“Do I have what it takes to be a church planter?” That question plagued me in 2016 as I began to think about planting a church in Gallatin, Tennessee. Many of the church planters I knew inside and outside of my denomination were high energy, tech savvy, and had magnetic personalities. None of those phrases describe me. But I had had an interest in church planting since I was a college student. Now the opportunity to plant a church seemed to be becoming a reality. I was just unsure that I had what it took; I was not sure I was “church planter material.”
Immediately after college, I was offered an opportunity to serve as a youth pastor alongside a pastor I deeply admired. When I interviewed for the position, I immediately became aware that I was not well-equipped for youth ministry. Rightly or wrongly, my perception of church planting was that it was like building a youth ministry from the ground up. It was promotion-driven, event-driven, and hype-driven. It just so happens that I am not a great promoter, event planner, or hype man. “If I couldn’t cut it as a youth pastor, then I probably couldn’t cut it as a church planter,” I thought.
Even with these feelings, I began to read popular church planting books and church planting blogs and to talk to friends and acquaintances who were church planters. I figured I would feel better about the prospects if I could immerse myself in the literature and get some guidance from actual church planters. As I read, and as I talked to other church planters (including a family member who has successfully planted), I learned many helpful things about marketing a church plant, planning sermon series and community events, welcoming visitors, choosing sound equipment and chairs, and finding trailers to haul all this stuff around. But I could not escape the nagging feeling that I did not have what it took to be a church planter.
I knew I wanted to be a pastor, but I was not sure I could be a church planter. It seemed as if the two were entirely unrelated. What I learned, however, is that church planters are first and foremost pastors. Furthermore, church planters are planting and pastoring churches. It took time for me to come to these conclusions. But I was thrilled to read Planting by Pastoring recently, which argues these same points.
Planting by Pastoring
If you have ever read a church planting book, you have probably encountered many strategies for promoting your church launch, planning big events, welcoming guests, following up with those guests, and assimilating new members. But have you ever read a church planting book with an appendix detailing a church covenanting service? I had not either until I read Nathan Knight’s Planting by Pastoring: A Vision for Starting a Healthy Church, a simple but desperately needed resource on church planting. When reading Knight’s book, it was as if I had discovered a kindred spirit in church planting. Knight put precise words to the sense of inadequacy and confusion I had about church planting and being a church planter.
Knight is a church planter in the metro D.C. area who felt overwhelmed by church planting resources that seem to emphasize, what he calls, “the four s’s” of church planting: size, speed, sufficiency, and spread: “These four s’s determine success and significance in church planting. Grow, grow, grow as fast as you can! Be financially self-sufficient sooner rather than later! Spread your impact by multiplying services or campuses or churches!”[1] He is right. It is not that the four s’s do not matter; they do. “But,” as Knight asks, “is pursuing them the point of church planting?”[2] For Knight (and me), the answer is no.
What follows is not a detailed book review. Instead, it is a brief exploration of a couple of key insights from Knight’s book that I desperately needed when I first began to consider church planting. But I also think these key points could help church planting resources refocus on pastors who want to plant healthy churches.
Church Planting
In all our talk about church planting, we may have somehow lost sight of the church. This suggestion seems impossible. Yet Knight points out that one of the primary reasons he wanted to write this book was because of “the absence of the church in most church planting resources.”[3] He goes on to say, “I’ve read more than a dozen books on church planting. I’ve watched talks online. I’ve read blog posts, I’ve listened to podcasts, and I’ve attended conferences and assessments. I’ve talked with ‘strategists,’ and I’ve met with future planters.” Pay careful attention to what Knight says next: “And you know what? Ecclesiology is hardly mentioned.”[4] He is right. Somehow, most of the resources on church planting seem to have lost sight of the church.
What might be the reason for this? According to Knight, “It seems that some people believe that the more definition and oversight you bring to the church, the more you will quiet the evangelistic thrust of the church.”[5] In other words, a robust ecclesiology will hinder the growth and evangelism of the church. Yet Knight maintains that Scripture has given us clear details regarding the form and function (ecclesiology) of a healthy church. Healthy churches, including church plants, should be characterized by “preaching the gospel” (edification and evangelism), “portraying the gospel” (the ordinances), and “protecting the gospel” (meaningful membership and discipline).[6]
Too often, church planting is pitched more along the lines of a tech startup than a church plant. In our church planting, we cannot lose sight of the church. Our goal should be to plant churches.
“Planters are pastors.”
I noted earlier that church planters are first and foremost pastors; that is one of the central arguments of Knight’s book. He does not mean that church planting does not require particular skillsets. By nature or by brute force, church planters must be willing to engage the community. Church planters must often tow trailers, set out chairs, set up sound, interact with the local school board regarding meeting space, and try to figure out various forms of advertising and marketing. Church planters must recruit volunteers for music, outreach, and children’s ministry. Church planters typically must fundraise to support themselves and the church plant. A guy that wants only to preach sermons, do some occasional visitation, and maintain a church building likely will not make it as a church planter. So church planters need unique gifts. Hear me clearly on that point.
But I want to reiterate that church planters are first and foremost pastors. If the thing we are planting is a church, then, according to the New Testament, the shepherd of a church is a pastor. Much of the emphasis in church planting literature is placed on church planting rather than church planting. And the natural result of this misplaced emphasis is that we tend to look for entrepreneurs instead of pastors in terms of who we think is best suited to lead a church plant. Sure, church planting often requires an entrepreneurial spirit, but we must not lose sight of the fact that we are planting churches and are therefore looking for qualified pastors. As Knight observes, “A pastor should be as ambitious as planters often are, and planters should care for the flock as pastors do. The best pastors are like planters, and the best planters are like pastors.”[7]
In another place, Knight distinguishes between a “pastorally inclined planter” and an “entrepreneurially inclined planter.” Advocating that we adopt the “pastor-planter” approach, Knight writes, “Pastor-planters . . . will slow down. They might sacrifice speed and size to make sure people clearly understand both the gospel and the church. Pastor-planters aim at something less flashy: simply starting a biblically defined church. They are, after all, church planters.”[8] Do church planters need something of an entrepreneurial spirit? Yes. But I am fully convinced that we need far more emphasis on the “pastor-planter” model of church planting.
These points lead to one final point. If we are indeed planting churches, and churches are led by pastors, then we should be looking for biblically qualified pastors to plant churches. In short, character matters.[9] First Timothy 3 and Titus 1 have far more to say about the character of an overseer than they do his ministerial gifts. Furthermore, even the gifts (“able to teach”) center on the ministry of the Word. If we lose sight of the fact that we are planting a church, then we might value charisma and ingenuity more than character in a potential church planter. If we are looking for the leader of a startup rather than a pastor-planter, then we might overlook significant character flaws in a potential church planter because he has strong entrepreneurial gifts. The most important feature of a church planter should be that he meets the biblical qualifications of the office of pastor—not his entrepreneurial gifts. Yes, he will be a church planter. But church planters must first be qualified pastors since the intended end is planting and pastoring a New Testament church.
Conclusion
In 2018, Immanuel Free Will Baptist Church was born as we covenanted together as a body of believers. I was terrified at the time. I was young in the ministry, I had never planted a church before, and I honestly was not sure how it all would go. But this past Sunday, I stood before a congregation of people I love and preached the Word to the best of my ability. Church planting has some unique challenges. But, in many ways, what I have learned over the past five years is that much of church planting is simply pastoring. Church planting is handling rent agreements, cleaning up spills, preparing sermons, visiting hospitals, counseling, administering the ordinances, managing budgets, developing online ads, evangelizing, following up with visitors, admonishing wayward members, and raising up new leaders.
In retrospect, most of my fears stemmed from misguided notions about church planting that I found in many church planting resources. If leading a church plant was like being the CEO of a tech startup, I did not have what it took. But if a being a church planter is more like what Knight calls a “pastor-planter,” then, by God’s grace, I believed the Lord had equipped me for the task.
[1] Nathan Knight, Planting by Pastoring: A Vision for Starting a Healthy Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 1.
[2] Knight, Planting, 2.
[3] Knight, Planting, 47.
[4] Knight, Planting, 47.
[5] Knight, Planting, 47.
[6] Knight, Planting, 47.
[7] Knight, Planting, 30.
[8] Knight, Planting, 27.
[9] This point is true for all churches, not just church plants.
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