Almost 4 years ago, I had the privilege to lead a church in the metro Houston area to launch a second campus in a growing area of our community. Without fail, anyone who visited the campus was impressed by the order and systems behind our ability to have excellent services, week in and week out, in a middle school.

One of the greatest allowances that I was given was the ability to hire consultants while I built the launch team and created those systems and structures. Bringing experts in the field of designing and constructing portable church components made me look much more detailed than I actually am.

Since I have seen them before, let me assure you that this is not a sponsored post, and that there are many competent groups and organizations out there to help accomplish a particular ministry focus. However, the decision to collaborate with Portable Church was one of the best decisions we made in launching our MultiSite campus.

One principle that I tweeted immediately after the campus launch was this: You get what you pay for. Consultants and outfitters are worth keeping you focused on casting vision and building the core team.

Every minute I did not spend designing cases, ordering chairs, purchasing trailers and figuring out how to get everything in and out of the school was a minute that I could spend casting vision and enlisting leaders. Often, I see church planters and campus pastors divided in their priorities, living in the time-tension of building the team versus building the boxes.

At Auxano, as a type of consulting organization, even we bring in strategic outsiders to help us see from a fresh perspective or accomplish critical tasks without straying from our core clarity tenets. When you interview a potential consultant, ask them who they use for fresh perspective into their own organization.

Bringing in a consultant is rarely in the budget, and it always opens the leadership up to the “why can’t you just do it questions.” But, the value of staying focused and doing what only you can do, is always greater than the cost of not doing anything substantial after all.

Taking the time for vision casting and team building is critical for campus pastors and church planters. To put it simply, investing in consultants and outfitters keeps clarity first. Ask yourself today, what are you doing that keeps you from doing what only you should be doing, and who can you bring in to help?