March 15, 2000

Could you be a church starter?
___If Texas Baptists are to start hundreds of churches over the coming years, hundreds of individuals will need to sense God's leading to become church starters, leaders of the Baptist General Convention of Texas suggest.
___These BGCT leaders, along with others involved in church starting in Texas, offer this composite portrait of the type of person who makes a successful church starter:

Hundreds of new churches needed BGCT offers support, guidance for church starting Lay leaders in church starting Money not the barrier to church starting many fear

___ Clear call from God. "The church starter must have a passionate, undying call from God," said Bob Roberts, pastor of Northwood Church in Keller and a mentor to church starters.
___ Leadership skills. "Studies done by Texas and most other denominational entities involved in church starting have discovered that the mortality rate in new churches is due almost entirely to poor leadership," said E.B. Brooks, director of the BGCT's Church Starting Center. "That's most often poor pastoral leadership."
___ Endurance. "I'm not looking for sprinters but for long-distance runners," Roberts said, noting endurance is required to carry through the inevitable ups and downs.
___ Entrepreneurial spirit. This is especially true in what is known as a "cold" start, where a church starter begins without a ready-made core group from an existing church. Brian Lightsey, founding pastor of Lakeline Church in Austin, did such a start. He began by knocking on doors in his target community, meeting people and getting to know their needs.
___ Innovation. Church starting is the research and development arm of the church, Roberts suggested. It is the place where new ideas are tried and refined.
___ Risk-taker.
___ Evangelistic spirit. The church starter must be willing to lead the way in talking directly to people about their need for faith in Christ.
___ People-oriented. It takes exceptional people skills to be able to build a congregation from nothing, Roberts said.
___ Faith. The church starter must have the attitude that "this thing is going to happen, even though I don't know how," Roberts said.
___Some issues that people expect might be barriers to a person making an effective church starter actually are not issues, both Ater and Brooks reported.
___For example, age is not a factor. Many church starters are young, fresh out of school, but others are more seasoned. "We have an 80-year-old doing an excellent job," Ater said.
___Gender also is not a barrier. "Both the male role and the female role are very important in church starting," Ater explained. "There needs to be a balance."
___Though different models exist, not all church starters actually become pastors. And so, even among Baptists who believe women should not be pastors, there is room for women to play a significant role in starting congregations.
___As more churches are started in Texas, they will create one of the most fertile fields for recruiting future church starters, predicted Lightsey.
___"One of the best ways to find church planters is to raise them up out of planted churches. We foster a missions mindset that when people come in to our churches, ... they like the vision of wanting to make a difference."

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