Enjoy this candid take on the grittier side of church planting, by a pastor who’s living it. Have your own secrets to share? Add them in the comments, and look for Part 2 on Thursday. –Paul
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
We are in the midst of a great missionary movement in North America, as many young pastors are heeding the call to plant new churches. I write as one in that movement, having recently planted a church in a North American city.
Planting a church has been the greatest adventure of my life so far. I love the church that God has birthed, and count it a privilege to lead and pastor the people of my congregation and city. I intend to lead our church to plant other churches, and know many church planters who would say the same things. Together, we praise God for a movement that has turned the local church outward, brought many to faith in Christ, and is contributing towards the flourishing of American cities, towns, and families—even when other structures are disintegrating.
Despite my positive experience and high regard for the church planting movement, I have observed some unsavory realities.
But despite my positive experience and high regard for the church planting movement, I have observed some unsavory realities too. They’re church planting’s "dirty secrets," because they’re not . . . tactful . . . to talk about in polite company. But to all you potential church planters out there—you need to know what you are getting yourself into. To all you denominational leaders out there—I want you to know the dynamics of the field.
Let's take off our rose colored glasses. There are some things we need to talk about.
Dirty Secret #1: Church planters are treated as commodities with a market value.
If you are preparing for church planting, prepare to be sized up “according to the flesh." It’s a mostly unspoken process, but it comes out in questions like this:
- “How many people do you have on your team?” (Above all, the #1 question)
- “How long have you been doing this?”
- “Are you actually reaching people in your neighborhood?”
- "Are you reaching non-Christians or just Christians from other churches?”
- “How much money/people/resources did you start with? Did you come with a team?”
All of this adds up to an American church planting “badass quotient”: kingdom fruit minus starting resources divided by time equals how much of a church planting badass you are.
Let's break this down:
1) Count up the kingdom fruit attributed to your church plant (# of conversions, # of people, socioeconomic diversity in your church, # of churches planted out of your church, etc).
2) Then, subtract the number of resources you started with (people, money, amount of time living in your planting area, cultural openness to Christianity). Divide that by the amount of time it’s taken for you to do all of this. The result? How much of a badass you are. Let's say you planted a thriving, racially diverse church in the least-Christianized neighborhood in the region and saw 500 people come to faith, including atheists, muslims, corporate executives and loft-dwelling artists. Not only that, you started with no team, no funding, just a lot of faith. And you’ve only been going for 3 years. In this case, you would be a Serious Church Planting Badass. On the other hand, let's say you planted a church in suburban Atlanta that was 70 white people, and you started eight years ago with a team of 40 and startup funds of $500K. You're not much of a badass, according to the quotient. More like a nice guy.
Similar to how people unfairly size up a woman based on her surface appearance before they know her story and heart—church planters are sized up and judged accordingly.
Similar to how people unfairly size up a woman based on her surface appearance (body, face, measurements) before they know her story and heart—church planters are sized up based on these surface realities and judged accordingly. When people ask a pastor: "how many people do you have?" this is the equivalent of looking a woman up and down as she walks by. Potential launch team members, potential leaders, potential funders, potential friends, and other onlookers, friendly or not, will evaluate you and estimate your worth based on non-eternal trivialities.
When your market value is high, people want to buy in; they want a piece of you. Your legitimacy grows and so more people might come to check out your church. Sometimes it leads to speaking invitations or book deals. You’re the one giving the testimony, the advice. Seeing growth, conversions and kingdom action justifies you in the eyes of others; they begin to regard you as an expert. Thus, being a "successful" church planter puts you in a perilous spiritual environment, enticing you to the hell of the enslaving badass quotient. Keep at it long enough, and you might become what David Brooks called “a shrewd animal who is good at playing games and begins to treat life as a game.”
Some former church planters talk about how they cash in their church planting chips for a plumb position at an established church. This happens all the time—parlaying your personal market value which you established through church planting. Others have treated your soul as a commodity to be bought and sold; then you start doing it. A shrewd animal you become.
Others have treated your soul as a commodity to be bought and sold; then you start doing it. A shrewd animal you become.
When your market value is low, people pity you, avoid you, offer advice or condolences. In short, you’re no longer justified. The choice at this point is either: huff and puff and make a case for yourself, or stop, be free from the game, ignore the quotient, and be justified in the eyes of God. This market value game is a trap, and the sooner we can lose hope in it, the better. God’s grace opens a way of escape so we can follow our call again.
God's grace makes it possible for any church planter to regard this quotient for the fiction that it is. You have nothing to prove to anybody. Don't let the false myth of American Church Planting Hero sink into your identity. Pay attention to God's call on your life instead and work every day to internalize your true status as God's son and daughter. When the onlookers ask you "how many people do you have?” – Don’t be a jerk about it. Just tell the truth. The best way to face into the reality of being sized up is to tell your honest story, and point people away from yourself to the God who called you.
Dirty Secret #2: The church planter’s issues will become the church plant’s issues.
There’s no way around it: angsty church planters beget angsty launch teams; stingy church planters beget stingy congregations. Your emotional maturity and spiritual health—or lack thereof—will have an outsized influence over all aspects of the church: your preaching, pastoral care, congregational culture, mission, budget, and leadership development. As Edwin Friedman notes in his book Failure of Nerve, a leader of a group is like the brain in the body. If the brain is full of anxiety and striving, the body will follow suit. So rather than trying to having it all together and projecting an image of perfection, church planters are free to walk with a limp, admit their flaws and insecurities, and rejoice in God's sufficiency and his love for them in Christ.
Your emotional maturity and spiritual health—or lack thereof—will have an outsized influence over all aspects of the church.
People join if they connect with the church planter—his or her story, preaching, interpersonal style, soapboxes. Like the book title says, "It's Personal." It's wonderful when the church grows beyond this and people stick to the community for other reasons. If you are planting a church, you must pass through this gauntlet first. Like Jesus, you are on display. Your personal patterns, values and blindspots will attract people and set the tone for the way they interact with each other, with God and with the culture.
Given this, its quite possible that you shouldn't be church planting. Yes, the current class of church planters (and church planting hopefuls) include those who are definitely not called. It’s okay to admit that; church planters can quit their project because it was the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place. God shall not be stopped, but maybe you should be. Phil Vischer’s wisdom is helpful here: “there’s a difference between a vision from God and an idea you really like.” Some people whose dream it is to plant a church should be unilaterally denied the opportunity, lest people get hurt in the process. Some people who are recruited and funded for church planting have no business church planting. Some people whom God has not called to church planting can still effectively use God-called-me-talk. The best way to find out whether or not it is God's will is for you and your spouse (if you have one)to be known, loved, and assessed in a reliable way by the body of Christ.
Dirty Secret #3: Church plants exists in an environment of religious consumerism.
Though you are called by God for his mission, you will also be subject to the entanglements of consumeristic choices and the ways of the world. The people God has called you to love and serve have whims and temptations. If you are planting a church, you will be flirted with, and hooked up with, and often abandoned for the next cool thing.
If you are planting a church, you will be flirted with, and hooked up with, and often abandoned for the next cool thing.
The truth is that when people are discerning whether not to join your church or your mission, it is highly about you. Your background, your credentials, your capacity to connect with them. They want to be cared for and cared about as they make their decision and as they consider Jesus. But when they decide to bail, all of a sudden it's not about you. Even though it feels like it is. You get to see how people really are; and then you realize you've done that stuff too. God in his grace gave me a major “aha” moment: Wow, I've been just as selfish and flaky towards the church. I am a consumer, and only Jesus can deliver me.
Signs of desperation will scare people off, while signs of legitimacy will draw them in. Signs of desperation can include: too few people, hard-selling, self-promotion or begging on the part of the church planter, a sense that the church planter's identity is too tightly wrapped up in the success of the work, church planter couple "doing it all" with no buffer, and backward momentum.
Signs of legitimacy can include: people showing up (above all else, this is the #1 sign to people of your legitimacy, whether that's fair or not), the presence of children, recommendations from someone's trusted friend (the informal church yelp word-on-the-street), ample funding, quality leaders, nice signs, nice space, and a quality website. It is quite possible that God in his mercy has called you to a place of desperation as he did Jesus and Paul. Their ministry thrived and found its completion and fullness in the Garden of Gethsemane, shipwrecks, beatings, public crucifixion, imprisonment, human contempt, appearances of failure and abandonment by the big crowds. God caused their ministry to bear great fruit in settings of desperation. Is it possible that is your calling also? If it is, are you willing to receive that calling?
We love to feel like we are part of making history, leaving a mark. You know what we don’t like? The dishes; chair set-up and tear-down; painstaking follow-up via email, recruiting for the nursery for the next launch team meeting, and coordinating the next potluck.
An old adage says, “Everyone wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes.” People love a good story, an exciting movement, and want to get involved with dynamic people. We love to feel like we are part of making history, leaving a mark.
You know what we don’t like? The dishes; chair set-up and tear-down; painstaking follow-up via email, recruiting for the nursery for the next launch team meeting, and coordinating the next potluck. Most of church planting is doing the dishes, and your challenge is to connect the dots from the church planting vision to the church planting grunt work. You are not calling people to be spectacular; you are calling them to come die with you. You are not calling them to make history; you are calling them to wash feet.
If you live by the buzz, you will die by the buzz. Buzz is the excitable, contagious chatter about the church plant you’re leading. Buzz is people showing up to the initial meetings, people you’ve never met. Buzz is the admiring curiosity that cranes its neck to see what exactly God is doing around you. If in pursuit of the church planting vision you’ve quit your job, moved your family, fundraised from the ground up, undergone a grueling assessment, completed weeks of training, fasted, prayed, organized, recruited, believed God yet wondered to yourself if it will add up to anything, a little buzz feels downright intoxicating. After all the initial sacrifice, buzz makes it feel like the kingdom of God is about to descend, that heavenly fire will consume the altar you’ve built with your own sweat. You might get buzzed off the buzz. I sure did! But friend, don’t trust the buzz, because the buzz is not trustworthy. People will flirt with your church, making subtle or overt promises to join or help you. People will flatter you and speak breathlessly about your new initiative, let them but let not your heart make plans around their empty promises. Watch instead for tangible decisions— watch the actions, not the flirtations. Do people move to join you, show up to meetings after the mystery is gone, contribute financially, participate in the actual, tangible mission? You may have many opportunities to be gracious to people who make all the promises but none of the decisions. After all the buzz had died away at our church, I remember doing a personal study in the Gospels. I had to read for myself how Jesus’ ministry seemed to attract so many people at launch, yet drove most of them away when it became clear that he was leading them to salvation through death.
If you live by the buzz, you will die by the buzz.
So prepare for abandonment. No matter how healthy your church plant, people are going to leave, and it will hurt. Perhaps it will be a family that moves to the suburbs for the schools, a staff member whose spouse gets a job in a different city, or maybe something messier and more personal. If you are putting yourself out there as a pastor leading a church, you are locking arms with Jesus, who is always there, and often left behind.
The truth is that launch teams often burn away. They can function like the rocket boosters that get your church into orbit, which eventually fall off the rocket for one reason or another. It is the nature of apostolic, entrepreneurial personalities to be drawn to new ventures and away from existing structures. This can also be the eventual impact of the rigors of church planting on lay people. Even if your launch team burns away and gives way to a different group … they always belonged to God in the first place, and so do you. They were never "yours". Both you and them are always God's. There is incredible rest in this.
