Nobody Plants Alone

HELLO FRIENDS,

There’s been a romantic movement in the ministry world around church planting over the last decade. According to the Baptist Press, the SBC has launched 588 new church plants just since the pandemic began. This is astonishing! 

Denominations and networks have redirected their values and resources to include church planting in their structure and this has led to churches also redirecting their values and resources to do the same. It’s been said often: “churches plant churches!”

As a result, systems are being established to help young church plants and planters be set up to best flourish. I hope to lay out the most popular elements that have best-benefited church plants from the moment they become a dream through their 5th birthday. 

1) Identify the Planter and Location: Recruit
It seems as if the majority of planters are former staff members of local churches. Youth pastors, associate pastors, and former lead pastors seem to make up a vast majority of church planters coming through the training systems. This seems natural as men that make up these positions have had the calling of pastoral ministry in some capacity. But it’s not so common to have pastors or pastoral teams actively recruit their own staff pastors to plant churches.

But isn’t this the model of the New Testament spread of the Gospel? The Apostle Paul, the greatest church planter in history, identified gospel needs in cities, planted churches, and raised up leaders to pastor. Think of Ephesus and his young protégé Timothy. As attractive as this model has become over the last few years, it’s certainly not new. Identify church planters and send them! 

2) Assess the Planter: Affirm
A lot of guys want to plant churches, but not all of them are gifted or qualified to plant. There are identifying characteristics of effective church planters. Some guys would be a great pastor but not a great planter. Some guys would be great planters but not great pastors. It’s critical to identify the gifting and calling of a man before sending them to plant.

Many organizations have assessment retreat centers that are designed to affirm the planter. Each retreat is slightly different, but here are a few common features that are assessed:

a) Personality Traits
What kinds of person is this prospective planter? Is he engaging? Is biblical morality evident in his character? Does Galatians 5 mark his character?

Is he a jerk? Is he standoffish? Is it difficult to discern that he’s even a Christian? I know these seem silly, but affirming the character of a man is important. Especially somebody who will be tasked with building a team, raising funds, creating a launch strategy, building a statement of faith, preaching the Word of God, shepherding the souls of the saints, and making disciples. His pastoral character must be affirmed and his ability to develop and lead a church plant is also affirmed. 

b) Communication Skills
Assessments often have prospective planters preach a sermon. This helps determine biblical literacy in their communication skills. It’s helpful to show a history of sermon development and helpful to show homiletics and preaching workshop classes in their history. Assessments also often have the prospective planter communicate an in-depth planting strategy. This helps determine if the planter can clearly communicate his vision and values.

c) Financial Management Abilities
Pastors and planters are tasked with managing the finances of the church. Planters are also tasked with developing financial structures for the church. Many assessment centers offer financial counselors to meet with the prospective planter to discuss their own personal financial management abilities. Can the man adequately manage his personal finances? Does he have debt that is irresponsible or difficult to manage. Would the financial burden of planting a church, burdens such as fundraising, fund allocation, budget creation, etc., be something that he can manage well? These are important factors to determine before endorsing a church planter.

There are several other building blocks that certain assessment centers find necessary to affirm, but the point is that a prospective planter must be vetted. And it’s helpful if the vetting process is done by unbiased assessment experts. 

3) Endorse and Prepare: Pre Launch
Once an endorsement is made by an assessment center, we are all-systems-go for the church plant. This phase is a joyful one for a man and his team as preparations are created. Many steps take place in the pre-launch phase of a church plant. Here are a few:

a) Fundraising
Of course, each church plant is different. Some come from a financially healthy sending church that can provide the startup funds necessary for the church plant launch. Others have to develop financial partnerships to build startup funds and long-term financial assistance. This is best established during this early phase of planning.

b) Team Development
Once an endorsement is made the planter is free to begin developing a pre-launch team. It’s always helpful when a sending church gives freedom for the planter to promote his church plant to the current congregation in hopes of getting families that may be on mission and want to join the efforts. This is true Kingdom mentality. The success of a church launch can hinge on the development of this team.

c) Coaching
A pivotal part of church planting is having a solid church planting coach assigned to the planter. Somebody who understands the church planting world, is available to carve our regular time to connect, and one who genuinely cares about the success of the planter. The coach not only pours counsel into the planter but also pulls potential out of the planter. Many denominations or networks bake the church planting piece into their system. This is a way to ensure that the planter has somebody’s attention at all times and isn’t doing ministry alone. The brotherhood that is developed here is essential to the emotional and social health of the planter.

d) System Development
A lot is thrown into this category, things such as bylaw development, leadership development, church management structures, aligning an adequate facility, creating communication tools (both for the folks the planter plans to minister to (social media content, mailers, etc.) as well as reporting tools to financial partners). Brand development is essential here and ministry philosophies. Generally speaking, the planter has an idea about some of these things. They would have been revealed in his assessment. But this is the phase where it takes shape. This is where the vision is developed and implemented.

e) Training
This is a bit redundant, but imagine a planter expected to build the aforementioned systems (financial systems, ministry philosophies, team development, outreach strategy, etc.) but having no personal training in place. Many networks offer training programs that aid a planter in the development of these systems. They’ll bring in experts in certain fields to help a planter grow in their understanding of such structures.

To summarize, a healthy church plant has a network that helps all of these steps be developed. A network that offers help with financial management tools, a network with a team that can help with brand creation and website development, a network with an adequate coaching program, and a network with built-in potential financial partners. A church plant has the greatest probability of success if the support system around him is strong. 

4) Go Time: Launch
At this point, hundreds and thousands of man-hours have been committed to prayer, effort, and planning. A planter has been recruited, assessed, endorsed, trained, given the freedom to develop and is now ready to launch. It’s an exciting time in the history of this church plant as it’s official birth is at hand. This may be the shortest section because all of the work leading up to this point has been done. A facility is ready, teams have been developed, branding has been put on signs and literature, promotional material has been distributed around the community, and online campaigns have been launched. The planter is ready, his team is ready, and now it’s go-time.

At this point, it’s helpful to manage expectations. A majority of church plants won’t launch big, or they won’t stay as big as they launch. Success metrics are helpful to have in place, and I’d recommend those metrics aren’t only based on quantifiable numbers. Launch the church, create the community, be faithful to the Word, love the neighbors, and watch the Lord do great work!

5) The Rest of the Story: Persevere
This is where the grind happens. Many guys find the thrill in the chase but burn out once they get what they are after. This happens often in the church planting world. The romanticizing of launching a new, living church and seeing it come to birth will eventually lose its flare. As the church grows, so do the burdens of the people. The man begins the evolution process of becoming more of a pastor and less of a planter. The slogan I use at our church is fairly simple: more people, more problems. This is such a pivotal phase for the church and the pastor. No amount of planning can adequately prepare a planter for this. Planting a church continues (fundraising continues, team development continues, regular reporting to church partners continue, and the ever-evolving pursuit of self-sufficiency continues). But, in addition to devoting a full-time effort to planting, the man also has to commit a full-time effort to pastoring. It’s as if planting and pastoring are each full-time effort. This is exhausting.

A good network is prepared to help carry the burden. Coaching becomes ever important in this phase. Brotherhood becomes ever important in this phase. Support on all fronts becomes ever important in this phase. 

A majority of church plants that begin as a dream never make it to their first birthday. Most flame out before the launch and many flame out early post-launch. The romantic draw often has a short-lived honeymoon phase. This happens for many reasons:

a) Mismanaged expectations

• Goals were too lofty and didn’t align with realistic expectations

b) Inadequate Preparation

• Corners were cut in the aforementioned processes

c) Lack of support

• The planter isn’t supported financially, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. Standing alone is dangerous. It’s helpful also for supporting churches to know that church plants often need long-term investments. Financial self-sufficiency can take many years, depending on the structure of the plant. For example, inner-city plants often take much longer than suburban plants by nature of the makeup of the congregation. A slow, patient, long-term investment is helpful.

The point is this: churches plant churches. The vitality of a new church plant is heavily dependent on the calling of the Holy Spirit and the support of the sending church and its network. As we endeavor to plant churches in the OBN, may we be aware of the importance of an adequate foundation. This foundation includes recruiting quality planters, affirming their calling, preparing and supporting their effort, and locking arms in gospel-ministry for the entirety of the journey. Simply put: nobody plants alone! 

Chuck Smith
Pastor | The Valley Church