Church planters and pastors, please listen to me.  You are NOT Gary Lamb.  You’re not Steven Furtick or Ed Young either.

I’ve been blessed to know Gary Lamb for many years now.  He’s an amazing man and gifted leader that pastors an incredible church.  Gary built that church with God’s help out of nothing and I am as proud of him as I can be.  I consider myself blessed to be able to call him my friend and there is a ton that we can all learn from him and others like him.  At the same time, I get worried when I hear of people trying to copy him or Furtick or Hybels or Ed Young.  The truth is that you need to be yourself.  Learn from others but be yourself.  Find out how God has wired you and what He has called you to do and then go do it.

As much as I love Gary, there are some things that only Gary can pull off.  Gary will tell me stories sometimes and I’ll laugh until I think I’m going to puke.  I laugh because Gary’s stories are always so Gary-ish.  That’s because he’s Gary Lamb.

One of the biggest keys to solidly leading a great church is being teachable and learning from everyone at all times while also knowing how to filter out what will and won’t work for your specific calling.  Everything that works at Revolution and Elevation won’t necessarily work at your church and that’s okay.  There are a ton of things that you can do at your church that would never work at Revolution, Elevation, Fellowship or Saddleback.

The trick is to look for principles that do carry over.  You’ve got to ask God to help you to see the principles behind the actions and then ask Him what that might look like for your locale.

(To be continued…)