Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can do what others can’t.
Jerry Rice
I’m a lifelong 49ers fan. I probably watched almost every game Jerry Rice played in. In his 20-year career, he caught 1,549 passes, for 22,895 yards and 197 touchdowns. (records he still holds 20 years later) There is no question he was talented but his training set him apart.
In his book Talent is Overrated, Geoff Colving writes: Most remarkable were his six-days-a-week off-season workouts, which he conducted entirely on his own. Mornings were devoted to cardiovascular work, running a hilly five-mile trail; he would reportedly run ten forty-meter wind sprints up the steepest part. In the afternoons he did equally strenuous weight training. These workouts became legendary as the most demanding in the league, and other players would sometimes join Rice just to see what it was like. Some of them got sick before the day was over.
We consistently give too much credit to talent and not enough credit to training. I’ve flown more air miles than most people – as a passenger. Could I fly the plane? Today, that would be a very bad idea. If I got training, and spent time practicing with an experienced pilot, I’m confident I could learn to fly a plane. I wasn’t born a pilot but I can become a pilot with training. I wasn’t born a church planter but I became one with training. So could you.
In my experience, most people respond to this claim with “No way, I could never become a church planter.” I disagree. A church planter is a person with a combination of gifts, talents, and skills they use to make disciples and gather them into a community centered around Jesus and committed to his mission. I wouldn’t go so far as to say anyone can be a church planter, but I’m certain far more people could than do.
The question isn’t whether someone is gifted enough or talented enough to be a church planter but whether they are willing and disciplined enough to do the training required to become a church planter. Dallas Willard wrote, “as disciples, we are not trying to be different people, but we are training to be different people.” In Christ, it is possible to do tomorrow what you can’t do today. Even to become tomorrow who you aren’t yet today.
This possibility fuels Multiply Project. We want to make the training and coaching needed to become a church planter readily available to anyone willing to do the work in the context of their local church.
Yes, that means there are church planters in your church. They just haven’t been trained, yet.
If you would like help training the church planters in your church, start here.