Send Network is a family of churches joining in God’s activity of planting churches for the expansion of His kingdom in North America and beyond.
Critical to this bold mission is the equipping of church planters.
We develop planters in nine essential qualities for faithful and effective ministry.
One of our essentials focuses on a church planter’s calling: is he confident in his calling?
Calling and commendation bring together the inward desire to start a church along with outside affirmation from other leaders.
Calling speaks to one’s inner conviction or ambition for the work.
Commendation speaks to the need for others to recognize and affirm the planter’s gifts and maturity required for the work.
Both serve to provide confidence in the life of the church planter.
So how does a church planter exhibit confidence in his calling to plant a church?
- He has a deep compulsion for the work.
- He has a sure sense of God’s vocational leading, confirmed by his local church’s elders or leaders.
- He seeks the Lord through prayer with others for affirmation of God’s calling on his life.
- He is passionate about serving God and deeply aspires to be a planter and minister of the gospel.
- He sets a godly example for others and has a lifestyle that is above reproach.
- He demonstrates spiritual gifts necessary for the tasks.
I remember the season of God’s calling me and my wife to plant a church.
The pastors at my home church had affirmed me to ministry, ordaining me as an elder earlier that year, but they had never planted a church and didn’t know where to start.
My wife affirmed the calling.
My friends and close family members affirmed the calling.
I even went through a church-planting assessment where they affirmed my gifts and qualifications.
Yet, I knew there was something missing…one piece of affirmation not yet in place: that of a sending church.
My sending church pastor, a dear friend who had discipled me in college and believed I was being called by God was asked this question: would you follow him into this work?
To which he whole-heartedly said, “yes, absolutely!”
But then he was asked, “Would you send your family…your wife and your kids…to follow him into this work?”
He paused for a moment and then said with deep love yet absolutely sobriety: “Not yet.”
But almost a year later, after my church-planting residency was finished, the elders of my sending church laid their hands on me and my wife and prayed to send us out.
My sending pastor told that story.
And then he said, “Now you’re ready.”
You see, he wanted to be absolutely sure of my calling.
And now he was.
And so was I.
May God continue to call more planters to join His kingdom activity through Send Network in our neighborhoods and among the nations. And may our 11,000 plus churches go into the world each day with confidence that God is calling people to Himself, knowing that as the gospel is proclaimed, many will respond in faith.