We are just into Year Two of the church plant. It’s going OK. We’re hitting most of our targets. All of the things – easy and hard – that you’d expect to be happening are happening. I should be happy. But I’m tired and a bit grumpy. I find my internal narrative is often a bit anxious and whiny. “This church planting thing is so unique and so difficult. I feel lonely because no one who hasn’t ever church planted would understand just how hard it is…” Blah blah blah…

But then I talk to Andrew.

Andrew does my hair. He’s a bit expensive, (actually eye-wateringly expensive), and my hair looks fab at the end. But the main reason I’ll keep going to Andrew is that he helps me with my whiny internal narrative.

Andrew is about as different to me as you could get. I’m an anglo, straight, married church planter with great hair. He’s a Lebanese, gay, single hairdresser. And bald.

Yet every time I talk to Andrew I feel better about church planting, because building up a hairdressing salon and helping lead a church start-up are so similar. Here’s what we’ve agreed we’ve got in common about our start-ups:

  1. We are passionate about its growth – we’re not content with where it’s at
  2. We eat sleep and breathe it, ‘cos we aren’t just employees
  3. We feel the successes and failures keenly, and that’s emotionally destabilising
  4. We know that if it’s to grow, we have to trust others to do stuff – not be a ‘one man band’
  5. We get frustrated when others don’t do stuff as well as we do
  6. We make it hard for others ‘cos we micromanage them instead of training them
  7. So we’ve both got a coach we meet with regularly
  8. We are totally dependent week by week on who decides to walk in the door
  9. We know we need to take holidays to stay fresh but there’s never a perfect time in the year
  10. The whole thing exists on a shoestring budget and teeters on the edge of not being viable.
  11. But we love it and believe in our product and wouldn’t want to do anything else.

 

So, I’ve got my next hairdo booked for after Christmas, with Andrew’s church planting coaching session thrown in free!

– by Cathy Tucker