I used to flat old-school work my butt off and I prided myself on it. Yet my perfectionist side considered me a failure. I could not get my stupid churches to grow. I could blame a lot of different people and different things, and those would all be valid, but since I believe everything rises and falls on leadership, I can't hide behind those other things. I had to take responsibility for my part. I wasn't a leader. And I considered myself a failure - such a failure that I left pastoral ministry for a year and even messed up my body's ability to regulate itself and its moods, so I wasn't just a crash and burn. I was an epic crash and burn.
Then I went to a godly counselor in Columbus, IN, named John Brumbaugh, graciously paid for by our then-church home (a great congregation named New Hope Christian Church). John took me on a several days long cathartic journey that brought out my failings, my insecurities, my arrogance, and let me purge them for my own health.
One day he mentioned a verse where Jesus was talking to Peter about the foundation of the church, but it was the center section that hit me and rocked my life: "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it (Matthew 16:18 NIV)." In all of my years of study and education, how in the world did I miss that? Jesus said He would build the church. In fact, He didn't ask me to do anything of the kind.
With that new perspective, I went back into ministry and for the first time in my life actually enjoyed it - and it was a fairly unhealthy, dysfunctional church! :) I had learned that my role wasn't to do God's construction work for Him, but to make sure that I didn't interfere - and that no one else did either.
That's why I have a pang of conscience when I use the term "church planter" in reference to myself. I'm not really a planter. God's the Planter. I'm just a gardener that works to keep the weeds out of His way as much as I can. I still work my butt off, but my focus is now His, not mine pretending to be His.
