Lean Churches is a collection of church planters. These church planters have experienced God’s work in the lives of people through church plants that are on the verge of becoming stable churches.
Our experiences started with small core groups with very limited resources and a lot of faith. Over time, God’s amazing grace has connected people with our churches who were either not interested in Him and/or had given up on the church as a place to find anything meaningful. We watched God transform these people into followers of Christ who felt compelled to invite their unchurched friends to church and eventually to serve as ministry leaders. As we watched this happen, we became convinced that church plants are a powerful way to fulfill both the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.
We also discovered that while some churches grew from church plants to incredibly large churches in relatively short periods of time, we were not going to be in that group. We also realized that most church plants will never reach “mega” status. Could this possibly mean that God blesses both the mega and non-mega church plants? Yes! And could He use use smaller churches (with an attendance of less than 500 people) to reach into a culture that has forsaken God and a biblical worldview? Yes! And couldn’t those smaller churches possibly be just as effective (or perhaps even more effective) at helping other church plants get started and become stable, sustainable churches? Yes!
Once we became comfortable with not reaching mega status, we began to wonder if the effectiveness of these smaller churches (that started as church plants) could be improved if we worked together, not to become larger in size, but to become larger in impact and effectiveness. By working together, we mean an organic type of relationship that begins with common elements like possibly size, target (unchurched people, especially men), setting (suburban, urban, etc.), and approach to ministry (emerging, contemporary, etc.) and leads to focused periodic dialog with honest give and take that results in us all getting better.
We think a great way to do this would be to simply dialog around what works, what doesn’t work, and what we are considering. As we thought about doing this (via blogs and possibly even simple online meeting events) the thought hit us, What if we could help other church planters avoid the mistakes we made (sometimes again and again)? If we could just help them eliminate one of the mistakes we made multiple times, we could possibly save them frustration and money, help them better retain volunteers, and more importantly preserve relationships with people who don’t know the Savior.
We see this working very well if we can engage church planters that are only a few years apart in their planting cycle. This would keep the discussions applicable and allow all participants to “give and gain.” Some of these relationships may bring greater involvement (through help such as providing temporary advisory board members or even certified coaches). But as long as God provides the relationships and we can see churches benefiting, we will continue on this journey. Just like our church plants, we are trusting God to direct us. We are stretching our faith in Him to be used both inside and outside the churches we serve.
Lean Churches is simply church planters helping church planters.