Why Churches Don’t Plant Churches
What keeps churches from planting churches and sending missionaries?
For nearly a decade in various roles, I’ve been honored to create and oversee training for discerning one’s ministry fit and for equipping potential church planters to plant across North America and in multiple nations. I've also been honored to serve, coach, and train church planters in various cultures all around the globe. (I often learn more from them as they learn from me!)
Along the way, since each resident is embedded into a local church, I have helped dozens of churches cast vision for church planting, and to create church cultures to train, fund, plan for, and support sending. Some of these “sending churches” have membership in the thousands; others in the dozens. Some sending churches are more recently planted; others have existed for decades. We’ve worked with churches across multiple denominations, who have budgets of various sizes.
Along the way, I have heard common pushback from leaders, against their own church’s ability to be involved in planting churches and sending missionaries. It would be common in an ebook like this to explain multiple misconceptions. But in truth, in all the conversations, I’ve actually only heard one — even if it’s stated in different forms:
“We’re not big enough.”
“We’re not old enough.”
“We’re not settled enough.”
“We’re not self-sustaining enough.”
“We’re not well-staffed enough.”
“We’re not rich enough.”
In summation, the one, single reason that comes up over and over again, that keeps churches from even starting toward sending is, “we’re not enough.”
On one hand, this pushback seems logical: “look out for number one,” goes the common saying. Human logic would say that your church must be “something enough” before we can think of helping another church. Sending people out before our church is “whatever enough” would be foolish. But doesn’t God usually turn human logic on its head? Writing to one of the churches he planted, the Apostle Paul reminds us:
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)
Could it be that our desire to be “enough” is actually “to be strong in the eyes of the world”? Could it be that we want to meticulously plan our ministry, grasp for control of God’s church, and rely on ourselves and our own logic, more than on God? If so, are we not boasting in ourselves and our ability and our plans, and defining “strength,” “wisdom,” and “the things that are” by human standards? That would be logical — just maybe not godly.
On the other hand, we must ask how much this drive to be “enough” is shaped by the culture in which our churches exist. We’re surrounded by, and sent into, a world that celebrates things that are bigger and faster; things that are flashy and famous. Is our desire for Jesus’ kingdom to expand, or for our own kingdoms to expand? Could “being enough” be just a more acceptable way of saying that we want our church — or our own name — to be big, fast, flashy, or famous?
Here’s the humbling but freeing reality of the Christian faith, in the midst of striving to “be enough”: The Bible promises that we are NOT “enough”! Only God is sufficient. No person, and no church, should ever get to a point where we have enough people, money, experience, or leaders, to feel settled and sufficient in our own strength. (In fact, churches that do find themselves under rebuke in Revelation 2-3!) By human standards, no minister or church will ever be “enough.” And that’s the exact truth that frees each minister and each church to plant churches and send missionaries.
This is where the gospel of Jesus — the primary sent one of God the Father — becomes good news: while we are weak (as many of us preach often, but sometimes have difficulty believing), he is strong. He will build his church (it’s a promise), and he’ll do so in the exact way he wants it. He cares for his bride perfectly (even in ways we wouldn’t — or can’t). God frees our grip on his church — and his people, by holding it (and us) in his far-more-capable hands. Jesus frees us from relying on human standards or metrics of success. Jesus sacrificed more greatly than any human, for the glory of his Father. By his example, and by his Spirit living in us, he invites us to echo his own sacrifice, for the furtherance of his gospel message across the world today, and to join him in glorifying God.
[Adapted from a forthcoming Equipping Group resource: Sent Churches, Sending Churches. Stay tuned for more.]