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Your Calling Can’t be Calculated: Assessments and Almost Moments in Church Planting
Assessments can be helpful. They cannot be holy. They can inform a conversation. They cannot replace Holy Spirit discernment.
I’ll never forget the day my sending church pastor walked into my office with an email in his hand. He said, “We got your score back from the church planting assessment— specifically your entrepreneurial score. It came back a 38.” Now, I’m a life-long straight-A student. I hear a number like that, and my mind immediately rounds it into good news.
So, I said, “Wow, 38 out of 40? That’s awesome.” He didn’t smile. Instead, he pensively said, “No … 38 out of 100. And the assessment team is questioning whether you should plant.”
There are moments where a single sentence feels like somebody opened a trapdoor under your feet, like in the cartoons. I can still feel the mixture of confusion in my mind and heat in my chest, as I felt, again, like the cartoons, I was turning completely red from my feet to my head. I didn’t know if I was more embarrassed or angry. But all I knew for sure was that this number can’t tell the whole story.
To his credit, my pastor didn’t come in swinging the hammer. He came in steady. He said, “I told them I believe in you. But we need to look at this and evaluate why this score is so low.” That’s what good shepherds do. They don’t dismiss the data. They also don’t hand your calling over to it.
And that moment, if I’m honest, was one of the first “almost” moments in my church planting journey.
Not “almost” like I lost my faith.
“Almost” like a door almost closed. “Almost” like a path almost ended before it began. “Almost” like a calling almost got reduced to a subjective, $99, online evaluation tool score.
The Question That Forced Clarity
A couple of months later, I went to the in-person assessment. At one point, they asked me a question that I understood why they asked, but it still landed heavily:
“What are you going to do if we tell you no?”
I paused. I didn’t want to be arrogant. I didn’t want to be flippant. But I also didn’t want to pretend their decision was ultimate. So, I looked them in the eyes and said:
“I’m going to go plant anyway. Because you didn’t call me to plant. God did. God is the one who called me to leave my home church, leave my hometown, move to a city I’d never really known, and give my life to plant a church, to make disciples, and see the city transformed by the gospel.”
Now, let me be clear: I’m not anti-assessment. I’ve participated in more church planting assessments than I can count. They are vital to the church planting process. There’s real, biblically mandated wisdom in listening to many counselors. Scripture teaches that. Humility requires it.
But something was off in that moment. Because what was happening in the process wasn’t “trusted voices who know you helping you discern.”
It was near strangers … people who didn’t know my story, didn’t know my character, didn’t know my scars, didn’t know my prayers … taking a couple tools (tools that are not purely objective, tools that require interpretation) and trying to paint a picture of what I was capable of, or what God might do in and through my life, based on my answers to a handful of questions.
And I remember thinking:
God’s calling on my life is bigger than the assessment. God’s calling on my life is bigger than the opinions of people who don’t actually know me.
Hold Both Hands Open: Counsel and Calling
If you’re reading this and you’re in your own “almost” moment, maybe in church planting, maybe in leadership, maybe in ministry, I want to help you hold two things at the same time.
1) Wise counsel is a gift.
Don’t despise it. Don’t reject it. Don’t spiritualize your way out of it. If a trusted leader says, “Hey, this is a gap,” don’t call it persecution. Call it discipleship. Ask questions. Get honest. Invite people into the process. God often protects us and prepares us through the loving clarity of wise counselors.
2) Calling is not the same thing as compatibility.
Some tools measure temperament. Some measure wiring. Some measure tendencies. Some measure patterns. None of them can measure what only God can see: the heart … the hidden obedience … the prayers in the dark … the refining fire … the private faithfulness.
And this is where things get real: don’t confuse “This doesn’t fit our model” with “God didn’t call you.”
Those are not the same sentence. Assessments can be helpful. They cannot be holy. They can inform a conversation. They cannot replace Holy Spirit discernment.
A David Moment in the Fields
This is where I think Scripture gives us some help.
In 1 Samuel 16, Samuel goes to Jesse’s house because God is going to anoint a king. Jesse brings out his sons, and you can almost feel the assumption in the room: Surely, it’s one of these older brothers.
And God says something that should put every human evaluation system in its proper place: “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
David isn’t even invited to the lineup. He’s left in the fields. Overlooked. Unconsidered. And here’s what’s fascinating: David wasn’t being prepared in the palace. He was being prepared in obscurity. He later tells Saul that while no one was watching, God had put him in front of a lion and a bear, and God gave him victory (1 Samuel 17). Not because lions and bears are the same as giants, but because God was building something transferable in him: courage, calm under pressure, reflexes and readiness, faith in the face of fear, and the habit of running toward danger, not away from it.
And that’s the point. There are parts of God’s preparation in your life that people will never see. There are battles you’ve fought in private that didn’t make it into your résumé. There are moments of obedience that nobody clapped for, but heaven marked them. There are “lions and bears” you’ve survived that don’t look impressive to a committee, but they were God’s classroom.
So yes, God looks at the heart. But God is also the One doing the preparation. And sometimes the people evaluating you simply can’t account for what they can’t see. There’s a lot of talk today about self-awareness, but not nearly enough about God-awareness.
“You’re Not David” … and Also, Learn from David
Now, I can hear somebody warming up a Matt Chandler clip right about now.
There’s that famous moment where he says, “You’re not David!” And the point he’s making is right: the Bible isn’t a collection of moral hero stories where you’re the main character. Jesus is. David ultimately points forward to the true and better King. Amen. Fully agree. And … I still think we can learn from David. Because the same Bible that tells us Jesus is the greater David also tells us, “These things were written for our instruction.” (See Romans 15:4.)
So, let me say it like this: You’re not David, but if you’re walking through an “almost” moment, David can still teach you something about how God calls and prepares leaders in unseen places. Don’t build a theology that makes you the hero. Build a theology where God is the Author and learn how He writes.
If You’re in an “Almost” Moment, Here’s What You Need
Let me offer a few things I wish someone had handed me as a short list back then.
1) Don’t let one score become a prison sentence.
A metric is information. It is not identity. If something is low, don’t panic. At the same time, don’t pretend it’s irrelevant. Ask what it might mean. But refuse to let it define the total story and lock you out of your call, literally or emotionally.
2) Find voices who actually know you.
There is a category of counsel that carries a different weight: people who have watched your life over time. Not people who met you on Zoom once. Not people who skimmed an application and prospectus. Not even people who have seen somewhat deeper into one side of your life. But people who have seen your marriage, your humility, your repentance, your endurance, and your faithfulness.
Calling is best discerned in community, especially by leaders who have earned the right to speak. (And this is another apologetic for a deeply involved Sending Church!)
3) Separate “fit” from “faithfulness.”
Sometimes you’re not a fit for a particular system, model, or moment. That doesn’t mean you’re disqualified from ministry. It might mean you need different support, different partners, different training, or a different lane. But faithfulness to the call of God cannot be cancelled out by a measurement of human compatibility.
4) Let the process refine you without robbing you.
If there’s a weakness, address it. If there’s immaturity, grow. If there are blind spots, invite them into view. But don’t confuse refinement with rejection. Sometimes God uses resistance to strengthen your resolve and deepen your dependence. And hey, sometimes people, even a group of people, can get it wrong. And if they do, God will use that, too. Because remember, He’s not just doing something in your life through this process, He’s doing something in theirs as well. God might be using their miss in your life to teach them something in their lives, if they will watch and listen. And He’s God, so He has the right to do that.
5) Anchor yourself in what God already said.
When doubt is loud, you don’t need a new revelation; you need to remember. Remember what God did in you. Remember what God confirmed through others. Remember the steps of obedience that got you here. Because there will be moments when the room doesn’t see it yet.
And you’ll have to say, quietly but firmly: “I’m listening. I’m learning. I’m staying humble. But I also know what God called me to do.”
The Door Almost Closed … and God Still Wrote the Story
Here’s what I know on this side of that “38”: If my story had been decided by a single measurement, I would’ve missed the joy and burden of planting.
I would’ve missed the people.
I would’ve missed the baptisms.
I would’ve missed the lives, marriages, and families restored.
I would’ve missed the miracles you can’t manufacture.
I would’ve missed watching a church become a sending church, over and over again.
I would’ve missed watching the gospel ripple into a city through dozens of churches planted.
I don’t say that to brag. I say that to make a point: Sometimes the “almost” moment is the moment God uses to clarify whether you’re obeying people … or obeying Him.
So, if you’re there right now—if you feel the sting of being misunderstood, underestimated, or evaluated in a way that doesn’t feel like it captures the whole picture—don’t despise wisdom.
But don’t surrender your calling to strangers either. God sees what they can’t measure. And the same God who calls also prepares, sometimes in fields nobody applauds.
Keep your heart soft. Keep your spine strong. And keep taking the next faithful step. Because the door that “almost” closed might be the very place God proves He’s the One writing the story, after all.
