The 8 Mosts Common Objections to Church Multiplication - Objection #6 "There aren't enough resources" with Paul Fraser and Michael Bronson and special guest Wendy Payne.

This is our 6th most common objection to church multiplication; "There aren't enough resources". This objection finds its roots in a scarcity mentality. But where does good stewardship fit in here? Where does faith and risk fit in? Why don't we have enough resources? We are grateful to have Wendy Payne who is the leader of the New Churches Network in the PAOC Western Ontario District on the podcast to help us chew through some of these questions and so much more!

Transcript

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Hi everyone, welcome to the Multiple Network podcast. So great to have you back with us. These podcasts are part of our Every Church a Multiplying Church initiative and we are in a series of the Eight Most Common Objections to Church Multiplication. We know they're out there. We know that there are valid objections and we talk about that in this podcast, but we're just really excited to bring this podcast to you. Hopefully bring a new perspective to maybe an objection you have or have heard. And I'm glad I don't have to do this alone. Michael Bronson is the co-host for this series. Michael, good to have you. How are you doing today? I'm doing well, Paul. It's good to hear your wonderful voice. But hey, hey, before you ask me about my life, what's going on in your life? I hear there's some significant news going around in the world. What's going on? It's true. It's true. The last, I think last week or so, I have been a grandpa for the very first time. And I'm going with Papa, that's the next question that people ask me. So we're very excited for my son and daughter in law to have their first baby. He's healthy, he's wonderful and lives close. So we get to see him a lots. So, yes, thank you for asking about that. We believe in multiplication so much that we're having grandkids. It's exciting. Yeah, that's good news. You know, it's always funny whenever I talk to people that are parents for the first time, it's always so joyful and happy. But then I always remember how torturous and painful it is sleeping at night. And I'm just thinking, I'll be praying for you. I'll be praying for you. Well, not for me. Pray for Jamin and Jasmin. Yeah. You know, that's what -- I was like that t-shirt... I don't know, I probably need to buy it now, but I don't know this for sure, but I think I'm going to know this, that if we knew how great grandkids were, we probably would have had them first. You know, just that t shirt that you said. Yeah. So, yeah, so we're very excited. Yeah. And this has kind of been a theme the last couple of months that we've been doing this podcast. How are your allergies, Paul? That -- I think the people want to know. How are the allergies coming along? (Laughter) I wish -- My inbox is overflowing with questions, concerns. There's 24 hour prayer initiatives happening.(Laughter) Allergies are actually better now that the grass and the pollen is all stopped out here in Edmonton. So thank goodness. Yeah, we are, I think we're through it. Crossing our fingers. You'll get there. Paul. We're proud of you. We're so proud of you.(Laughter) Hallelujah. I'm going to get there. Well, let's not take too much time talking about allergies. Although I could talk lots about grandbabies. But Michael, we've got a great guest today that's going to help us talk about objection number six. And do you want introduce our guests today? Yes. Yes. We are so honored. So proud. My friend Wendy Payne, for the very first time is on the podcast. Welcome, Wendy Payne. She is the NCN Director in Southern Ontario, which is amazing. So that's a New Churches Network and she's just been doing an incredible job. She's been in the role for how long, Wendy, have you been in this role now? Since June. So just a couple of months. Fresh. Fresh. Yeah. Still new. We're glad you're here today. Thanks for helping share with us today. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Wendy, tell us a little bit about your ministry history, because I think it's going to -- You're probably going to have some examples when we talk about this objection today, on particular one season of your ministry. But why don't you catch us up a little bit for maybe those who don't know you all that well. So thank you. So I have been pastoring for many, many years. Lead Pastor. My recent one was lead pastor at Cedar View in Paris, but I am also a church planter. Planted a church on Manitoulin Island. And now I get to be the NCN, New Churches Network director, which means I get to help all kinds of other people become church planters now and walk the journey with them. So super excited to be doing this. Probably the best job ever. It's amazing. Love it. And I'm super excited to be, you know, seeing the journey and seeing people just reaching the lost. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. And we're great to have you. She's part of our Multiplying Network Lead Team. We just came out of some meetings just this week and just -- Yeah, looking forward to partnering with you, Wendy, and you with us. Today's objection is an interesting one. We hear this one a lot. And Wendy, I'm sure you will hear it from different leaders. You talk to them. Certainly this is one that is pretty popular. There aren't enough resources. There isn't enough money or resources to be involved in church multiplication. Michael, over to you. This seems legit, right? Like, don't you need a lot of money to do church planting? Yeah, this is. This is one of these objections. It might be the most practical and common sense one, because if you don't have money, you can't buy food to eat and that's not good. So, you need money. You need money to plant a church, or at least in a lot of models. Alot of different models you need that. And it's pretty -- This is something that's brought up a lot. And of course it's legit because we can probably all think of stories where there's been churches that have been started, you know, trying our best to do what God wants us to do and, you know, chugging along, working hard. And what happens at the end of the day is the money runs out and the church just isn't able to keep going anymore. And there's -- If you've been involved with church planting or just, really, just leadership in general, there's a lot of expenses for a lot of different things. Again, depending on the model, there's different models and maybe we can talk a little bit about that later. But this is definitely a legitimate, you know, challenge to church planting, an objection. But like every other time that we've met in this way and we've talked about objections, it all depends on the angle that you're looking at it from. And we don't have to just look at it as, well money's tough to fundraise, so it's not worth doing. No, no, no. It is possible and I'm excited to be talking about that today. Yeah. Great. Wendy, over to you. Is this something that seems legit in your world? Yeah. I mean, when we first decided to Church place on Mantle and I don't I got to say that was definitely one of our fears was how are we going to pay the bills? With our case, we started, we did a replant. So we already had a building, which meant we had electrical bills, like all the things and no people. But I have to say, just trust in God in that. And that maybe sounds like such the obvious thing to say, but I could write a book on how God came in and did like, I mean, the absolute miraculous, at the 11th hour. You know, just the provision over and over and over and over again is really mind blowing. And yeah, we have those fears that, you know, how am I going to pay my hydro? How am I going to put food on my table? But boy, God, just-- When you give it to Him, it's -- And from the most places that you never, never thought would happen. So, I think, I think we have to trust God, you know. Yeah. Oh 100%. And I think, Michael, getting back to your thought about model, if you're doing a, you know, a large launch model church, which is great, there's a lot of finances that are needed upfront to make that go. So a small church that's maybe 50 people trying to launch a church that's going to be at 500 at some point might be a challenge to have the funds to be able to do that. So I think when we think about this, yeah, that's a legitimate concern. But one of the things that I heard from Ed Stetzer, does a lot of research on this church planting. He actually said this, that there's no direct correlation between money raised and success of the church plant. There's never -- Like there's no - if you raise so much money, you'll be a successful church plant- because he's got more examples of, like, small budgets, big success; large budgets, small success or vice versa. That there's just this, this idea of like money can't be the reason that we don't do this. And while it's a legitimate concern, let's talk about the other side of it, because I think, Wendy, you brought something up that's really, really important. There's a faith step. There's a trust step. And so as we think about this now, we recognize the legitimacy that, yeah, money plays a factor, but it shouldn't be the only factor. Michael, what do you think is a good counter argument to this idea? Yeah, Well, well, it's interesting that you bring up that that quote from Ed Stetzer. And that's something that we should just be blasting everywhere. So everyone hears that because I think, I think so often it's money would be too hard not doing it when -- it isn't that interesting. There's actually studies show that money actually doesn't determine the success of a church plant. That reminds me of I was talking to a friend and he was saying that, you know, he's always looking to plant new churches out of his church and this sort of thing. And he was saying he's never concerned about money. Actually, he just is is concerned about who is the leader because the right leader, depending on whether there's money or not, the right leader will find a way to to do it. The right leader will tweak plans or change the model if they need to or, you know, go nimble if they need to, or fundraise the money they have to. It all comes down to to the leader, not necessarily how much money you have the bank account. Because you know, we can probably picture or we probably have these examples of stories, at least I can think of a couple, where the bank account was just massive. And what happens though, it just drains, drains, drains, drains, drains. And then you have this glorious bank account that all of a sudden turns to zero and the church shuts down. And then, of course, we have the opposite stories, where the bank account starts at zero, or maybe there's not even a bank account. They're just running, just, you know, doing their thing. And then all of a sudden, you know, you look a couple of years down the road and it's like, my goodness, there's this incredible church that came out of this. And I think that the key is thinking about where is God leading you? And because you said, Wendy - and it's cliche, but it's cliche because it's true. So it's not just cliche, it's a true statement - It comes down to trust. If God is leading us somewhere, then He's going to take care of us. And I think it comes down to discernment of, okay, Lord, are you actually leading us down this path? And if you are, then we trust you. Whatever, whatever ends up happening with that, we're just going to -- We trust you. Yeah. So there's a lot of wisdom there, Wendy. Yeah. Wendy, you obviously were the right person. Right leader for Manitoulin Island, you know. Tell us a little bit of that story. You started with -- You were probably one of those zero bank account church plants. Ooooh. We had literally nothing. Zero. Like, and not even a team. Like we had my husband and we had my daughter, who was still in Bible college, who would come home on weekends. So we had nothing. We had nobody and nothing. We would literally stand at the window of the church on a Sunday morning and just pray that somebody showed up. One week we had three visiting pastors. That was it. That was who I preached to. And, you know, it's crazy. I mean, you just, you do --. We had so little. And when I think about the events and the things that we put on. That really, to some people would seem so pathetic and so -- but like, cause you're just doing it on such a basic budget. But people loved it. And I think what the heart -- it's the heart in it. You're telling us what you didn't have, but what did you have? Because that's the thing. I know you didn't have money, but I feel like you had passion. We had passion, yeah. I feel like you had a burden. You had a faith. There was a courage. Like, maybe talk a little bit about that, because sometimes that's better than money. Oftentimes that's better than money. Definitely. Faith, passion, courage. We want to make this work. We knew that we knew that God called us there and somehow He's going to pave a way. And so you just plug through and you just start building relationships with people. And, you know, I look at Darrell, my husband, he got a job before we even moved there. I am a hairdresser before I was a pastor, so I needed the Lord to provide something for a job. And I ended up getting salon equipment literally given to me. I had a hairdresser from the island who randomly decided to stop working and gave me all of her clients. So day one I had a full clientele to be able to open up a salon. So I'm not conflicting with any other hairdressers on the island, you know what I mean? There's competition. So it was awesome how God just literally --. You just, you just have to make the commitment to trust God and say, God, I know that I know that I'm supposed to be here and now I give it to you. You make it happen. Yeah. And He does. Michael, any stories from you in that? Yeah, definitely. And I love hearing how how Wendy, you were bi vocational there and you --. Because what a good way to meet the community right? Because you've got people coming in from the community and you're building relationships and it's advancing your work with the church, but you're also making some money while you're doing it. Yeah, we've seen some really, really cool moments, too. And it's interesting because all of these really exciting moments, though, they were always -- the first step was always stepping out in faith without the answer. Right. We need to make sure that as planters and as people that want to risk for the kingdom, and start new things for the kingdom, we can't wait until all the answers are there. And it's like this perfect plan. Like every single thing is guaranteed to be perfect. There's got to be risk and that's where the faith comes in. So like, I'm thinking specifically, I mean, yeah, there's so many directions we could take it with this. But one of my favorite ones is, so we started our church in Binbrook village, which was a lot of fun, and we really felt like God was leading us to do a second. And we just did the math and it's like, okay, this makes no sense financially. And I remember we had worked out where I prayed to God, okay, Lord, by the end of next year, we need like an extra $40,000 sitting in the bank account. And right now it's like zero. So I'm willing to do this, Lord, if you want me to. But just practically, trying to be wise, we need at least 40,000 by the next year. And I just, I remember telling myself, Ok, this is a goal that, like, I'm going to take this whole next 12 months. By the end of the year, 40,000. I remember I prayed like it was the most pathetic wimpy prayer. It was it was like, Dear Lord, help us. You know. Like it was just like a couple words. It wasn't like, Hey, let's get together and fast and pray. It literally was like almost in fear. A prayer of like, oh Lord, you got to help us here, oh boy. And it was wild, though. Within five days there was $42,000 in our bank account. And that wasn't even that I reached out and asked someone. There was two people that reached out to me within those next five days and said, Hey, this is for you and the church, by the way. Oh, this is for you and the church. So I'm looking at this bank account now. I'm like, Lord, I was going to take the next 12 months to try to get to 40, and within five days you've already got it to 42. Okay, Lord, I'm good with this. And now, the other end of that, too, there's been many times where I have prayed, Okay, Lord, I've got this number. Lord, can you do this? And it's like (wahh, wahh) No. You got to be innovative. You got to be creative. It's like, okay, I'm going to think of it differently. So, so I don't want anyone listening to be discouraged of like, Well, where's my kind of moment where I gave God a number and the number happened five days later? Those moments can come, but a lot of the time it's not. And you got to be innovative and you just got to push through and make it work somehow, too. So I think you see both kind of extremes. And I think as you take risks for God, you're going to see both of those extremes. Wendy, how important was -- Thanks, Michael -- how important was prayer in this process for you, making it work and bringing in finances? In the beginning days, you know, we all have those moments. Did I make the right decision? And prayer was huge. I would literally walk the streets of our little town and just pray as I'm walking over the streets. And asking God like, please bring them in. Like, lead us, guide us, bring us, make those connections happen. So prayer is -- Like, I can't even tell you how important it is. Like it's got to be priority number one. And you have to have people who that you can count on that you know are going to pray alongside you, for you, with you, and have that team to kind of just say that they're going to stand in the gap and do that prayer journey with you. It's, it's vital. Like, you can't do it without prayer. One of my first questions that I ask

when I'm coaching a church planter: 18:26

tell me who's on your prayer team. That's good, it's good. And they look at me often, like, What do you mean? Yeah, like who - in this launch season, before you even started the church - who are the 5 or 10 people that are praying for you and your family and this church plant? I think --. I'm reminded of like, if you have the faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell this obstacle (or mountain) to move. And I think, I think there's churches out there that have a desire and you're allowing obstacles to stay in your way. And I'm just wondering if a focused prayer on that particular obstacle, whether it's be money or any of the other five obstacles we've mentioned, that if you just made this a point of prayer, I wonder if that mountain would move. Because I bet you both of you have stories that I've just heard now that the mountain moved because of prayer. And then for us to respond in obedience. I just don't know if we're going to see multiplication happen in Canada, if we're accidentally going to fall into it and all the money and everything will just be there. I don't think so. I think --. I don't think we're just going to fall into this magical war chest of funds. I think it's going to come out of people walking in obedience and faith. And I think it's going to come out of people courageously praying. And I think there's some churches and leaders out there, that are probably this is podcast going, I could never do this. And the answer is yes, you can. Yeah. And it's in God's heart. Yeah, for sure. And God always pays for what He orders. Right? That's good. He always pays for it. So if He's asking you to do it, He's going to--. He's going to make sure you're taken care of. Yeah. What's that--? What's that quote? My team always gets annoyed when I say it. I probably say it too many times. But it's "money follows vision", right? It's --. You cast the vision. You follow what what God wants you to do. And it's terrifying. And then God provides the money. The money will chase the vision. But it starts off with that vision. And what's that verse in James? Where it's you have not because you haven't asked. And I just wonder how many new churches could have been started? How many, how many areas of growth could we have in our churches? And we honestly just we never asked. We never said, Lord, can you bless this? And we make sure, as we jump out in the step of faith and take a risk, can you be taking care of this? And now, we want to balance that out with Jesus. What Jesus said, right? Where, you know, it would be foolish to not count the cost. You know, if you're going to start building a house, make sure you've got enough to finish to the top, not just the foundation, right. So we want to use wisdom. But like, we're leaders in God's kingdom. Like, we think differently than the rest of the world. Sometimes it takes, okay, Lord, I believe that you're leading me to do this, so I'm doing it. Please provide as we go. Wendy, how do we break out of that scarcity thinking then? Like, what were some things that helped you go from -- you know, I can't remember the size of the church by the time you had left, but I know that you had to knock out the back wall to make room for people. Yeah (laughter). Right? But how did you get around that scarcity thinking? Wow. I think, you know, as you start to see God provide in ridiculous ways. So if I can just give a quick story. We first started. We needed new windows in the church. And I had a pastor say, Come preach, just tell the need and - like Mike said, share the vision and the money will come. We needed $14,000 for the new windows and we literally raised it in one Sunday morning. Like that much money came in to pay off our windows. And I look at that and I go like, God just proves himself and shows himself time and time again. If you will just trust me. You know? So every time one of those miraculous moments happen, it just amps up your faith. It's like, I am just going to walk in the unknown. Take that step of faith in the unknown and just trust. God called me here. And I know that I know that I know that I'm called and I'm just going to walk in it and trust Him. It's that idea of keeping in step with the Spirit. We're not to run 100 steps ahead or be 100 steps behind, but to actually keep in step with the Spirit. The church planting journey, while you might have an end goal in mind, the church planting journey is a step by step. It's not --. You don't skip things. You walk with the Spirit. Michael, talk a little bit about that, because I know that's been very much the journey of Mountainside Church. Yeah, well, I always think of Psalm 23, right? The Lord is my shepherd. He gives me everything that I need. And I just have this conviction that the next step that God has for us as a church, in regards to planting, in regards to church growth, whatever that is, He's actually already provided exactly what we need. So it's like you said, it might not be the end goal in five years from now or ten years from now. You may not have all the resources yet, but for that next step, for the next month, for the next six months. What are the steps we need to do to start preparing yourself to get in a position of multiplication? Guess what? We actually have everything that we need. The Lord is our shepherd, for goodness sakes. So it's --. We're taken care of. So we just in faith, we take those steps knowing he's going to provide. Yeah. So we're at the part of the podcast where we need to bring more of the Bible in. And of course, Michael Bronson, you read your Bible I think? So, why don't you--. Why don't you--(Laughter) Why are you laughing, Wendy? Doesn't he read his Bible? I'm sure he does. I hope he does. I hope he does. (laughter) Well, I happen to read the Bible, yeah. It's a little important. It's really important. It's really important. So what are the scriptures that we need to discuss relating to this objection? Oh, yeah. There's a lot we could pull from that's talking about this. You know, this just this generosity mindset versus scarcity mindset. That God has more than enough. So we've landed today on just the classic money psalm here, Psalm 50. And, you know, I think if we're, if we're actually treating it in context, God's talking about how He doesn't need sacrifice. But it shows the concept that God owns

everything. Psalm 50: 25:19

9, He says, "I have no need of a bull from your stall or the goats from your pens." This is all the wealth and resources back in those days, "For every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills." So in other words, I own everything already. Everything. You know, God is saying, everything you give to me, I already own it. And it's essentially, if God wants to do something, it's already funded. It's like, period. You know. If He's called us to something, He provides for it. And again, like we said earlier, we're going to hold that in tension with what Jesus said about who would lay a foundation if you can't build a whole house. So we're going to use wisdom, we're going to discernment, listening to what God's leading us to. But if He's leading us to it, we actually can jump with total faith that He's going to provide for it. 100%. And so, the counter statement that we're saying is there are more than enough resources for church multiplication since we serve a God of more than enough. I think about all the times where God was more than enough throughout the scriptures. And it just requires, again, this idea of trusting the Lord more. Like that old hymn, 'Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus. But the last line is, "oh, for grace to trust Him more". And so this is how we need to not have that scarcity mindset, but have a generosity mindset. Because that's the mindset of our Lord. That's the mindset of God. And that is the mission of God, that He wants to do more and more and more. And He's not going to stop until, you know, until everyone has been reached. Until that day, where everyone --. That He just will do it. And so anyways. Wendy, any thoughts about what Michael said? Do you think you need to adjust any of his theology, or are you pretty happy with it?(Laughter) I'm pretty happy. He did a good job. Phew! That was a close one. It was a close one. So since we believe and think that we serve a God who is more than enough, what are some of the action steps that we need to do as leaders in the church today? Yeah, I think first off, we should be tithing. And I don't know everyone listening philosophy on tithing. Either way, generosity or, you know--. Tithe and be generous, or just be generous, whatever. But I think we need to be leading the way with that, as us personally, as families, tithing to our churches. Churches tithing to districts. And I would just encourage every leader as well in the early stages, in the early days of your church, preach on generosity. Preach on giving. Don't let it become this awkward taboo thing where you're, you know, you need finances, so you start preaching on it and it becomes this, it's problem preaching. No, let it become proactive preaching. Let it be that this is a good godly discipline to do, and this is what God's calling us to do, to be generous. And just, one more challenge on kind of this whole topic, just a practical takeaway is if we don't feel like there's enough, let's be innovative, then. You know, maybe God's actually pushing us to do something a little different. Maybe what we have in our head of what we think God's calling us to, maybe God actually is okay with a different version of that, which looks different. Maybe you don't need to rent out that specific venue. Maybe it looks like a different venue. Maybe it's not hiring a full time staff. Maybe it's a part time staff. You know, we need to think outside the box. And, either way, if God's called you to it, chase after it. Don't don't stress about the money. Easy to say. Easy to say. (Laughter) And easy to say. It's so easy to say, but it's so important. Craig Groeschel -- I've heard him several times -- But he says one of the best gifts to his church, early on when he was having a church service out of his garage in his street, was that they had no money. It forced them to be innovative. And they still today, as the largest church, I think in the US, are still very innovative. And so let's not--. Don't think that you can just buy your way out of every problem. Right? There's some things that--. It was a good balance, Michael. You have to be both that fundraising, thinking about finances, believing God to move the objection, but also looking for opportunities to be innovative. Great thoughts there. Wendy, your thoughts? If we have this idea that there are more than enough resources for church multiplication, since we serve a God who is more than enough. What are some action steps that you think we need to take? I'm going to say to continue just really working on your trust level with the Lord. And really walk -- I mean, I know we talk about faith but we have to really put action into our words. Spend time in God's presence. Don't be afraid to tell Him. Ask Him what you need. Don't be afraid to cry out to Him and let Him know what are the areas that you're looking for. And just walk in that faith and trust. And believing that you're there. Walk in the confidence that you're called. And--. It just makes no sense. Like it to the human mind it makes no sense to walk in doing something when the resources don't appear to be there. It doesn't make sense to the human brain. I don't know if you can actually articulate it in words. But it's just trusting God and knowing that when you are faithful to Him, He is going to be faithful back to you. And knowing that, I think, is priority. It's good. I would say Pastor, Leader in church - wherever you're at, however you serve in the local church - make this a point of prayer. Bring it to the Lord. Ask the Lord, Hey, should we be involved with church multiplication? And be okay with His answer. Even if the answer is yes, I want you to do this. To hear some of the thoughts we had around this objection today and to just make it a point of prayer. And I think you'll start to see doors open. You'll get direction. You'll feel peace about how God is leading you. Even though you might not know everything that is going to happen and how it's all going to roll out. But what you will know is that God's going to be with you in it. And that's the most important thing anyways, is that you know that He's leading you in it. So make it a point of prayer. Respond to the prayer with a yes in your heart to whatever He's asking. And some of you may be like, It's yes, but not yet. No problem. Continue to make that a point of prayer. But we just think money is not a great reason to not start a new disciple making community. And so, Michael and Wendy, thank you for jumping on today. As always, Michael, thanks for being our co-host. And Wendy. For your very busy schedule, that incredible learning curve that feels like a 90 degree angle, I'm sure. There's no curve in it. It's just straight up. You're doing a great job in New Churches Network, and so glad that you jumped on today. And Michael, thanks again. Folks, just as we end here, we do have a resource that we think will be helpful for you. It's the Church Readiness Assessment. It's on EveryChurch.ca. And we think that this 35 question assessment will give you a starting point. Will give you, you know, a sense of maybe how ready your church is to multiply. Of course, make it a point of prayer, take the step, all the things we said. But this is just a real practical tool that you might realize, Wait a second, we're actually closer to being a church that's ready to multiply than we initially thought. And then, if you want to be a church that multiplies, you can see the areas that you need to grow in. If you want some coaching or some consulting around that, we'd love to help, to see you grow those seven areas that we think you need to be proficient in to be able to start a new church. So that Readiness Assessment is there. It's free for you, so hopefully you can take advantage of it. So thanks so much for joining us for our six of eight podcasts on the Eight Most Common Objections to Church Multiplication. We'll have another one coming out soon. And thanks so much for being with us today. Well, thanks for listening today. We trust this conversation was encouraging. If you want more information on church multiplication resources or if you think we can help you in your church multiplication journey,

reach out to us by email: 34:37

multiplynetwork@paoc.org. Until next time.