Church planting lessons from the field
Church planting is exhilarating and exhausting, and it can also be treacherous. These lessons highlight practical ways to balance faith with realism, time a launch well, learn from others wisely, and adapt when circumstances change.
- Balance bold vision with real infrastructure and workable strategies.
- Launch timing matters: avoid starting prematurely or waiting too long.
- Stay flexible and ready to adjust when people, money, and facilities shift.
By Bob Williams
Planting a church is absolutely exhilarating and undoubtedly exhausting! The associate minister at our church, Bryan Fakes, likes to say, “It’s like trying to drink water from a fire hose.”
Church planting can be treacherous. With that in mind, I would like to share some lessons that might help others navigate the terrain.
Walk by faith, but keep grounded in reality
Most church-planting types are faith-walking, visionary, risk-takers. Like David, they’re eager to take on giants. That is good. Faith is a key characteristic for lead planters and churches that intend to make an impact. But it is critical that faith be balanced with reality.
When we started our new church we had big dreams. We began with a mass-marketing approach for reaching out to more than 45,000 homes. We started with a multistaff, multiservice approach from day one.
I envisioned the possibility of 600-700 people worshiping on opening day. But we didn’t have that many. We had about 330.
As I look back on it, I have to laugh. The small building we met in could not have held 600 or 700 if they had come. In fact, we barely had the infrastructure to handle the 330.
One church consultant said, “Faith doesn’t move mountains, bulldozers do. Your bulldozers are the strategies you have in place.” Proverbs 14:18 says it this way, “Foolish dreamers live in a world of illusion; wise realists plant their feet on the ground” (The Message).
Don’t start too early, and don’t start too late
Church-planting consultant Jim Griffith has done autopsies on hundreds of failed start-ups. He says the timing of the launch is a common factor in the demise of many new churches.
My wife and I have twin boys. The goal early in her pregnancy was to do everything possible to carry them to term because if they came early, as many twins do, they might not have the mature life support systems critical to growth. The same is true of a church plant. Many churches rush to get started but begin prematurely, without the proper structures in place. If a church has too small a launch team or not enough volunteers, the “care capacity” of the church may be hampered.
Similarly, if a church starts too late, a number of problems can develop that limit the church’s ability to reach out and grow. The members may lose enthusiasm. The group may be perceived as a clique.
Starting too soon is like pulling the trigger without knowing where the target is; starting too late is like waiting to pull the trigger until the game has long gone.
Listen to the experts with one ear plugged
Church planters can listen too little or too much. Striking a balance is the key.
Before we started our new church I interviewed a number of church planters who offered helpful advice. I suggest anyone planting a church talk to others who have done it. Better yet, visit launch day of a church using a similar model to yours.
However, if we had tried to copy another church’s ministry it would have spelled disaster. Any good church planter or missionary knows one must adapt the approach to the people and needs of a particular area.
I got a real eye-opener when we used direct mail marketing from some sister congregations. We did exactly what they did, but on a much larger scale. Our expectations were high, but our results fell short of what the other two churches experienced. Our context and situation played into that.
On the other hand, churches should learn from the experiences of others. For example, a close friend of mine taught me a lot about raising funds.
We also learned from others the principle of “scaffolding people.” (The people who help launch the church may not be with the church three years down the line.) And Bob Sloniger gave wise advice when he said, “Keep your hand on the steering wheel.” (Watch out for the mixed motives of some people drawn to a new church start-up.)
Be ready to change when things change (and they will change!)
Some churches have been kicked out of their rented facilities with little or no warning. I know of one church planter who was given an ultimatum that attendance reach 100 or the church would be shut down by her supporting partners. In our situation, we moved five times. One new church I visited was not able to get into its meeting facility because the custodian slept in late. Police showed up at one church due to a neighbor’s complaint the music was too loud.
And these are on top of common problems like staff and member turnover, lack of funds, and too few families and ministry leaders.
Our church had a downturn after September 11, 2001. We found ourselves declining and underfunded (that’s a nice way of saying we didn’t have enough money). We had to let staff go, adjust budgets, and retool. Two quotes remind me of how I felt during that period:
“Confidence is the thing I had before I fully understood the situation.”
“If life throws you a curveball, hit it.”
When things changed, we changed with them. A surfer goes with the wave. We did the same. We adapted our approach and partnered with our sister congregation, Harvester Christian Church of St. Charles, Missouri, to create a multisite church (one church with multiple locations). We did not initially set out with the multisite vision, but we grew into it through a series of events that I call a “God-thing.”
We began, at Ben Merold’s suggestion, by having a few key leaders from each church meet to strategize ways to grow. That group over many months grew to become a team committed to the same cause—kingdom growth! As we looked at the best and quickest methods to reach the most people, we decided the multisite model would work best and be more effective than either of us could accomplish alone.
So we set about transitioning into a multisite church. That meant reworking systems, altering programs, integrating two staffs, redefining job descriptions, and a host of other issues.
It is amazing what God has done over the last year and a half. It took a lot of patience, persistence, and flexibility. Staff and ministries have learned new ways of functioning. It is gratifying to see many more people coming to the Lord as a result.
The advantage we have seen with the multisite approach is the ability to expand ministry while minimizing the redundancy in personnel and systems. Simply put, we can cover more bases with fewer players and less money. We have now begun another campus, and all of our sites are experiencing God’s blessing and growth.
Bob Williams serves as an adult discipleship associate minister with Harvester Christian Church, St. Charles, Missouri.
