by Brian O’Day
It’s fall of 2010. I am an active duty Marine, and our nation is at war. I had been to combat before and was quite certain I was about to go back. I was married and had three young children. I was busy.
It was during this time that God, in His infinite wisdom, decided to call me into church planting.
Enter Clint Clifton: “I want to help you.”
What Clint did from that moment on was to intentionally mentor me through the church planting process. From the initial conversation of the general plan until the church launched was about two and a half years. During that time, Clint and I were physically separated for most of it. For a few months, I was in Afghanistan.
But he kept pouring into me. He kept helping me move toward the thing that God was calling me to do.
There was no book. Instead, there was a rough process that was in Clint’s head that he was formulating as he went. He was building the plane as he flew it.
After years of mentoring dozens of men to plant churches and watching what worked and what didn’t, Clint wrote down the process that he thought best at the time. We now have that process in Church Planting Thresholds.
This process is excellent. It’s not perfect; but it is excellent. I have two encouragements for you as you either seek to plant a church as the planter or as the sending church pastor preparing other men for this work.
Encouragement One: Use this process.
As you build out a church planting residency and invest in this noble work, use Church Planting Thresholds. Use it as the backbone of your church planting process, church planting residency, raising guys up to send out, or whatever you want to call it. From my perspective, this is a beautiful legacy that Clint has left us, and we do well to heed the wisdom of a man who spent his entire Christian life figuring out how to plant churches.
Encouragement Two: Don’t mess it up.
As you build out a process and a plan, don’t fall in love with it, and don’t over-plan it. Above all things Clint was about people and his relationships with them. Did he write a book with a plan? Sure. Was he in love with that plan? No. Did he think that his written plan guaranteed “success” in church planting? Definitely not.
Ensure you dedicate your time investing in men who you see the glimmer of a calling to pastoral character and work. Spend far more time with them than you do sitting alone somewhere writing plans that you will later fall in love with. Grab this plan off the shelf and then grab some dudes and walk them through the plan.
I love you guys and I am so thankful to be on this journey with you. Please use the resources that we are collecting from around the Praetorian Project as you walk this journey. You are not alone in this journey. You are part of a family. And Church Planting is a massive part of this family business.
If a resource is helpful, reach out to whomever wrote it, and thank him for it.
If you improve a resource, reach out to him, and let him know that as well. You just might help all of us.
We don’t have it all figured out.
We’re learning together.
To God Alone Be All Glory,
Brian O’Day