ChurchPlantSpeak!

Why are so many blogging church planters writing about why so many church plants fail?  In the past few days, I’ve read at least four different blogs (no, I won’t mention them by name - that’s not fair) that give me the outline of why my chances of success as a church planter are about 33%.  Here are the two biggest reasons:

1) Perhaps the church planter isn’t actually called to be a church planter.

2) The church planter is called to the wrong area and thus, is out of touch with the culture.

Well, I have my ideas also but perhaps tackling these two reasons first will help organize my thoughts.

As to #1, I’m not sure anyone can really ascertain who’s been called and who’s just out to create a new job for themselves.  I’ve known many church planters who have taken years to build a solid work with faithful people and most church planters today would call that a failure because it took so long to build numbers.  Perhaps my friend “Bill” (we’ll just call him that) should have stayed in Tennessee and continued to pastor his little country church because he sure doesn’t relate to the urban dwellers of Denver, Colorado.  I mean, he’s been at his church plant (one that’s outside of my denomination) for a little more than three years and he’s only running about 55 people.  Surely this is a failure right?  Not so fast.  Bill’s building a work of strong, faithful people.  His little group is contributing nearly 60% of his salary now and are also tithing to denominational efforts within his church group. 

Another church planter I know had a power struggle with some folks who decided they had the money and wanted to run things.  After building the church to about 100 people, these few families ran off nearly 50% of the church.  What was left tried to survive but soon, 50 dwindled to 30 and then to 23 and the church closed.  I didn’t consider my friend a failure, just the victim of a bad power play.  The same families that forced the closure of his church now are trying to ruin another work but I don’t think they will succeed given the leadership and strength of numbers where they are at.

In any event, it’s hard to determine if the church planter was really called.  I have no doubt that more than one church plant was started by a person who couldn’t get a job pastoring anywhere and decided this must be what God had in mind….Whoops!

Moving on to #2, I have seen a few guys out of their element.  The hard part is when a person makes a decision to move out to the new city and their family follows but never really does move out (in heart!).  You can never get your footing that way and the ministry is doomed.  If the pastor has truly prayed about the area, shared his burden with his wife and children, and they have spent adequate amounts of time praying also, then I say go for it.  The first year you are in a new environment is a wash anyway as you get used to your new surroundings.  In my case, I was a 35 year old professional who left a secular career to plant a church with my wife and three children, ages 10, 7, and 2 at the time.  Was it difficult?  You bet.  I left a rural, small town setting and a church I truly enjoyed worshiping God in for a city 1000 miles away from anyone I knew and a burden to see new people come to faith in Christ and build a solid, bible preaching, bible teaching church that would serve as an alternative to much of the pablum I had seen in churches around me in the suburb I was moving to.  That’s not to say there weren’t solid churches in my area and that some of those were exciting new plants, but many plants with large numbers of people were playing Creed for the altar call and dismissing any naming of the blood bought sacrifice of Christ. (Again, not to criticize Creed, they were one of my favorite bands and still are in memory!  It just wasn’t appropriate for worship.)

I say if a man is committed, called, and broken for his new city, he’ll adapt what can be adapted without compromise.  Too many “experts” in the church planting movement called my friends’ lack of compromise on doctrinal issues “cultural irrelevance”; that is to say, they felt they were too “old school” for reaching the masses.  God forgive those who are so short sighted.

Now that I’ve discussed those, here’s my take on why some church planters fail:

#1 — The church planter is some young guy who feels he is of a “new” generation of preachers and that the old guy he’s working for, while solid, is a bit behind the times.  If only this young buck’s new ideas are tried, they will work.  The old guy just couldn’t adjust quick enough.  Of course, there are many faithful people in the church lacking a bit a maturity who feel the same way and they serve to boost the person’s ego.  The problem is, that person needs to season a bit more.  I’ve always called church planting an “extreme” sport for a reason.  It’s very easy to build a crowd of people quickly and plant a church that’s a mile wide and unfortunately, an inch deep.  A seasoned leader will see to it the growth comes with depth.  Paul said as much to Timothy when instructing him in appointing new leaders….

Don’t appoint people to church leadership positions too hastily. If a person is involved in some serious sins, you don’t want to become an unwitting accomplice. In any event, keep a close check on yourself.
(1 Timothy 5:22 MSG)

Many times, a church planter gets caught up in sins nobody knows about and it ruins his effectiveness.  Only he and God know about this.

#2 — The other reason church planters fail is because they do not spend time alone with God.  The great preaching expositor Dr. Stephen Olford once said the main directive he would give a preacher is to never, NEVER, NEVER, miss his quiet time with God.  Too many church planters I pray with never take the time to pray fervently and honestly for their work, for the souls that God will put in their path, for the finances needed to sustain the work, and for protection of the planter’s own life to be able to lead with character and integrity.  They are too caught up emailing the worship leader from their blackberry mobile device, talking to their AV techs on their blue tooth headset, and downloading the latest podcast from U2 to be able to get quiet somewhere and pray. 

Now I’m not saying all those things are wrong.  I keep an active “next actions” list on my gmail account which I check with my wi-fi equipped laptop, am a “Getting Things Done” or “GTD” junkie, and love writing things down on my Hipster PDA (Google it).  The thing is though, I refuse to let those things take away my valuable time.  There are times my wife just knows I’m not going to answer my phone.  If it’s an emergency, she has a way of getting to me but in most cases, my interruptions are things that can wait.  There’s nothing more freeing that taking off my tool belt with my MP3 player, cell phone, wireless device, and Hipster on it and just leaving the darn thing in the car while I walk through one of the many wonderful mountain trails I’m blessed with here in the Rockies.  Today, a light, powdery snowfall came down as I walked a steady incline (Thank you Bob Franquiz for your weight loss story!) and I enjoyed a quiet walk with my Lord.  We had a great time talking about yesterday’s wonderful service, my outrageous plans for 2007, and the coming Christmas holiday.  When all was said and done, I was able to take my chilled body a few miles up the road to a small private coffee shop and warm up with my bible and some strong Columbian blend!

What church planters truly need is that vital relationship with Christ, followed by years of seasoning before entering the mission field and I believe we’ll see more church plants flourish than ever before.