There are two occasions in my journey as a church leader where I have personally learned the value of paying the price…
In the fall of 2001 someone handed me a brochure that talked about a conference in Grapevine, TX called C3. I had never heard of Fellowship Church or Ed Young; however, I went online and began to research what was going on out there…and my mind was blown. Keep in mind at this time NewSpring Church was VERY young, had VERY little money and we were still doing portable church.
BUT…I had to go…and not only that, I HAD to take every staff member with me! At the time we had five paid staff members and one full time volunteer. So…I called and bought us tickets to go (and did not tell Fellowship that we were a young church, we were all broke and that coming to their conference was going to cause us to deplete our bank account.)
WE PAID THE PRICE! We flew to Dallas, stayed in a cheap motel and were the first ones to get to the conference and the last to leave. We soaked it up like sponges…and could not WAIT to get back and tell people about what we had learned. (God ROCKED our world that year!)
BUT…one of the things that we noticed when get got back was that the volunteers leaders in the church who had not gotten to go with us were very excited that we had such a great time…but they didn’t “get it” because they had not had our same experience.
SO…in 2003 we took 15 people to C3!!! We bought plane tickets and rented very cheap rental cars! We stayed in a cheap hotel once again (we MAY have broken the rule on how many people you can have in a room!) AND…we paid a price to do this! Once again, we didn’t call and ask for a discount…we agreed that a price needed to be paid if we wanted to go to the next level…and…
We made an investment instead of making excuses!!!
AND…I would say that Jesus used those two years in an incredibly powerful way to impact all of us personally and the ministry of our church! It wasn’t easy to say goodbye to the money we had to invest…but it was worth it as the people who were on those two trips still talk about how moved we were by what we saw!
One other time this hit me…
In 2006 I had an opportunity to attend a leadership roundtable that Billy Hybels was leading. I really wanted to go…to sit in a room with Bill was a dream of mine come true; however, the cost was $5,000! FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! WOW!
I wrestled through this…and finally decided to NOT go! (In fact, I began to get critical of Bill and the fact he was charging so much! “After all,” I thought, “if he loved Jesus wouldn’t he do it for free!”)
Then…the next morning I happened to be reading Proverbs 4:7…and that verse hit me like a TON OF BRICKS!!! (Seriously, click on the verse and read it!!! It was like God was shouting at me through a megaphone!) I thought back to my experience when we took people to Fellowship…and the principle that leaders who make a difference are willing to pay the price impacted me again.
SO…I signed up…THAT DAY…and the experience I had at that particular roundtable impacted me and the ministry at NewSpring in an incredible profound way. As I look back I did not spend $5,000…I invested it…and that investment has MORE than paid for itself.
Jesus wasn’t a cheap leader…and if we want to make a difference then we don’t need to be either. We are going to have to buy books (instead of asking for a free copy), go to conferences, and make investments if we want to grow as a leader.
Church planters and pastors…you will experience unbelievable blessings when you STOP looking for the easy way out and trying to pursue a vision that costs you nothing.
One of the MAIN differences between leaders who get things done and leaders who merely react to all that is done to them is that the leaders who get things done are willing to pay the price!
God has great things in store for you…so do whatever it takes on your end to go to the next level!
Pay the price…HE DID!
Pay the price…HE DID!