I know more than a handful of seminary students or recent grads (AsiAm or otherwise) who are seriously contemplating planting new churches. In fact, I bumped into one who hopes to be a part of a plant-team later this year to reach more americanized South East Asians (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Laotian, etc) somewhere perhaps in Orange County (I suggested Mars--extremely unreached--but I digress). The ensuing conversation sparked the idea for this blog-entry.
Full-disclosure: I've never planted a church in my life. At the very least, if you're a potential church planter, take what follows with several grains of salt, 3 Midols, and 1/2 a Vicadin. Even fuller-disclosure: I've served at the same church since I was a pastoral intern in my seminary days (1978) at a church that's pushing 85! Nevertheless, if would-be church planter today were to ask me for some advice, here's what I'd probably ask and say:
- Are you insane? Did you recently suffer major head trauma? Are your parents first cousins? Does your psychiatrist know that you've gone off your meds? Have you discovered a way to exist without eating or sleeping more than 3 hours/night?
- Still with me? Ok, that first point was just my way of weeding out the ones with either the least supported sense of call or worst case of grandiosity. If you still are determined to plant a new church, I take my hat off to you because it will take a clear and compelling vision, a huge helping of courage, a deep and mature faith in God and skin that's at least 4 inches thick.
- From what I've seen, most church plants are like new restaurants. They all start with great enthusiasm and hoopla, but within a year or two, 80% are kaputt. Years ago, my wife and 2 close Christian friends launched their own business and it failed after 3 years. Looking back, they never really put together a serious, detailed business plan, including how they were planning to stay afloat financially for the first three years, when they needed to build a client-base. However, they were so fired up about working together on something they loved and were so convinced that God wouldn't fail them that they overlooked their lack of needed planning. Since no bank would give them a small business loan, they put it on their personal credit cards. When they finally shut it down, they were each facing sizable unpaid balances on those cards. Fortunately, my wife landed a job as a commercial loan officer with a bank and she masterfully got us out from under the burden of business debt. Ironically, as a loan officer, she then understood how naive they were! I think most church plants start off without the equivalent of a sound business plan, detailing all necessary expenses, plans for growing, and thought-through cash-flow strategies and expectations. In other words, most church plants seem to start out with boatloads of faith and energy but are seriously underfunded. If there are 'mother' churches or sponsoring denominations, I think they should do some major rethinking of how church plants are financially supported for the first 3-5 years. Typically, they wean the baby church off their support in the first 3-5 years. But it's during that time that the 'baby' is struggling to learn how to walk, talk, and take care of itself. It's an unrealistic plan, contributing, imho, to the demise of many church plants because they were simply expected to mature too quickly.
- Ok, this is already starting to be longer than I expected, so I'll limit my advice just to 3 more comments. Even if you've been bitten by the "emergent" bug, I'd highly recommend that you take a giant leap backwards and ask yourself to extremely basic and fundamental questions: (a) What do we REALLY understand to be the whole gospel message?; (b) Once we've settled on what that unabridged message really is, how might we share it in ways that are commensurate with that more radical call to discipleship?; and (c) what does it mean to be the Church (e.g., message, method, community, leadership structure, worship, mission, etc.)? Most times, even though I'm talking to young would-be church planters with the requisite soul patches, piercings, and tatts, I get the distinct impression that they're really just going to plant a NEW version of the same tired old church.
Have any of you been part of church plants? What lessons have you learned? What blindspots did you have? What would you do differently if you were to do it again?
Oh yeah... would-be-church-planters: Be prepared to see about 50% of your original team members leave before 3 years is up.
Pastoring an existing church is already a tough job. Trying to get one off the ground while you're learning how to pastor a church has got to be much harder. I take my hat off to you!
pken.
Comments (13)
Having been involved with building businesses throughout my career, the parallels of the church as a business cannot be ignored.
I have planted one fewer church in my life than you.
I was able to attend my sisters' church - which is a plant - in Chicago for 2 Sundays over the Christmas holiday. it started services in a school gymnasium just as the "mother" church was moving into its newly rebuilt sanctuary (where one sister's wedding was held)... they even bought a trailer, "mobile church" as they call it, to store all the ministry equipment, which the pastor himself parks it in his driveway during downtime. interestingly, it also happens to be of the same denomination as this fine young gentleman you're referring to
Great post PKen - but I think you under-evaluate yourself. Navigating your church through the "hive" is very similar to church-planting (may be it should be called church-replanting), and you didn't have the luxury of shooting from the hip as the young planters do....
hmm...the church I currently attend starting out by meeting in the local middle school auditorium. We are now 4,000 (or something strong) with four services in a brand new, beautiful church that strives to serve our community. Our mission is "To reach every man and woman in Kosciousko County for Christ"..."With God anything is possible" is my response to all of your questions.
Whoops that should be "Every man, woman and child.."
hey pken
Pathway is... or I guess was a church plant 10 years ago. I've been there since the beginning, part of the originaly 15or so people that were there. We have probably about 65-70 percent or our original leaders- and probably have retained 100 percent of our board members for the last 7 years. It was/has been a blessing from the beginning. We have to constantly reevaluate where we are as a church- and have to prayerfully consider each step we take (most recently moving from our school gym rental to a longer lease in an office building/church and finally restructuring our board/executive team). We did however, start of with an experienced pastor who had been a part of another church plant before pastoring at the church that we met him at. That church had 3 pastors when we first started attending- all 3 pastors felt the call the plant a church in up and down the pacific coast- all 3 plants are still standing, growing, and are still passionate for the call that God had sent to them. I think if the call is true, and the group enters prayerfully then nothing can stop it. And who knows, maybe God calls some plants to struggle and fail to give experience for another plant experience later down the line. Either way, God remains good and all-knowing. =oDHave a blessed day.4 letters... E P I C.. :)..
ps.. i hope you blog if/when you go try the restaurant Oliva.. :) it was goooooood...
Keep those stories and comments coming on church plants! Several more random thoughts on the subject:
1) How important is it that the founder(s) is/are entrepreneurs? Has anyone done a study on the founders of "successful" church plants compared to those that always struggle and/or eventually die? My anecdotal observation is that being an entrepreneur is another oft-overlooked factor in church planting.
2) How can a church plant today that is committed to pursuing justice and reaching and embracing the poor and downtrodden ever support itself financially?
3) Will it always be necessary (if not preferable) for a church plant eventually to purchase property? If so, especially in places like SoCal where land is so expensive and where local governments are less than thrilled about taking land off tax rolls and would-be neighbors are often freaked out about congestion and impostion, what kind of future will most church plants have?
and yes, lolie02, EPIC in Fullerton is one of my favs even as they struggle with many of the above-issues.
and thanks, I12know, for the props. In some ways, what I was facing was sort of like a combination between a church plant and a restart of an existing church.
yeah, pken i totally hear you on all of those issues and those are all things we're facing right now. however, as we are support raising and sharing our vision there have been plenty of people that God has been placing this vision upon as well. i'm thankful for that because they're catching how they can put into the church as well. we're always looking for others to connect with on this is holy and crazy endeavor. thanks for all the input and i'm always interested in hearing your ideas in regards to this. hopefully we'll be that 20%, and i'll keep you posted our wanderings as well.
I was wondering when you were going to comment, Nate! So, to what degree has God made you a natural entrepreneur? The myth of the entrepreneur in general is that someone learns how to do something well and really enjoys it, so he/she decides to break away and start their own version. The common mistake is that just because you know how to do something well and really want to be your own boss, that doesn't mean you're wired to launch and market that endeavor. Main Street USA is replete with examples of the E-Myth. And I still think many churches (old and new) are like this too.
My father is a pastor, and in my lifetime (I'm 21 years old)--my father has planted two churches in two different countries. The first plant was in Australia--but sometime after our departure, the church fizzled out.
Here in Torrance though, we planted a church in 2001 with quite literally a handful of families--6, I believe. We had no severance package from the main church due to political struggles and quite literally started with no real financier. Though it was difficult and has required a hugely dedicated congregation--we're still alive today with slow but sure growth.
From what I've seen, I don't think it is ideal for a budding pastor with no real experience in ministry to plant a church. Just the politics alone is enough to produce ulcers. In my case with the Korean American community here in the South Bay, I've seen multiple churches fizzle out around us just because of inside politics within the operational board of the church, or because they can't find a fixed location to start. We were blessed with a great building that is used very lightly in the mornings and we have become almost the same congregation--but for most other churches, it really isn't the case.
From a logistical point of view alone, it's a HUGE challenge to figure out all the details of a church.
Then with the Spiritual Vision part--I've found that it's crucial to plan and visualize BIG even if the beginnings may be weak and small. If a STRONG vision from the beginning establishes the ideals and operations of the church according to an agreed-upon vision, the church's sense of direction as it grows will follow the vision much more smoothly.
There are so many things that makes planting a church crazy---but at the same time, as I see my father fulfill his life-long dream of building and reaching to a community, I can see why people do it as well.
I'd have to say you are correct but don't forget long term planning when the members are too old to continue the maintenance and landscaping.