10 Things That Are Harder Than I Expected

From the excellent church planter blog, Shaun In the City, a list of Ten Things (about church planting) That Are Harder Than I Expected:

Starting (and growing) a brand new church isn’t easy. I’ve made a ton of mistakes since we launched 6 months ago and aired some of my dirty laundry for you by sharing a big ‘ol list of mistakes here. However hard you expected it to be, plan on it being much harder. Some people say it like this, “If you could (or want to) do anything else, do that.”

Sounds harsh, but church planting, while fulfilling to the core, is just hard. I can’t say it any simpler than that.

Here is a quick list of 10 things about starting Courageous Church that have been much harder than I expected. They are not in any special order.

Over the course of this week, I’ll be breaking down a few of these areas in more detail. Let me know in the comments section if you want me to expound on one in particular.

If you are a church planter, do any of these resonate with you?

1. Fostering Real Diversity

2. Raising Money

3. Finding and Managing Good Musicians

4. Following Through on Lofty Promises

5. Training New Leaders

6. Not Bugging People about the Church

7. Pushing the Creative Envelope

8. Balancing Church Work, Family Life, Education

9. Informing People of Tough Decisions

10. Sticking to Our Mission/Vision

All of those resonate with me (though #3 was only a challenge until our worship pastor, Sharla, came on board). But to those I would have to add:

11. Communicating clearly and effectively

12. Handling conflict

13. Stopping gossip

14. Inventing and installing effective systems

15. Structuring for growth

That's not everything, of course. But it's a start.