If I Had It To Do Over Again ... (part 2)

If I had to start RBCC over again, here are some things I would want to do again:

Be foolish enough to do it.  I think you have to be a little foolish to start a church and trust that God will build His church (Matthew 16:18).  I'm thankful that we were "unwise" which gave God plenty of room to work!  According to the wisdom of church planting, you should ...

• Not meet in a space that will feel empty with 200 people in attendance.  We did ... in fact the Wink (lower level) was probably only a third full and we didn't use pipe and drape or close a single section and it felt empty ... except for I guess there was room for God to work!


• Have a worship leader.  We didn't.  In fact, we only had a keyboard and electric drum set.


• Have your technology nailed down.  We didn't.  We had a 10-year old 500 lumen projector with a bulb that had never been changed and we didn't have a replacement!  We projected onto a screen that looked like one we used when I was in 5th grade!


• Have excellent children spaces.  We didn't.  We used the upstairs lobby for nursery and dismissed k-5th graders to the theatre's dressing rooms which had no heat, and required going down a 2.5 foot hallway!

It's funny but knowing what I know now ... would we still have started our church on September 8, 2002 ... ? I ask myself that a lot ... but I sure am glad we did!!

Stress student ministry.  Lots of theories on this one but Beth & I decided from Day 1 that we were going after teenagers like crazy.  Everyone says do a great children's ministry from the Day 1 if you want young families to show up and/or come back.  However, some say wait on student ministry until you have more resources and leaders.  We didn't wait and now when college students are over at my house on fire for Jesus because they "had Rock Bridge" in high school ... I'm so glad we did Student Ministry from Day 1.  AND students bring their parents to church because most parents get excited when their teenager is excited about Jesus and His church ... as opposed to some other alternatives :)

Renew and repeat the vision regularly.  Somehow we just keep repeating our vision with regularity so that no one was too confused about why we started Rock Bridge: >50,000 unchurched (as of 2002) in Whitfield County alone.  We do a yearly "Vision Sunday" that renews our passion for connecting people to Christ and His community.

Let others get in on it and give stuff away.  We attracted a number of Christians who were looking for a church to bring their unchurched friends to and to be passionate about serving.  We quickly got many of them involved in key leadership roles, ministry teams, etc.  For example, much of the business (finances, property issues) of our church has always been handled by some amazing people who are not on our staff.  God has people prepared to come alongside and build His church through His people.  It takes people to reach people.  God sent us some amazing people who very quickly bought into the vision of RBCC and we have set them loose to do ministry ... and they have attacked that 50,000 number!!