Painting is a lot like church planting.

If I was to just walk into our house and slap some paint on, over time the paint would begin to peel off and look real nasty.  So we must sand, and wipe down, and patch holes, sand some more, tape, lay down tarp, prime, maybe prime again, and finally paint…and maybe even paint again.

The point is, it took us forever before we were even able to paint.  And that sucked.  We wanted to just paint.

But I think many church planters get in the same boat.  They just want to open the doors.  They forget that there is a lot of prep work that goes into it.  And most of it isn't fun.

A few years ago I met a guy named Devin Hudson who was starting Grace Point Church in Vegas.  The dude had been there a year and hadn't even held a service.  He raised money, did servant evangelism projects, got the legal side of the church set up, got the business side setup, cast vision, cast vision, cast vision, and cast vision.  Just in the few days I spent with him I realized how extremely difficult and time consuming church planting is.

So if your thinking about it, take a gut check.  Make sure your called; make sure you have a work ethic; and make sure you do the prep work first!