-shine another church by doing what they do better, but we should strive to be clearly unique.

Where do you complement other churches?

At Motion Church, it is our desire to be a church for churches.  We want to direct people who may not fit with our way of doing church to another church in the area that will better connect with their needs and preferences (yes, we shouldn’t cater to personal preference but we don’t want unhappy people in our church either).

Up the Middle Church is a book written by Matt Keller of Next Level Church in Ft. Myers, Florida.

Matt Keller has recently been added to my list of B.A. pastors.  I got a copy of his book at the 2011 Exponential Conference in Orlando.

Currently, I am in the planning stages of our church plant and Up the Middle Church is a great resource to organize thoughts and methodically create a game plan.  There is a section after each chapter that allows the team to discuss important practical questions that help pinpoint where the efforts of the team should be focused which creates greater effectiveness.

I highly recommend the book to all church planters and church leaders who desire to have the greatest impact on their community.  Up the Middle Church will help you focus in your effort in order to maximize your church’s effectiveness.

The manly thing to do, as always, is to figure it out on your own.

Right?

You know exactly what I’m talking about … “Directions! I don’t need no flipping directions!”

Catch the irony there? (don’t need no … actually means I do need … never mind, stupid grammar joke!)

The reality is that God speaks in many different ways.  Humans are stupid creatures (Jesus likens us to sheep, not cool! but the truth).  Sometimes, we need God to write the correct choice or decision in the air because we are just “not seeing” what God is telling us.  I get that part, I recently made the biggest decision of my life up to this point.  I kept missing God’s signals (kinda how I never catch my wife’s “between the lines” communication signs).

I think we all want the experience Paul had with Jesus — when Jesus met Paul on the dirt path and revealed himself to Paul.  Wouldn’t that make life so much easier?  If Jesus would just meet with me, I could shoot him a couple questions and hear, in plain English, what his answers are (I know that is not what happened with Paul, but still I would rather this happen for me).

But much too often, we are left wondering and trying figure out the correct answer.  Almost as if we are waiting for the cosmic “go ahead” that Jesus is supposed to give to us, right?  Well, maybe not.  God can work in that way, but according to William MacDonald and George Muller (both are stud scholars), God speaks to his followers in 5 ways.

• Through Scripture
• Through Visions
• Through Circumstances
• Through Others
• Through Direct Communication (possibly in an inward manner)

I read today Acts 16 (I’m planting a church, so, of course I’m reading Acts, duh!).  I was astonished that Paul was “trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them” (verse 7).

What?  The Spirit of Jesus wouldn’t allow them to do something good?

That’s when it hit me,

the Spirit keeps those who are destined for great things from settling into that which is good.  Hmmm …

The Spirit guides as much by the closing of doors as he does by the opening of doors; remember,

Good is the enemy of great, so ask yourself the question, “is God protecting me from something good, in order to do something great?”

What circumstances in your life are pointing toward greatness?

Because, you should probably listen.

A friend of mine sent me a blog post titled, Should You Really Be a Startup Entrepreneur and let’s just say I was intrigued.

The similarities between an entrepreneurial startup of a company and an entrepreneurial startup of a church are scary.  A church planter can learn much from business entrepreneurs and I’m not sure we’ve done a good job of learning in this capacity.

Christians, at times, can be idiots.  It’s true, I have known Christians that believe we cannot learn from “secular” vocations.  That there should be a distinct difference between the church and businesses.

They could not be more wrong.

Now, don’t get me wrong . . . don’t hear what I am not saying.  There is a way in which the church should be different than businesses (like morality for instance), but that difference is not in leadership structure or organization.

The secular world does a lot of things well . . . as Christians and Christian leaders we must figure out the areas where we struggle and learn from our cultural counterparts.  Have some humility (ouch, we like to talk about how businesses take potential partners to the strip club or bar — I mean we Christians are above that), learn what we can, and completely blow people out of the water with the presence of God!

We need to stop waiting for a miracle, God has already given us the resources and gifts we need to fulfill his plan!

Oh yeah, more to come on that blog post I mentioned earlier.

‎”Having faith often means doing what others see as crazy. Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers.” — Francis Chan

Can you think of a better quote that sums up the calling to plant a church?  Doesn’t matter if it’s church planting in the US or missions in Africa.

If your life makes sense to those who do not believe in Jesus … Something is wrong.

and I read a lot of blog postings.  Most of the postings I read are from big time people (Ed Stetzer, Driscoll, Furtick, etc.)

But,

This is the best blog post I have read … Church Planting Sucks. You have to check this out!

Here is an overview:

It’s harder than you think

It’s more fun than you think it’s going to be

There are people who don’t want you to succeed

There are people who desperately want you to succeed

It’s not easy to figure out who are people #3 and who are people #4

Weather will kick your ass

You will schedule things and no one will show

It will not be the church you built in your head

Don’t take anything personally

Settle the failure question before you start

There is much more within the blog posting and you should definately check out this dudes blog, Engage: life in words