IN 1978, AFTER THREE YEARS as a college and youth pastor, I moved with my wife and son to the Chicago suburb of Evanston to plant a church. I was twenty-four and bristling with ambition. Riding the wave of the Jesus revival, the college group I had helped lead had grown to eighty. I heard reports of Illinois churches growing rapidly, and I revered their pastors as role models. I dreamed of planting a church in Evanston that would grow to number in the hundreds.

We started with only three people—myself, my wife, and our two-year-old son—but I had faith and a plan. I would distribute literature door to door in a several-block area and then telephone each of those families the same night.

We moved into our second-floor apartment on Washington Street, and I started working the neighborhood. After slowly developing a list of twenty or so interested people, I tried to launch meetings at the local Holiday Inn, but only a handful came and those never returned. I kept working my plan but I was never ...