boyradd

Confessions of an Almost Church Planter

Planting a church is tough. There are significant organizations that have many years of experience and have hired some of the greatest minds in Christendom to figure out the best ways to plant a church.

Regrettably I am not one of those minds.

Almost a year ago my senior pastor approached me about planting a church in a town near to where I live. I was excited! We took a group of 3 guys and started meeting in a person’s house. Once we grew too big for the house, we moved to a community center. Unfortunately that is where the growth stopped and actually receded significantly.

In 2013 I graduated from seminary with a Master’s degree in church planting. I figured this was God moving in my life. I am pretty sure I was completely wrong about that, other than to use this as a humbling experience that, hopefully, will make me better for the next chance I get.

Over this time, I compiled a list of things that I learned. Some of these were learned the hard way, through experiencing it. Others came through talking to people like David Platt, JD Greear, and other church planters out there who have done this successfully.

• Church planting does not happen on a whim. Many reasons that plants fail is a lack of resources. Many times that means money, but it could also be human resources or support networks. The first thing that I learned both during seminary and while talking to actual church planters is that they started a small group in the sending church that grew to 20-40 people. Those 20-40 people would leave the sending church, agree to 1-2 year commitments in the plant, and get the plant started. If I was doing this over again, I would get leadership approval to approach people in the sending church who might be interested in this.
• There needs to be training for all parties involved. Having a church planter with a seminary degree in church planting is great, but if there is no training for all of the people involved into how to plant a church and grow a church, then there will be little chance of success. When I started our plant, I looked at it as an established church already. I was teaching on several topics that are very important topics, but they did not approach the important topic of how to plant the church we were planning. In the early stages as a small group, there need to be lessons, videos, and training on evangelism, church core values, and several other aspects of new church growth.
• Everyone needs to be on board. If the leadership is divided over a church plant, it will have little chance of success. Every single leader in the church needs to be praying for the success of the plant. And the plant needs to be continually praying for the success of the main campus. Every leader, whether in a campus or in the main location, needs to be unified under the goal of the church. If planting a church does not fit within the DNA of a church model, then it is not time to plant.
  1. On a side note, I do need to say that a church that is not planting other churches is not following the model laid out in the Book of Acts. The last 2 letters of the word “SIN” are “IN.” Churches that are in SIN are IN to themselves. The first 2 letters of the word “GOSPEL” is “GO.” Churches who focus on the GOSPEL will GO to the ends of the earth.
• Frustration will come. Satan does not want churches planted. If churches get planted, especially Biblically-based ones, then Satan knows he is going to lose some ground in spiritual war. In the early stages of planting a church Satan is going to attack hard. He will attack marriages. He will attack relationships. He will attack our minds and hearts. In the middle of planting the church, the 4 main men in the plant were impacted by significant job problems. My business lost a lot of money which meant I needed to take a second job to make ends meet. Another member of our planting team found a job in another state and had to relocate. Another lost his employment and found something new which kept him away from the men’s meeting and some of the Sunday nights. The fourth left his job and started a new one. All of this happened within the span of 45 days. During that time all the mens’ marriages were struggling as the men had to lead their families through transition. DO NOT underestimate our enemy. Satan will come to kill, steal, and destroy. And our former church plant is a good example of that.
• Prayer needs to be the primary focus of all leadership, whether in main or satellite. One of my biggest opportunities (ie. sins) is the fact that when I get to a point where I feel overworked, frustrated, unsuccessful, or unable to solve a problem I dig my heels in and work at it harder. Unfortunately, this typically leads to me praying less and studying Scripture less. This is something that I need to confess regularly and refocus myself. This is an area that I could use constant accountability.
• Accountability needs to be strong. The new campus leader and potentially the entire new campus leadership need to be meeting with main campus leadership minimally weekly but more likely several times a week until the campus is planted.

I believe the Bible is clear that we are to plant churches and that every church should plan to be a sending church. I want to give you some Scriptural verses to show that is the case.

Matthew 16:18 – And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

1 Corinthians 3:6 –  I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.

Acts 2:47 –  praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

1 Peter 4:9-10 – But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.