Here’s the thing, a lot of guys have started churches before, but I haven’t. And I can read their books, attend their conferences, listen to their podcasts, and quote them ad nauseam, but that still won’t give me their experience.
Sure, it will pass down wisdom, but I still don’t have the experience of the moment to draw on. For instance, tonight I made phone calls to some very specific people that I am praying will consider joining our support team. I had to sit down, pray over each of them, and somehow, coerce my hand into dialing their number.
I know these people. I know that they care about me, my family, and the vision that God is giving me. But calling them was incredibly difficult. Why?
Because I’d never done it before. I’d never called someone and asked to meet them in order to share my ministry vision and our financial need before. I had the wisdom as to what to do, but lacked the experience of having done it before.
That’s one of those crazy things about church planting that I expect will be the case all along the way: just because I’ve read it, doesn’t mean that I’ve done it.
And that’s true of more than raising support. You can read books on evangelism all day and have wisdom, but you won’t have experience until you’ve sat down face to face with someone apart from Christ and helped them along in their journey.
You can read books on leadership until you’re quoting Maxwell, Collins, and Covey until you’re blue in the face, but until you’ve had the responsibility fall directly on your shoulders, you don’t have the experience.
What have you read about but not done? What’s holding you back?
