While I was in college, I began to think that God was calling me to the ministry of church planting. I considered opportunities in southern California and the Midwest. Ultimately, God opened the door for me to plant a church in Gallatin, Tennessee. When I began considering all that planting a church would involve, I quickly noticed two common approaches in church planting books.
The first approach was more theoretical in nature, providing a Biblical basis and philosophical underpinning for church planting. The second approach was much more practical in nature, focusing on “big days,” the leadership structure of a church plant, and steps towards launching a church. The first approach left me wanting more practical advice. The second approach left me wondering to what extent Scripture and church history had informed the advice being given. I think we need both approaches.
I struggle to decide whether my natural bent is more towards the philosophical or the practical. I certainly enjoy things like technical conversations about systematic theology, but I’m also interested in applying theology and helping students know how to teach it effectively in the local church. Yet in relation to actual church planting, I needed some very practical advice on the nuts and bolts. This is where the more practical church planting books came into play.
Through this church planting endeavor, I was introduced to an entirely new field of literature and a slough of authors that I’d never read before. Though in my reading I’ve encountered much with which I disagree philosophically, I’ve benefited from these works. In many ways, this essay is in praise of practical church planting tools with just a critique or two along the way.
Here are five things I’ve learned from the practical church planting books:
1. People matter. Therefore, welcoming and following up with them matters.
Many churches struggle with greeting and following up with visitors. As a church plant, we were hoping to welcome and follow-up with visitors every week so we needed a strategy for how to do that effectively. Nelson Searcy’s book Fusion proved to be exceedingly helpful for us.[1] We can all agree that people matter to God. Furthermore, we all want people to visit our church so we work and pray that God would send visitors our way. But we shouldn’t expect God to send people to our churches if we’re not ready to greet them warmly, help them find their way around, and follow up with them in hopes they might return. Fusion is a valuable tool for helping churches figure out how to do just that.
2. Strategically scheduled big days are a big deal.
I’m not an events guy. Planning events really doesn’t excite me. But I’ve learned that strategically scheduled big days can be important for the evangelistic efforts of the local church. Let me be clear: I am not saying that big days or events are the primary means of evangelism in the local church. However, I am convinced they can be helpful.
Bob Franquiz’s book Pull is helpful for equipping pastors and local church leaders to schedule and advertise big days and events.[2] The goal is to see people visit your church who might not normally do so in order that they might hear the gospel and be saved. Big days and events also give your people a clear opportunity to invite their unbelieving friends. That’s not to say they can’t invite people on any other Sunday, but a Sunday with a special event or sermon might make extending the invitation easier. In many ways, scheduling emphasis Sundays strategically throughout the year keeps the idea of actively inviting people to church at the forefront of people’s minds.
3. Your people are your best “advertisement.”
When we started Immanuel, we spent a lot of money on mailers that brought less than desirable returns on our investment. Certainly there might’ve been a tweak or two that could’ve increased our success. However, even a well-designed mailer, in a unique size, and a clear call to action didn’t produce the results we desired. Here’s what I’ve learned: The people in your church are your best advertisement. Advertising on social media platforms like Facebook helps, but a personal invitation with an invitation card detailing an upcoming sermon series or simply with general information about your church is more successful than any well-placed ad. Even on social media, the most effective means of getting people to respond positively to an invitation to your church will come through someone they know at your church sharing it.
Churches need to do things with excellence, including their website and print pieces. But the most important thing is preparing our people to invite their neighbors, co-workers, and family members to church and equipping them with appropriate materials. As one church planter said to me not too long ago, “If you have fifty people this Sunday, there’s no reason that you couldn’t have 100 next Sunday if the people you already have would just extend an invitation that week.” What we want is to encourage our people to be regularly inviting folks around them to visit our churches, while simultaneously emphasizing personal evangelism. An invitation isn’t a replacement for personal evangelism. It could, however, be a part of personal evangelism—a doorway into further conversation about the Gospel and provide a connection between an unbeliever and a local body of believers.
4. You have to be flexible.
The church plant I pastor meets in a gymnasium. Ideally, we wouldn’t meet in a gym for a variety of reasons. One reason is that we have to unload, set up, reload, and haul away the contents of our entire gathering every Sunday. Needless to say, that’s a less-than-ideal scenario. But pastoring, specifically church planting, has quickly helped me realize that we cannot always have our ideal scenario. We have to be flexible.
By “be flexible,” I do not mean we have to compromise any of our core values. I simply mean that we have to learn to deal with things as they are and not merely how we wish they were. We can work to change certain circumstances, but we can’t become paralyzed when our situation is less than ideal. Flexibility in church planting and ministry in general is crucial.
5. You have to be principled.
This last point is going to sound somewhat critical (and maybe it is), but I don’t really see it that way. While we need to be flexible as pastors or as church planters, we have to remain principled. As we began our church plant and had our first couple of preview services (where we incrementally invited more people from our community to visit our church), we had less people than I had hoped. On some occasions, we had far less people than I had hoped.
I immediately felt the temptation to do whatever possible to get people through those elementary school gym doors. I just wanted to see more first-time guests. Quite frankly, I think my motives were more self-centered than anything else. But this leads me to my main point here: If you’re not principled, and you want to see more first-time guests at your church or church plant, you’ll do whatever it takes to get them through the door.
Whether your motives are good or bad, this mindset presents a significant problem. Desperation doesn’t typically lead to the best choices. And if you have any sort of personal and Biblical core values that you’d like not to violate, which I’m sure you do, then you don’t want to do just anything in order to get people to show up. Be flexible, but be principled.
Conclusion
Church planting has forced me to read books and authors I probably wouldn’t have otherwise read. I’m incredibly thankful for that. I continue to read books that would’ve never been on my reading list just a few years ago. But this experience is stretching me in some important ways. I’m still not sure if I’m more of a “practical guy” or a “philosophical guy,” but, as I read deeply in each category, I’m increasingly convinced we need both. We need local church practice that is built upon clear, Biblical teaching. But we need to ask constantly how the Bible and theology inform our practices at a basic level.
We can’t afford just to do what works. The church is Christ’s Bride, after all, not an experimental business venture. But we also can’t continue saying that we’re being “faithful” if we’re not being thoughtful and strategic about reaching people with the gospel. In the end, I suppose I’m saying we need a more balanced approach than we typically have to ministry in general and to church planting in particular.
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[1]Nelson Searcy, Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully Engaged Members of Your Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017).
[2]Bob Franquiz, Pull: Making Your Church Magnetic (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2013).
April 24, 2018
Well said. Good discussion to have.