We Didn’t Expect

‘We Didn’t Expect…’

If you're navigating unexpected storms, remember that church planting often is accomplished in the face of opposition.

Tim Hawks and John Herrington

Expect failure. Be relentless about the right outcomes. Relentlessly pursue your vision and values. These are just some of the principles Hill Country Association churches have adopted as they sought to become what Hill Country Bible Church Senior Pastor Tim Hawks calls “church-planting churches that are part of a movement.” Reaching the growing population and diversity of Austin, Texas, Hill Country churches have established a church plant training center, a church planting residency program, led church planter training groups for a denominational spectrum of planters and have planted 28 churches throughout Greater Austin. As of September 2014, Hill Country Austin currently has 14 church plants, seven grandchildren plants and three great-grandchildren, with two more on the way.
In their new eBook, Saturating Austin: A Strategy as Big as Your City, Hawks and Hill Country Bible Church Senior Executive Pastor John Herrington share their multiplication journey, concluding with five top things they’ve learned through this Texas-sized adventure. In this blog post, the authors share three of those five lessons:
1. Expect failure.
We’re convinced that if we’re never failing, then we’re probably trying too hard not to lose. Despite having a well-funded, well-trained and comprehensive strategy, we have discovered that church planting is accomplished in the context of opposition, both from spiritual warfare as well as cultural resistance.
Without exception, all of our church planters have experienced great hardship. We have seen a litany of choruses to the theme of “We didn’t expect…”

• To lose our house to foreclosure back home
• To miscarry
• To nearly die from a mysterious sinus infection gone bad
• To suffer from puzzling, undiagnosable medical conditions
• To see an elder commit adultery two months after launch
• To have to move five times in a year
• To find our community so unreceptive to the gospel
• To see our core group splinter and abandon us
• To discover a pastor’s wife involved in adultery
• To find a pastor’s children and wife often weeping at night
• To witness a pastor have a heart attack and die in our second year
• To suffer from harsh depression
• To have an unexpected pregnancy…with twins (and we already had three)

All of these things have been the unexpected circumstances of heroic men and women who have gone into battle and suffered great loss for the sake of the gospel. Jesus said, “No one goes into battle without first counting the cost.” We underestimated the costliness of church planting and the toll it would take—making us increasingly sober and cognizant of what we’re asking planters to do.
Without clarity of conviction and theological certainty, we would lose our resolve and lack the nerve to press into the difficulties.
2. Relentlessly pursue your vision and your values; beware of fads.
Chasing the latest trend that surfaced out of a successful leader’s latest book poses a terrible danger. We have been pastors long enough to see at least a half dozen of these trends (more pejoratively called “fads”) come and go.
The churches with a sustained impact have maintained a continuous narrative over many years. Hill Country has not always been immune to being influenced by popular trends, but we have consistently articulated a city-reaching dream, of one day presenting our city to Jesus and of having been faithful to share the gospel with every man, woman and child in our city. One of the mitigating factors against chasing fads has been our governing board of lay elders, godly businessmen who don’t generally read what pastors read. As you probably know, pastors tend to get together and start dreaming up new things to chase after rather than focusing on grinding out good solid ministry that focuses on multiplication and discipleship.
When I (John) was candidating for the Hill Country Church Plant Training Center director position, I was treated like a celebrity. I thought I might be perceived as the guy who was going to siphon off the best leaders. Instead, it wasn’t uncommon for me to hear, “Oh, we need you! We have been praying that God would provide us with someone to help us plant churches.”
Additionally, I was invited onto the executive team, the directional team of four pastors that oversaw the execution of our strategic plan, which meant that church planting wasn’t buried in the third-level basement of the organization. It got high visibility. I spoke on Sunday mornings, I was featured in videos about our vision and our progress, I engaged with staff, and I influenced our direction as a church. When budget time came around, we sacrificed staff positions that would accelerate our “addition” growth. The church paid full-time salaries for me and up to five church-planting residents, as well as an administrator—all for the sake of multiplication. Those salaries could’ve made a huge difference in our growth at home. And nobody blinked!
The upshot is this: What gets celebrated gets done. When a new church plant has done the heavy lifting of missional groundwork, has recruited a team, achieved critical mass, and has seen people come to faith as a result of their efforts, we have them stand on the stage on Sunday morning, light candles and march out of the building singing songs of victory. In turn, everyone watching who has the Holy Spirit living within him or her has to think about when it will be their turn to march out the doors, candle in hand, on the same mission!
Vision statements and core values are trumped by the culture you create and nurture. Vision statements are often aspirational, but what you do every day of your life and how you prioritize the various areas of ministry indicates what you truly value. Everything else is just talk!
3. Be relentless about the right outcomes.
In the early days, there was a strict adherence to a certain way of doing everything. Since then, we have lightened up for the sake of contextualization as we discovered nuances of culture within the city. However, we have stayed consistent with our doctrine and our elder polity, but just as consistently we have remained committed to certain agreed-upon outcomes.
All of our church plants are coached for up to three years. Coaches hold the church planter and that church’s elders to a clearly defined “win”—that they become a self-sustaining, multiplying church that will prevail for the next 20 years. We used to call this “moving from daughter church to sister church” status. However, this maternal language fostered a maternal expectation that we’re supposed to take care of and nurture the plant, all of which implied extended financial support and sending additional people to the plant, etc. So we changed our language to define a maturing process from “church plant” to “church-planting church” status.
To become a church-planting church, we coach our plants toward five metrics:

1. the goal of having 200 adults in worship
2. two additional elders
3. one additional staff member
4. the capacity to give away 10 percent of their income toward missions
5. a church-planting initiative as part of their strategic planning.

These five metrics are indicators of healthy levels of critical mass, community, leadership development, financial stewardship and multiplication. Of course, there are many other indexes of health, but these are the five we coach toward.
While not every city can expect to see similar results, we believe there is a fundamental principle that transcends the city in which you live, or the quality of the leaders you are able to discover and develop. The magnitude of the question you ask will determine the magnitude of what you attempt to accomplish. If the foremost question in your mind is “How can this city help me build a great church?” that is too small a question. The greater question, regardless of your limitations or opportunities, should be, “How can our church help our city become a great city?” When we ask that question, we can discover the joy of multiplication.
To learn more about Hill Country’s multiplication story and read all five lessons Tim Hawks and John Herrington share, download the FREE Exponential eBook Saturating Austin: A Strategy as Big as Your City.