I just spent an hour with two church planters, Jay Brooks and Andy Sink.

I thought I’d blog something I shared with them.

I think the toughest part of church planting is managing emotions and managing motives. Church planting is an emotional rollercoaster. You fluctuate between excitement and discouragement. I don’t know too many church planters who don’t have frayed emotions on launch day!

The other challenge is managing motives. If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons it doesn’t count in God’s kingdom. If your motives are wrong nothing is right. If your motives are right you can’t go wrong.

In all honesty, I think I do everything I do with mixed motives. On my best days I’m doing what I do to glorify God, but there is always some selfish ambition mixed in. You can want your church to grow for the right reasons–to see more people come to faith in Christ. Or you can want your church to grow for the wrong reasons–to feed your ego.

I think we could use some raw honesty when it comes to emotions and motives. Most church planters resonate when I tell them that I’ve faced severe discouragement at times and I’ve done the right things for the wrong reasons.

By the way, what is God going to judge at the end of the day?

Not the size of our churches!

He’ll judge the motives of the heart–why we do what we do.