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Jesus is real. He is with you. He is for you. He is your pastor. And he wants to be the pastor of your church. These statements might seem obvious, but what if we all took them seriously? Aaron Gerrard did just that in his journey to plant a church in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. In the new book, Quit Pastoring Your Church. The story of a small church making Jesus their pastor, Gerrard shares candidly about his journey to start a new kind of church by allowing Jesus to be the guide and it radically impacted the story of this new congregation. Part memoir, part church planting guide, part leadership model handbook, join Aaron Gerrard for the journey he went on in an attempt to quit pastoring his church.
Introduction: A couple of times a year I get to work with men and women who are considering starting a new church. We call it a Design Shop. It is a project of the New Leaf Network, a collaborative group of Christian leaders from a broad spectrum of denominations. These people are working to help the Canadian Church discover new potential, with new conversations, new leaders, and new initiatives. Some attendees participate with merely an emerging idea and a sense of new purpose, some have started a project, and some are far enough along into an initiative that they are starting to question their sanity. Regardless of where a person fits, these are my favourite people to hang out with. They are dreamers, risk-takers, and innovators. In the face of our current culture and many of the obstacles therein, these people are willing to try. Something. Anything. It may be something that lasts a while. It may be something that ends quickly. But they are going to push forward. And I love it.
Before starting my work as a church planter I attended the Design Shop. It was so helpful and inspiring that I took it again as a refresher course a few years into my church’s new life. Soon after that, I was asked to come on board as one of the instructors. I agreed, but on one condition: I wanted to develop a new session about the centrality of Jesus. Thankfully, whenever you phrase something like that, you make it extremely difficult for someone to reply with a no. My idea was accepted and now, among other things, I conclude the Design Shop by teaching a session I entitled, Jesus as Pastor. My problem with teaching this session at the Design Shop was that I only have 45 minutes to unpack it. Which is why I find myself here, writing a book. This book is what I wish I could say in my 45 minute session.
