Balance in Church Planting

Living a life in balance can be difficult…especially for church planters! These are 3 important lessons that I’ve learned along the way.

With so much compelling and important work to be done, it is easy to work too hard and too long.

At Dynamic Church Planting International, we encourage church planters to live “The Balance Principle” which states, “The church planter’s walk with God, family life, and ministry must be in biblical balance”.

In Acts 20:28, Paul challenges the Ephesian elders to “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.” Notice that Paul’s first challenge to the elders was for them to keep watch over themselves and then to keep watch of all the flock. Paul urges us to live a life in biblical balance.

As a church planter, I learned three important lessons that helped me (Scott) live in better balance.

1. Take a day off each week

I often wore my busy schedule as a badge of honor. I loved working. I thrived on running fast and hard. My dysfunction allowed me to work for weeks without a day off. I didn’t realize how out of balance my life was.

One day a ministry mentor directly, but lovingly, challenged me to honor the sabbath. He said that my busy work life demonstrated that I wasn’t trusting God to lead the ministry.
Thanks to my mentor’s challenge, I began to live in better balance.

2.  Find a hobby

A few months ago, I sat at lunch with a group of church planters and one of them asked the group, “What do you guys do for fun?”

Suddenly, the buzz in the room became a silence.

Here were eight guys who were laughing and talking together about their dreams and their plans for their church plants but when a simple question was asked about their lives “outside” of the zone of ministry the room became quiet.

Church planters need a life outside of their ministry. So … ride your bike, hike that trail, paddle out into the ocean, fish that stream, heck … walk your dog. Just DO something!

Church planters who live in balance last longer in ministry and are even more productive in ministry.

3.  Love your family

Very few people were able to enforce balance in my life like my son. I love that when I walked through the front door he was ready to “play”. He engaged me by showing up at the door with our baseball gloves. He tossed the ball in the air and said, “Let’s play catch, Dad.” He didn’t know about the 30 emails that still needed my response. He wasn’t aware that I had five telephone calls to still make. He didn’t know about my tasks that I wanted to finish before my head hit the pillow. He just wanted to spend time with me. He helped me keep my life in balance.

As you live out “The Balance Principle,” Paul and I are praying for you. 

Our prayer is that these three lessons will help your walk with God, family life, and ministry to be in biblical balance.

From My Heart to Yours,

Scott Kirk