This week I came across an old note from the end of our first term recording lessons we had learned and were learning when it came to church planting among our Central Asian people group. It’s been six years since I wrote this note, but these takeaways hold up pretty well. For context, see where I’ve written elsewhere about lessons learned from a wolf attack and why it took 7.5 years to raise up our first local elder.
1. Leaders MUST present a united front when dealing with a divisive man, guard against him dividing them.
2. Some believers feel entitled to rent money if meeting is in their house and church salaries. We need to address this upfront.
3. Dig much much deeper before committing to a believer with a really bad reputation.
4. Speak openly about how giving money is and is not used, reinforce regularly that we do not believe in Jesus in order to get money.
5. Be much slower with traditional locals to brainstorm about starting businesses, etc., due to patron/client entitlement issues.
6. Local believers will go to their leaders first when they see a problem with another believer rather than address it directly. This is what they know to do. How to navigate this?
7. Men are tested both by how they use money and what they do when they are not given money. Same thing with power.
8. Meeting in someone’s house gives them a certain measure of power. It is then very hard to discipline them because of that power.
9. Believers bitter about money can very easily twist the truth about our financial situation as missionaries and use it effectively to destroy trust.
10. We should look for trustworthy locals who can interpret indirect communication that is happening around us.
11. Locals will gather semi-publicly if they see a vibrant body of believers, will invite others.
12. Locals will grow in a simple meeting with worship, prayer, and biblical teaching – even if led by foreigners.
13. Some local believers are too quick to do the sinner’s prayer and pronounce someone a believer.
14. House church meetings could use a clear, visible, executive leader to call the shots publicly, but we should guard against the cultural strong man inclinations.
15. We may be somehow able to ask for proof to back up believers stories about persecution, theft, etc. But not yet clear how.
16. It is very tricky to navigate more than two cultures at a time. Multicultural teams have their pluses as well as their minuses.
17. Beware of the Facebook Christian industrial complex that can be predatory. We are not working in a vacuum. Prep believers for when they are approached by outsiders with promises of money, cooperation, or traditions that we have not introduced.
18. Watch out for believers who are super judgmental of small things and other believers. They might be in hidden sin.
19. Mutual clarity on next steps every single week is crucial to avoid misunderstandings as a team.
20. The level of duplicity practiced by some locals is far beyond what we have experienced elsewhere. Pray for supernatural discernment.
21. Locals are not passive regarding leadership. Some will seize it if they see an opportunity. Firm biblical plural leadership is needed, without giving up the temporary apostolic leadership model.
22. Locals tend to idolize then demonize their leaders.
23. Locals in meetings are helped by a clear program and clear boundaries. They are drawn to structure, plans, organization, and institution while we are heading in the opposite direction because of our own Western culture. Our orientations toward institutions are very different. We are skeptical while they are enamored. Seeing a certain amount of organization and program may be part of the threshold which makes locals feel free to gather with others.
24. Our joy must not be rooted in our friends’ performance or in the status of the work!
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Entrusted to the Dirt 
This was a prayer-prompting post for me. Thank you. Shared this with the other three men who lead our fellowship. Looking forward to the discussion it will generate.
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