In the last 10 years of planting a church, I’ve learned that there are many voices that want to tell you what you should do in your church.

But I’ve narrowed it down to 3 types of people:

1. Theorists – This is the researcher who writes a book on how to run your Small Groups ministry even though he’s never actually run one.

2. Practitioners – This is a guy who’s actually doing it, just in another part of the country (or world)

3. Local Practitioners – this is the guy who’s actually doing it, but he’s doing it in your city.

I know I’m going to come off as hard here, but I put very little stock in theorists. I think their stats have value, but not when they using their data to tell Pastors how to run their churches.

I love the work of practitioners. I want to know that the guy I’m listening to is doing what we recommends and that it’s working.

But my favorite person to listen to is the local practitioner. This is the guy that knows how to implement in your city. Sometimes you have to shake the trees to find this guy, but if you search hard enough, you’ll be able to find him. I’ve found that most Pastors are more than happy to meet with local Pastors and share what they’re learned.

Too many guys are reading the latest “Theory” and it’s hurting their churches. Listen to guys who have done it. But that’s the advice of someone who’s actually doing it 🙂

I go into much greater detail about this idea in our brand new resource, “Ministering in the Hard Places”. You can pick up a copy by clicking here.