Church Planting for the Rest of Us

On the football field, one of the things that makes a good quarterback is his ability to quickly assess a changing situation and make changes to gain as much yardage as possible even if the play comes apart.

The same is true for church leaders–especially church planters.

As I mentioned in my last post, part of the reason why planting is often more difficult than we anticipated is because things happen that we didn’t anticipate.

We get kicked out of our “great location.” The people we thought would never leave walk because we didn’t have a cool enough youth ministry. We, or someone in our families, has an unforeseen health crisis.  In a fallen world, stuff happens. In church planting, LOTS of stuff happens.

And just like a good quarterback, effective leaders turn these moments of opposition into opportunities for God to work. 

An opportunity to run a new play that hasn’t been tried.

An opportunity to hit a new receiver that hasn’t put any points on the board.

An opportunity to depend upon God like never before only to see Him do something we have never seen before.

Every opposition can be an opportunity if we have the flexibility to call the necessary audibles to keep moving the ball up the field.

To cultivate ministry flexibility, I recommend the following practices:

1. Assess your current “flexibility quotient.”

How well do you deal with change in general? What are some situations that have required you to “shift on the fly?” How adaptable have you been in the past?  What is not working right now that is in need of an alternative solution? All of these questions can be important tools in moving us from where we are to where we want to be.

2. Stretch out.

Study the flexibility of the Church in Scripture. Watch how they responded when something unexpected happened. Though there are a number of instances, perhaps the two most obvious are the Holy Spirit editing Paul’s preaching tour in Acts 16 and the scattering of the church by persecution after Stephen’s death in Acts 8. In both cases, the Scriptures record ministry flexibility in the life of God’s people as they seek to fulfill His mission. We would be wise  to follow their example.

3.Watch some film.

If you are like me, things always go better if I know the what I am getting into before I step on the field. It allows me to pray, plan and prepare to do what I can to ensure as good an outcome as possible. That is why I encourage church planters to learn to expect the unexpected. If we go into the process knowing that anything could happen at any moment, when those things happen, we will be better able to take the hits as they come.

4. Ice it when it hurts.

Life always runs smoother when we need to put our high view of God’s Sovereignty to work. Romans 8:28 tells us that “in all things God works together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” Obviously, this doesn’t mean that everything that happens is good, but that God has a good purpose for it– to use it for His own glory and to further conform us to the image of Christ. We need to rest in this truth when things don’t go as we planned.

All ministry, especially church planting, requires flexibility.

How flexible are you?

There is a reason why you hear pastors say that want to resign every Monday morning – because it is often true.

In some ways, this is even more true for church planters.

In addition to the inherent stresses and struggles of ministry, most planters also have the additional burdens of tight finances, a lean or non-existent staff, no permanent facility and the uncertainty of whether or not their plant is even going to make it. Throw in spiritual warfare, unmet expectations, a wife and a few small kids to provide for and you can get pretty discouraged pretty quickly and getting a job that pays actual money and not Chuck E. Cheese tokens sounds pretty good.

But for most of us, that solution would be disobedient and unwise. Instead, we have to find a way to push through the discouragement and keep on fighting the good fight.

Consider these five things that can help you deal with the inevitable discouragement that comes our way as planters:

1. Anchor yourself in the Scriptures.

In the midst of the unavoidable ups and downs on the sea of church planting, we need an anchor to hold us in place. The Word of God provides that anchor. While our emotions often change with our circumstances, the Scriptures do not. Digging into the Scriptures just to preach a sermon is not enough. We have to cultivate and protect a regular devotional time in the Word to be well anchored to weather the storms to come.

2. Be honest with yourself.

For me, trying hard to just knuckle down and push through isn’t aways helpful. It just makes me feel angry and fake. I recommend being honest with God and going to Him with the good, the bad and the ugly parts our our souls After all, He knows them all anyway. This keeps us emotionally healthy, allows our hearts to remain pliable before him, and keeps bitterness at bay.

3. Lean on your team. 

Though many planters plant alone, this is not optimal. We need others around us who can hold up our arms just like the ancient Israelites did with Moses at a pivotal point in his ministry (Ex. 17:10-13). Your wife can help to a degree, but we need other pastors who know the weight we carry. These can be men we raise from within or ones we “borrow” for a season from other solid churches for a season.

4. Start talking to yourself.

No, not like that. And if you do, you might want to see a doctor. Instead, talk to yourself like the Psalmist does in Psalm 42:5-6  when he writes “Why are your downcast o my soul Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,  my Savior and my God.”   He knew the benefit of taking control of the internal situation and submitting himself afresh to Jesus. We would be wise to do the same, especially in the most difficult times.

5. Count your blessings.

Don’t let the familiarity of this counsel cause you not to follow it. As leaders, we are usually so quick to see all that is not being accomplished that we neglect to praise God for what is being accomplished. I have found this to be a profoundly helpful discipline in my life and in the life of my team.

For most, wanting to quit is an inevitable part of the planting process.

It is how we respond that makes all the difference.

For most of us, the church planting process brings two churches into our lives:

1. The church we think we are going to plant.
2. The church that actually gets planted.

It is the men who are able to successfully navigate the distance between these two churches that are still standing after the first few years.

There are a number of reasons for this:

First, the ground is often much harder and the work goes much slower than we expected it would.

For most church planters, the days of sending out a mailer and seeing 350 people at your launch are long gone. And though the conference circuit may tempt us to believe otherwise, exponential growth is the exception, not the rule.

Second, we recognize quickly that working with actual people in the real world is much messier than working with ethereal concepts at our coffeeshop office.

Seasoned planters  have plenty of stories of leaders that tapped out, and landlords that kicked them out to go with the scars that they earned in living those stories. Such is the nature of ministry in a fallen world.

Third, we come to terms with the harsh reality that the strategic plan that seemed so perfect in our minds isn’t so perfect on the field.

It is all too common for planters to underestimate the nuances of their context and overestimate their own abilities requiring some significant, unexpected changes to be made. It is the wise planter that figures these out quickly and responds accordingly.

You may be thinking, “So if it is as hard as I make it sound, how is it that any planter succeeds?”

By pressing in and pressing on.

Press in to Jesus.
I cannot tell you how many times that I have wanted to quit over the last six years and I wish I could tell you that every time I wanted to quit, I ran to Jesus, repented of my sin and lack of faith and immediately went back to work, but I can’t. But that is exactly what I should have done and when I did do it, my perspective always changed. The circumstances didn’t necessarily improve, but my perspective on them did. In addition, by putting the ”first thing first”, I was able to root my identity in the Gospel afresh (and not my identity as a planter) and get the spiritual resources I  needed to do the next hard thing.

Press on in the work.
Time after time in the Scriptures, we see the call to endure in our faith and ministry. Part of the reason why these texts exist (and why there are so many of them) is because we need to hear this message often. The distractions and discouragements in planting a church are legion but these Words are an anchor in the midst of the storm. As we hear them and repent of our sin, we will be not only buoyed but encouraged to persevere in the work as well.

There are always two churches when we plant.

The church we think we are going to plant and the church that actually gets planted.

Successful planters are the men who “press in and press on” to successfully navigate the distance between the two.