In pastoral ministry, sometimes speed matters. There are moments when time is of the absolute essence. The tearful phone-call from a dear church member who’s just arrived in an ambulance at the hospital. The church body lovingly coalescing to meet the felt needs of a hurting family in the midst of crisis. The simple need to make a time-sensitive leadership decision to keep the show on the road for next Sunday. Perhaps even during times of unusual blessing and fruit when we seek to minister with wisdom, and disciple those whom God is at work within. Sometimes time is of the essence, but more often than not, ministry is (or ought to be) much more about the steady, faithful, patient ‘marching’ (like a soldier, an athlete or a farmer) for the long-term, than the sprinting and then collapsing (and repeat) that is sadly so common.
Trouble is, planters are often sprinters.
The entrepreneurial ambition and pioneering passion. The go-getter spirit that gets things (and keeps things) moving. The visionary. Planters are often sprinters.
I was very thankful for Drew’s phrase: “when done well”. Church planting; filling this dark world with communities of light, is a beautiful undertaking “when does well”. When done badly it can be, as Drew outlines, profoundly damaging to a planter and his family, to a leadership, to a core team, to a mother-church who has given sacrificially, to future-pipeline plants who may now find a posture of over-caution and indeed to perhaps a sceptical watching world who wonders why this new local light, seems to have been so quickly snuffed out. Indeed, if some of the stats are anything to go by, after 4 years almost 1/3 of plants seems to have been snuffed out.
I want to dig a little bit into that phrase “when done well”.
What might that look like?
Within the planter?
I’d strongly argue, at the least, a planter is an elder/pastor-teacher, and so we must have Paul’s words to Timothy (1 Timothy 3) and Titus (Titus 1) ringing in our ears. Ministry competency and convictions do matter, but without question, Christ-like character trumps them. If you’ve got the first two and the not the third then please step away. For (let’s be honest) an often-proud young planter, I’d also want to be spending prayerful time in 1 Peter 5v1-5 as he speaks to the elders among us:
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
And how about the rich lessons of James chapter 3 on godly words and godly wisdom. These (and others) are passages for honest prayer and reflection that are applicable for all time. But, in a world of popularity, PR and platforms, they are especially applicable for our time.
And so assessment matters. Assessment that, yes, asks about convictions and competence but also then, the loving but hard questions of the internal life of the planter. That asks not only about their ‘entrepreneurial flare’ and ‘visionary ideas’, but their honest motivations for the project and their pastoral maturity when it comes to really caring for real people. That looks at their relationships and pastoral track-record. Assessment must include honest counsel with his family regarding their (actual) willingness to be an integral part of this project and clear conversations with the core team who might be accompanying and (ideally) complementing their pastor. As Drew puts it, church planting is not a ’sandbox’ where we get to play with the lives of real people.
Within the church?
It perhaps doesn’t go without saying, but how we ‘do’ church, and why, really does matter. Planters (often?) have a tendency towards pragmatism (at the expense of principle). With all the ingredients for the right experience, it’s relatively easy to gather a crowd and fill a room. Sermon? Check. Coffee? Check. Music? Check. Branding? Check. Merch? Check. Mood lighting? Check. Hipster beard? Check. Sorry. Of course this is usually just a ‘re-shuffling of the pack’; pandering to the ‘butterfly-believers’ who come and visit and flit for a while but never quite settle (as you find when another church opens up a block away).
At my church we use the metaphor of not being a restaurant but rather more like a family meal. At a restaurant you come and consume and pay and go. With a family meal you’re a part of the people, serving and loving and getting involved with the different tasks, using your gifts for the good of others. “When done well” in church would mean we’ve reflected upon not only what membership looks like, but also what happens at a Sunday Service and midweek and in fact all of church life. “When done well”, means in a world of voices and ideas and ‘wisdom’, all that we do is patiently shaped by what God has said and not the latest quick-fix-silver-bullet from the planting world
Within the (church planting) culture?
When we say, “when done well”, who gets to define what “well” means? Are we talking numbers of people? Are we talking numbers of (church-planting) churches? What is our definition of success? Who gets admired and platformed? From my studies on why church plants sometime struggle, one story I heard again and again was the fact that people hadn’t really considered how hard it would be. The books they read, the speakers they admired, the planting-gurus they listened to had all been the outliers whose churches had grown exponentially. Their definition of success was largely to do with numbers rather than, what we might call church health or perhaps even Christ-likeness. And numbers do matter, because numbers are people, but numbers can also be misleading or deceptive – especially when you’re needing to justify ongoing support through your organization or external funders.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is extraordinarily good news that our dark world needs to hear and see, and so yes, we desperately, desperately need to light more candles – many, many more. But I do increasingly wonder with these (us?) zealous planting types can we afford, despite the urgency and despite our collective ‘Bebbington-Quadrilateral-Evangelical-Activism’ to just slow down a little bit? To sprint a bit less. To take a little bit longer over the assessment and planning. To gently dig around a little bit more and do a bit more of the due diligence needed to try and prayerfully discern the wisdom and vision of each project.
That might even mean a greater percentage of plants ending up being the “when done wells” and perhaps less of the pain and mess and fall-out of those who didn’t make it.
Dan steel is an elder at Magdalen Road Church in Oxford, UK.
In pastoral ministry, sometimes speed matters. There are moments when time is of the absolute essence. The tearful phone-call from a dear church member who’s just arrived in an ambulance at the hospital. The church body lovingly coalescing to meet the felt needs of a hurting family in the midst of crisis. The simple need to make a time-sensitive leadership decision to keep the show on the road for next Sunday. Perhaps even during times of unusual blessing and fruit when we seek to minister with wisdom, and disciple those whom God is at work within. Sometimes time is of the essence, but more often than not, ministry is (or ought to be) much more about the steady, faithful, patient ‘marching’ (like a soldier, an athlete or a farmer) for the long-term, than the sprinting and then collapsing (and repeat) that is sadly so common.
Trouble is, planters are often sprinters.
The entrepreneurial ambition and pioneering passion. The go-getter spirit that gets things (and keeps things) moving. The visionary. Planters are often sprinters.
I was very thankful for Drew’s phrase: “when done well”. Church planting; filling this dark world with communities of light, is a beautiful undertaking “when does well”. When done badly it can be, as Drew outlines, profoundly damaging to a planter and his family, to a leadership, to a core team, to a mother-church who has given sacrificially, to future-pipeline plants who may now find a posture of over-caution and indeed to perhaps a sceptical watching world who wonders why this new local light, seems to have been so quickly snuffed out. Indeed, if some of the stats are anything to go by, after 4 years almost 1/3 of plants seems to have been snuffed out.
I want to dig a little bit into that phrase “when done well”.
What might that look like?
Within the planter?
I’d strongly argue, at the least, a planter is an elder/pastor-teacher, and so we must have Paul’s words to Timothy (1 Timothy 3) and Titus (Titus 1) ringing in our ears. Ministry competency and convictions do matter, but without question, Christ-like character trumps them. If you’ve got the first two and the not the third then please step away. For (let’s be honest) an often-proud young planter, I’d also want to be spending prayerful time in 1 Peter 5v1-5 as he speaks to the elders among us:
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
And how about the rich lessons of James chapter 3 on godly words and godly wisdom. These (and others) are passages for honest prayer and reflection that are applicable for all time. But, in a world of popularity, PR and platforms, they are especially applicable for our time.
And so assessment matters. Assessment that, yes, asks about convictions and competence but also then, the loving but hard questions of the internal life of the planter. That asks not only about their ‘entrepreneurial flare’ and ‘visionary ideas’, but their honest motivations for the project and their pastoral maturity when it comes to really caring for real people. That looks at their relationships and pastoral track-record. Assessment must include honest counsel with his family regarding their (actual) willingness to be an integral part of this project and clear conversations with the core team who might be accompanying and (ideally) complementing their pastor. As Drew puts it, church planting is not a ’sandbox’ where we get to play with the lives of real people.
Within the church?
It perhaps doesn’t go without saying, but how we ‘do’ church, and why, really does matter. Planters (often?) have a tendency towards pragmatism (at the expense of principle). With all the ingredients for the right experience, it’s relatively easy to gather a crowd and fill a room. Sermon? Check. Coffee? Check. Music? Check. Branding? Check. Merch? Check. Mood lighting? Check. Hipster beard? Check. Sorry. Of course this is usually just a ‘re-shuffling of the pack’; pandering to the ‘butterfly-believers’ who come and visit and flit for a while but never quite settle (as you find when another church opens up a block away).
At my church we use the metaphor of not being a restaurant but rather more like a family meal. At a restaurant you come and consume and pay and go. With a family meal you’re a part of the people, serving and loving and getting involved with the different tasks, using your gifts for the good of others. “When done well” in church would mean we’ve reflected upon not only what membership looks like, but also what happens at a Sunday Service and midweek and in fact all of church life. “When done well”, means in a world of voices and ideas and ‘wisdom’, all that we do is patiently shaped by what God has said and not the latest quick-fix-silver-bullet from the planting world
Within the (church planting) culture?
When we say, “when done well”, who gets to define what “well” means? Are we talking numbers of people? Are we talking numbers of (church-planting) churches? What is our definition of success? Who gets admired and platformed? From my studies on why church plants sometime struggle, one story I heard again and again was the fact that people hadn’t really considered how hard it would be. The books they read, the speakers they admired, the planting-gurus they listened to had all been the outliers whose churches had grown exponentially. Their definition of success was largely to do with numbers rather than, what we might call church health or perhaps even Christ-likeness. And numbers do matter, because numbers are people, but numbers can also be misleading or deceptive – especially when you’re needing to justify ongoing support through your organization or external funders.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is extraordinarily good news that our dark world needs to hear and see, and so yes, we desperately, desperately need to light more candles - many, many more. But I do increasingly wonder with these (us?) zealous planting types can we afford, despite the urgency and despite our collective ‘Bebbington-Quadrilateral-Evangelical-Activism’ to just slow down a little bit? To sprint a bit less. To take a little bit longer over the assessment and planning. To gently dig around a little bit more and do a bit more of the due diligence needed to try and prayerfully discern the wisdom and vision of each project.
That might even mean a greater percentage of plants ending up being the “when done wells” and perhaps less of the pain and mess and fall-out of those who didn’t make it.
Dan steel is an elder at Magdalen Road Church in Oxford, UK.
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