Don’t worry about your sanity; it’s already gone. I’m half joking. You are so on the edge of where most people live, doing and saying things few others ever attempt, much more dream of. And yet, you must find those “places” that give you a firm footing.
Are church planters a different kind of person? You bet they are! As one of my favorite movie characters, Matthew Quiqley, says, church planters are "a half bubble off plumb."
Why is this? One answer is to look at the idea of a call. A divine call is not an easy event to live with in one's life. It takes away our choices, leading us in directions that, perhaps, we would not have chosen for ourselves. Just look at the biblical prophets. Most of them were quite hesitant about taking up the prophetic mantle. And--most of them were just a little bit different.
We also need to look at planters' lives. Planters are people who fiercely live on mission. They have to. In their book Transformational Church (2010) Ed Stetzer and Thom Rainer talk about the missionary mentality as a "holy restlessness." People on mission ". . . have a restlessness about them. They refuse just to sit and soak. They are restless to look, learn, and live out the gospel (p.54).
Yup, that pretty well describes this breed of Christ-person we call a church planter. They are people restless with the spirit of God with a burning commitment to help others make positive decisions about the lordship of Jesus in their lives.
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