Confirming My Call to Plant a Church
Since the day I turned to Christ I knew I wanted to serve God. What I did not see myself doing, however, was becoming a pastor. I had thought about it, but I reasoned I simply was not wired to be a pastor and dismissed the idea. The role of a pastor felt rigid, constricted, and to be honest, a little irrelevant. Surely the church needed a more compelling witness to Christ than what was displayed in a pastor.
So I imagined myself as a writer instead. It felt suave, respectable, desirable. I imagined myself sitting at a café with fellow philosophers, reasoning with them about the kingdom of God using the book I had just written. That was desirable. There was nothing desirable about becoming a pastor.
I knew I would need theological education to serve God in this way. When the time came, I pursued a Master of Divinity degree, but with a specialization in biblical studies that would put me on track for scholarship and academia—not pastoral ministry, which would simply put me on track to become irrelevant.
In my first year of Bible college, I felt I knew nothing. In my second year, I questioned everything. In my final year, I was drunk with power. I thought I knew everything. It took a few years before I realized the impotence of knowledge and the redeeming power of love. It is why I think graduates from Bible colleges should be quarantined under close supervision until the spiritual hangover has waned. (I am not sure it ever dies.)
I always struggled with my feelings toward the church, but I always ultimately believed in it. Jesus gave the church the highest dignity when he called it his body. I knew I could not leave the church even when I felt conflicted about it. It is his body—to leave the church would be to leave the most physical manifestation of his Spirit. It would be to leave a part of Jesus himself. But I felt the body was unhealthy and did not reflect the true nature of the Spirit who lived in it.
Some leave the church gathered in order to be the church scattered—that is, they take the gospel outside of the church’s walls. Others gather but refuse to scatter. I felt burdened for a church that was both gathered and scattered. I was fumbling to say the church needed to mature, to grow. Like a malnourished child, it needed patient, loving care to be fed and restored to health, not abandoned to die because it was unwell. It is the body of Christ. It is his body.
I returned from studying theology, but my ambiguous desire to serve God had not been clarified in any significant way. As with many good things, clarity came with marriage. My wife and I are both from families in ministry who felt we should start something new. We belonged to a large church at the time and while the allure of planting a new church seemed exciting, we did not know how to do it and we did not want to do it alone.
I had seen all kinds of pastors—celebrity pastors who had fallen from their lofty pedestal, unfit pastors who peddled the word of God for profit, false pastors preaching a distorted gospel to unsuspecting people, dangerous pastors who roamed like sexual predators with impunity, and legacy pastors who finished their ministry well because they loved not their lives unto death.
A life in pastoral ministry seemed like trudging through a dark swamp of human depravity out of which only a few emerged unscathed. We were not going to go into this beastly night by ourselves—not without strategic support.
We tabled the possibility of planting a church and waited on God without an answer. A few years went by. We stopped talking about it. In my heart, I submitted myself to serving in a large church with an unfulfilled ambiguous desire languishing in my heart. I simply prayed, “Lord, if this is where you want me to be for the rest of my life, that’s good enough for me.”
At the time, I was writing my first book. Once I finished it, a friend invited me to meet someone from City to City. Little did I know, this was a conversation with the intent of recruiting me to plant a church. That desire had all but died in me. When I was asked if I wanted to plant a church, I responded from my gut.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m not the pastor type, and I’m not sure I fit the profile of the shepherd-like leader,” I continued, by which I meant I was more cerebral than emotional. As you can tell, my own vision of the shepherd-leader was quite skewed.
My recruiter gently pushed back on my objections. He reassured me they were not looking for the “pastor type” that was rigid, constricted and—to be honest—a little irrelevant. My eyes lit up.
He painted a future for me where I was free to lead according to the gifts, capacities, and calling God gave me, without conforming to a preconceived portrait of what it means or how it looks to be a pastor.
I could write my own story of pastor and church.
I was excited. It is not that I wanted to write a new story, but simply return to the old, tried, tested, beautiful story of a shepherd who willingly watches over God’s people; eagerly serves without pursuing dishonest gain; becomes an example, not an authoritarian; and groans joyfully, waiting for the day his chief shepherd will return in glory.
“But I’m not a shepherd. I’m more of a thinker and leader,” I said, not realizing how Moses-and-burning-bush-like this conversation was becoming.
“That’s okay.” He named a famous pastor whom he described as more of a thinker to begin with, but who surrounded himself with good shepherds. “You can staff your weaknesses,” he said.
The Moses in me was warming up to the fire. My recruiter had planted two churches himself. He told me his own story of how empathizing and compassion were his weaknesses when he began. But God grew his capacity so that, as time went by, God turned his weaknesses into strengths.
I left the conversation with a deep, immense sense of gratitude. I felt that even though I had suppressed my desire, my faithful shepherd had not forgotten it. My wife and I discussed it. We knew Timothy Keller. We knew Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Now we knew City to City. These were trusted names. We felt safe.
We spoke to our parents. They had both been waiting for this day, so it was a quick conversation. They only wanted to know when we would start. I spoke to my pastor, who initially hesitated but later supported our decision to leave, even generously sending a few people whom we invited to go out and plant with us.
Everyone told us church planting is both difficult and rewarding. No one said how difficult or how rewarding. All our friends were excited for us except one of my closest friends. He wondered if I had the emotional stability for it. I was offended by it. My City to City church planting assessment process revealed the same concern. I overlooked it.
Within a year of planting a church, it became obvious I was emotionally immature—unable to handle the stress of marriage and church planting. I needed help. My wife and I asked for help. City to City was there to help.
We were right to fear doing this alone. We were right to wait to be led by someone with knowhow. City to City’s twin investment in my emotional health and our church planting strategy—through ongoing coaching, counseling, mentoring, and spiritual friendships—has been a visible display of God’s generous grace. It is grace that has been changing us.
“Church planting is God’s way of discipling the church planter,” someone said at a City to City training event . This has been the most difficult and the most rewarding part of church planting—God using his church to change me, not using me to change the church. Church planting has been a means of grace by which God has grown my heart, given me greater emotional depth and range, and redeemed my marriage, while the head of the church has been steadily building his church.
In the story being written, he is the true writer, his is the great redemptive story. Church planting is simply a chapter in God’s renewal story in my life. I have no greater calling than this—with unveiled face, to behold the glory of the Lord, gently being transformed by his grace into the likeness of Jesus, from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). It is my best hope and my greatest joy.
About the Author
Akshay Rajkumar studied literature at Delhi University and theology at Singapore Bible College. He is an author, publisher, and founding pastor of a church called Redeemer. He is also Co-Editor of The Gospel Coalition India. He was born in Chennai and grew up in New Delhi, India, where he lives with his wife, Shruti, their daughter, Mia, and a beagle named Bugsy. You can follow his work on Instagram @thewearysoulrejoices