I haven’t written about church planting in a while, but I continue to have conversations with planters in the middle of it, as well as with pastors considering leaving their established churches to start new ones. One such conversation got me to thinking about the different reasons for planting a church.
Anytime we start discussing motives, we’re venturing into mysterious and complex territory. For the sake of hopefully generating some discussion, I’m going to offer an over-simplified list of three reasons for planting a new church and then make a few observations about them.
The first reason for planting a church is to save people from hell. If you believe that all non-Christians are bound for hell and if one of the best ways to make more Christians is to start more churches, then church planting is imperative. This is primary motivation of most of the church planters I’ve encountered. When they look around their city, they see lost people who have no eternal hope. Their burden for the lost motivates and energizes everything they do.
A second reason for planting a church is to create a safe place for people to explore the gospel from other theological perspectives. These churches usually gather struggling Christians or ex-Christians who have been previously burned by churches or are struggling to intellectually embrace the gospel with which they grew up. They are often reacting to a version of the gospel that motivates the planters mentioned in reason #1. They need to be a part of a church in which they can ask questions and express their doubts and misgivings without having their salvation immediately called into question. The planter may be motivated to start this kind of church out of his own need. He’s likely more interested in saving his own faith than in saving his neighbor’s soul.
A third reason some move toward church planting is because they want to be free to whatever they want. They are tired of working in established churches where they are constantly swimming upstream against tradition and status quo thinking. They no longer want to go to the elder board and ask permission before executing their latest creative idea, nor are they willing to risk execution for every creative idea they have. So they go into church planting because they are tired of having others tell them what to do. The primary motivation for planting a church then is the personal and professional freedom of the planter.
(There is another reason that comes to mind, but I can’t decide if it stands on its own or is actually connected to reason #2. That is the desire to experience and share the goodness of the risen Jesus in this life without assuming that everyone who is not a Christian is automatically bound for hell in the next. I’ll leave it in parentheses for now.)
Now a few observations:
1. The first two are valid motivations for planting a church. I have my doubts about the third. While most planters enjoy more operational freedom than is typical in an established church, it shouldn’t be the primary motivation for planting.
2. Reason #1 will sustain the planter through his darkest days better than the other two. Reason #3 can also provide staying power if the planter has a big enough chip on his shoulder. Most of the churches I know of that were started out reason #2 either fail, run out of money, or never move beyond the size of a house church (not that there’s anything wrong with house churches).
3. It’s easier to raise funds under the banner of reason #1. Experimental communities looking to do theological innovation have a hard time finding financial backing. Few churches are willing to fund planters looking to escape existing authority structures unless the planter hides his primary motivation of emancipation behind the more bankable motivation of saving lost souls (I’m guessing this happens more often than anyone is willing to admit).
4. Reasons #2 and #3 are really about pursuing freedom. But the theological or pragmatic freedom the planter enjoys is inversely proportional to the amount of money given by their sponsoring organizations. Most church planting organizations expect the churches they plant to reproduce their theological convictions. If you want to be a full-time church planter you’re not going to have the freedom to be a theological maverick. Also, many church planting organizations have bought into church planting methods that have worked so well in the past that they are hesitant to give new planters too much freedom to reshape their cookie-cutter. If you want to be paid to be a church-planter, you’ll be free to do whatever you think needs to be done as long as you do what your sponsoring organization tells you to do. Neither of these expectations are outlandish. What my dad told me when I was teenager holds true in this situation: the people who pay the bills get to make the rules. The planter who wants to get paid trades his freedom for money. The church planters I know with the most freedom are the ones who aren’t relying on other churches or organizations to pay the bills. They’re also so busy working the equivalent of two jobs that they don’t have much time to celebrate their freedom.
5. As church planting continues to grow in popularity there is an increased chance for there to be a mismatch between church planters and their sponsoring organizations. Those funding the plant assume that saving lost souls is the primary motivation of the planter. The planter is actually more interested in planting an experimental community for lost Christians. This mismatch will eventually surface, but usually too late into the process to avoid at least one awkward conference call.
6. Modern church planting is as much a business model as it is an evangelistic movement, theological impulse, or self-employment opportunity. Make sure you understand the business model you’re signing up for before you set out to save the lost, rethink the gospel, or do things the way you’ve always wanted to do them.
What other reasons can you think of for planting a church?
What do you think about my observations?
What am I missing?
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
What fascinates me about many church plants in the USA is the lack of this fundamental question: “Does this community need ANOTHER church?” I say ‘another’ because so many areas of the US are already “churched” to some extent (not true in certain locales). So the motive I would love to see more of is this: “Does this community desperately need some good news? Well let’s plant a church there because we bring Good News.” This means a lot less church plants in Texas, Colorado and Tennessee and more focus on the coasts.
-A recovering church planter
Great thoughts. I think you do a very good job of presenting motivations. I think most claim #1 even when they are 2 and 3. I have definitely seen people say we need to sing these types of songs because the the lost will respond to them, they just happen to be that persons favorite songs.
Still not sure where we would fit.
Very interesting thoughts. I definitely agree. I know of some missionaries who were very spiritual people, but ran into some big struggles when it was obvious that overt evangelism was not one of their major priorities. It’s sad when churches place success on how many conversions are occurring, but at the same time they are sending people to go make disciples. So it’s a reasonable expectation for disciples to be made.
The only thing I would comment on is the need for foreign church-planting. The last statistic I saw said that there are twice as many full-time Christian workers in the USA than the rest of the world combined. Even if it’s a fraction of that number I think we have some mismatched priorities. Foreign missions often contains more risks on several fronts, but I do wish we would focus on the world as a whole rather than narrowing our focus to only our own nation.
I’ve heard lots of people say things like, “missions can happen here just as much as there.” And while I agree with that statement, I think what’s often really being said is, “Let’s just focus on our own backyard and let someone else worry about the rest of the world.” There seems to be generally more of a skepticism and cautious spirit about foreign missions than other types of ministry, and I’m not sure why.
I didn’t think we were saving people from Hell. I thought it was from them liberal hippie types that want to emasculate Jesus.