5 Lessons For New Church Planters

Many church plants run up against roadblocks that look like impossibilities. Our church, Trinity Baptist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is only weeks old. But for months as we prepared to start, the Lord kept us praying and searching for a meeting place. We had plenty of people who wanted to covenant together. Fundraising came along encouragingly. But our prospects for a meeting space were the opposite of encouraging, even up to a couple months before our planned covenanting date. We pursued dozens of leads, and month after month, the number of rejections exactly matched the number of inquiries.

A friend recently joked with me about the many hours of experience our congregation has amassed. But I served for seven years as a pastor in an established church, where I helped oversee local planting and revitalizing efforts. And through experiences like our building search, I’m realizing the encouragement you need for a church’s early days is much like the encouragement you need for every year afterward. Here are five lessons I’ve learned recently that I’m clinging to today and will return to as our church matures.

1. Put like-minded models on speed dial.

If you’re planting a church, one of your best time- and headache-saving hacks will be to figure out which pastors who share your ecclesiology and philosophy of ministry have planted most recently and to put them on speed dial. Ask them what they did for everything from governing documents like a statement of faith and church covenant to the nitty-gritty details of membership directory software and health insurance. My rule of thumb has been “Don’t reinvent the wheel.”

The encouragement you need for a church’s early days is much like the encouragement you need for every year afterward.

The wheels I’ve borrowed from most liberally have been those of Matt Smethurst, lead pastor of River City Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia, and Ben Lacey, lead pastor of Trinity River Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. They’ve saved me dozens of hours and kept me from countless dead ends by generously sharing counsel, encouragement, experience, documents, and more. They’ve also provided invaluable guidance on how to adapt and apply our common convictions in new situations and contexts.

2. Decide in advance where you’ll draw lines.

It’s never easy to turn someone away. It’s even harder to turn someone away when your church hasn’t yet hit critical mass and every potential core-team member gets you closer to existing and making budget. Those are reasons church planters can back themselves into the trap of gathering a crowd rather than assembling a church. So decide in advance what someone needs to believe to be a member. If you don’t, you’ll likely pay for it later with the currency of divisive disputes.

3. Don’t take rejection personally.

Many people will consider joining your core team or newly founded church then, for myriad reasons, won’t. Don’t take it personally. Wish them God’s rich blessings, and pray they’ll bless whatever church they’re staying at or heading to. Maintain loving relationships with these folks to whatever extent the Lord keeps your paths crossing. And, most importantly, emulate Paul’s utter self-forgetfulness in view of his ultimate accountability to God (1 Cor. 4:3–5).

4. Enjoy the closeup view of God’s work in people’s hearts.

We’ve been working toward planting our church for about a year. I’ve occasionally been asked to name a Bible verse that has encouraged me. My answer may seem strange: Exodus 35:21. What, you don’t have it taped up on your bathroom mirror? “And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the LORD’s contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments.”

Here, God’s old-covenant people build and adorn his dwelling by giving back to him what he’d given them. When Israel left Egypt at the exodus, they plundered the Egyptians of silver and gold jewelry, and clothing (12:35–36). Now, when precious metals and fine cloth are needed to beautify the tabernacle, the people freely offer to God what he had freely provided them: brooches, earrings, signet rings, armlets, gold objects, purple yarns, fine linen, and rams’ skins (35:21–24). Over and over again, the passage describes how people whose heart moved them gave generously and worked skillfully.

Who moves the heart? God does.

As a church planter, it’s easy to be more aware of your need than of God’s power to provide. Nothing exists yet. Nothing’s happening. If it’s going to happen, the Lord must move someone’s heart to make it happen. You may be tempted to shortcut that process by doing everything yourself or by putting undue pressure on people to help. Instead, look for the Lord to work in people’s hearts to stir them to work on the church.

Look for the Lord to work in people’s hearts to stir them to work on the church.

Over and over in the planting process, we’ve discovered a fruitful rhythm of making a need known to the core team, praying, pausing, and seeing how the Lord would answer by prompting someone to contribute. Many wildly different needs have been met by identifying, praying, waiting, and seeing whose heart the Lord moves.

It’s been a sweet, faith-stirring privilege to watch the Lord at work from the front row. This church plant isn’t my work or my fellow pastor’s work. It’s the Lord’s work through the hearts of his people. Church planter, if you’re tempted to anxiety, make your needs known, pause, pray, and enjoy the closeup view of God’s work in his people’s hearts.

5. Remember God’s arm is longer than yours.

Back to our building search. Chapel Hill is a tough real estate and rental market. At a meeting of local pastors last spring, one sweet brother, who knew the area well, said, “There’s nowhere for you to meet in Chapel Hill. God has a place for you to meet in Chapel Hill.” The first sentence was obvious, and the second should’ve been. The pastor’s words were wise, well put, and proven true. Just two months before we planned to covenant, the Lord provided a wonderful, more-than-sufficient meeting space to rent that met our long list of must-haves and nice-to-haves.

Remember, God’s arm is longer than yours. “Is the LORD’s hand shortened?” (Num. 11:23).