I have known planters who never stopped moving.

Up before dawn, out the door, preaching in a home in the morning, visiting in the afternoon, teaching at night. Conferences. Meetings. Trips to town. Phone calls. Always busy, always tired, always sincere. Ask him what he did last week and he can fill an hour telling you. Ask him where the church will be a year from now, and he goes quiet.

He has no answer. Not because he is lazy. Because he never sat down and decided where he is going.

That is the mistake: a church plant with no clear goals, direction, or focus. Plenty of ambition. No aim. And ambition without aim is just motion. It wears a man out and builds nothing that lasts.

The Mistake Is Not Laziness

Do not mistake this for laziness. An aimless planter is usually the hardest-working man on the field.

The problem is that every need on the field screams at once, and he says yes to all of it. Someone is sick, so he goes. A meeting is called, so he attends. A building needs fixing, so he fixes it. A man wants counsel, so he counsels. A visitor asks for a study, so he starts one. Each thing is good. None of it adds up. A month goes by, and he cannot say what was built, only that he was busy.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18).

Without a clear picture of where the church is going, the team scatters its strength. One man pulls this way, another pulls that way. The work spreads thin in every direction and deep in none. People grow tired, not because the work is too hard, but because they cannot see what the work is for.

A church plant that does not know where it is going will always measure itself by how busy it is. And being busy is the easiest measure in the world to fake.

Count the Cost Before You Build

Jesus gave the cure in one short picture.

"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish" (Luke 14:28-30).

Before the first stone is laid, the builder sits down. He counts. He figures out what it will take, how long it will take, and whether he can finish it. A man who skips that step is not a man of faith. He is a man building a foundation he cannot finish, and the mockery that follows is not the world's fault. It is his own.

A church plant is a tower. It takes time, money, men, and years. A planter who will not sit down and count the cost will start well and stall halfway, with a foundation and no walls, and a team that has lost heart.

Sitting down does not show a lack of trust in God. It shows a man who trusts God enough to think. God gives the plan, and the man counts the cost.

"A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps" (Proverbs 16:9)

. The devising is our part. The directing is His. A man who will not devise a way has given the Lord no steps to direct.

Ambition Is Not the Problem

Let me be clear about one thing. Ambition is not the problem.

Paul had ambition, and he said so plainly.

"Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation" (Romans 15:20).

He wanted to preach where Christ had never been named. He wanted to reach the far places. That is ambition, and it is a good and holy thing.

The problem is ambition with no mark. Paul knew exactly what he was aiming at. He said it himself:

"I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air" (1 Corinthians 9:26).

He did not run uncertainly. He did not beat the air. He knew the mark, and every step moved toward it.

A planter who will not set a goal is a man beating the air. He throws punches all day and lands nothing. The sweat is real. The results are not.

And here is the reason so many men avoid it. A goal written down can be missed. A number named can fall short. A date set can pass with the work undone. It is safer never to name the mark, because then you can never fail to hit it. But a man who refuses to name the mark has already failed to hit it. He just never has to admit it.

Write the Vision

God told Habakkuk to write the vision down.

"Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it" (Habakkuk 2:2).

Write it. Make it plain. So plain a man can read it while he runs. That is what a goal is. Not a secret wish in the planter's head. Something written, something plain, something the whole team can read and run with.

I have always told men the same thing in our Bible school work: if you expect it, write it down. A goal that lives only in your head is a wish. A goal written down is a plan. Put it where the team can see it, and they will know what they are working toward.

What does a clear goal look like for a church plant? It is plain, and it is dated, and it can be measured without lying about it.

By this date, these men will be trained and ready to lead. By this date, the church will have its own elders. By this date, the church will carry its own bills from its own giving. This many families in this neighborhood will have heard the gospel from us. This many new believers will be baptized and discipled this year.

Those are not numbers for the sake of numbers. That was a different mistake, the numbers game, and a full room was never the goal. These are directions. A goal is a compass, not a scoreboard. It tells the team which way to walk, and it tells a man whether he is walking that way or wandering.

Nehemiah knew what he was building. Rebuild the wall. That was the goal, plain enough for every man on it.

"So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work" (Nehemiah 4:6).

The wall went up in fifty-two days, not because the men were stronger than other men, but because every man knew what he was building. Put a man on a wall with no plan, and he stacks stones at random. Give him the plan, and he builds until the wall is done.

"The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want" (Proverbs 21:5).

 The diligent man thinks first. The hasty man runs first. One ends with plenty. The other ends with want.

Press Toward the Mark

So what does a planter do with all this? He sits down. He counts the cost. He writes the vision plain. Then he shares it with his team, so they are running toward the same mark he is.

And then he does the hardest part. He keeps the mark in view, week after week, and he checks the work against it. Not to beat himself up when he falls short. To adjust, to correct, and to keep walking. A goal that is never checked is a poster on the wall. A goal that is checked is a road the team is actually on.

Paul finished his course looking back at a mark he had pressed toward all his life.

 "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).

One thing. That is the language of a man with direction. Not ten things. Not everything. One thing, and everything he did served it.

A church plant team that knows its mark can work together, pray together, and wait together. They can tell when they are on the road and when they have wandered off it. They can correct course early, before the year is gone and nothing was built. And when the Lord blesses the work, they will know what He blessed, because they will have watched the goal they prayed over come to pass.

Aimless ambition will burn a good man out. Clear direction will carry him, and his team, to the mark. Sit down. Count the cost. Write it plain. Then run with all your heart toward the mark God set before you.