How is a Church Planter Different from a Pastor?
As a coach who specializes in training church planters, I tend to hear a few recurring statements from people starting new congregations. They’re statements like:
“I feel like I’ve hit a wall in my church plant.”
“I was so full of vision when I began my church plant. Now I’ve lost my sense of direction. What happened?”
“I’m tired and haven’t seen the results I expected. I feel like I don’t have the strength to keep pushing forward. What do I do now?”
Leaders who flourished in the context of another pastor’s church may find themselves floundering in the cyclone of church planting, confused and disillusioned. As a result, many church plants don’t make it to maturity. Sadly, many plants are gone within five years. This failure rate among church plants is a major issue that church planting organizations need to address.
What are some of the causes of these issues? How can leaders navigate the difficulties that inherently come with starting a congregation? The answer is too complex to explore exhaustively in one article, but it is helpful to start by drawing attention to the internal adjustments a leader has to make once they consider planting a church. After all, there are major differences between a pastor and a church planter. I submit that these differences are key in setting the correct expectations that will keep the planter focused and effective.
Business consultant Michael Gerber presents an insight that may be helpful to us in his best-selling book, The E Myth. Here, “E” stands for “entrepreneur,” and since church planting is often an entrepreneurial endeavor, Gerber’s work can be helpful to better understand the challenges that church planters face. As Gerber describes the perils of starting new businesses, he coins a phrase that he calls the “fatal assumption” of entrepreneurs. To paraphrase this fatal assumption for our purposes, a church planter may believe that if he understands pastoral work, he understands how to start a church that does pastoral work.
Of course, the reason that Gerber calls it a fatal assumption is because it is based on a believe that isn’t true. Doing pastoral work and starting a church that does pastoral work are significantly different things that require significantly different skillsets! We often mention this when training church planters, but there seems to be a consistent lack of clarity that doesn’t settle into a leader until they are in the field trying to get a new church off the ground.
Let me clarify some of these differences and give some steps forward so that leaders like this can understand where to place their attention. In a sense, a leader is temporarily reducing their emphasis on pastoral ministry in order to set up an entity (a new church) that will facilitate greater pastoral ministry in the near future. That means that their capacity to minister to people must be limited in order to have the time and energy needed to bring legitimacy to an organization that didn’t exist before.
The planter must now focus upon a different set of skillsets. They must identify and train leaders to initiate the different functions of a church. The culture of this new church plant must be established and maintained as they bring awareness to the community that a new church exists in a properly contextual way. This is no small feat.
This is also why there needs to be a greater distinction between a pastor and a church planter. Not every pastor has the ability to be a good church planter, and church planters may not gravitate toward the skills needed to be a great pastor.
The following chart identifies some basic distinctions between a church planter and a pastor. There are many other traits, but I find that these are major ones that need to be pondered by every leader who desires to plant a church.
Pastor
Equips others to lead the church
Leads trainers
Disciples future evangelists
Preaches from Scripture to form maturity
More margin to use the church to help needy people
Needs to maintain stability in the community
Family may be able to choose their level of involvement with the established community
Planter
Leads the church plant
Trains leaders
Evangelizes future disciples
Preaches from Scripture to clarify vision
Has limited margin to address deep needs
Needs to be a risk-taker for new opportunities
Family will be immersed in the church plant
In summation, a planter must prioritize working on the church over working in the church. This is not to say that pastors don’t ever need to work on the church and planters don’t ever need to pastor people, but rather to say that unless the leader makes adjustments to meet the challenges of church planting, the church will be stymied by the demands of people before the organization is capable of maintaining those demands.
So, what is a planter to do? I suggest that the first step is to make sure that the family is aware of the price they must pay in order to establish a church plant. Many church plants don’t have offices or buildings of their own, which means that leadership meetings, prayer meetings, and every other kind of meeting can happen in the family living room. The biggest commitment will come from the spouse. Is the spouse of the planter ready for that level of engagement? Are the children aware of the number of guests they will have? Discussions and reminders are critical to make sure that the family is mentally and emotionally prepared for the next few years.
Then, the leader should identify the stage of church planting they are currently in and what it requires. This empowers the planter to communicate the needs of that stage to their fledgling congregation. Many planters underestimate the unspoken expectations that people have when they decide to join a church plant.
Part of a church plant’s appeal to laypeople is having direct access to a pastor, and with that access comes expectations of having personal ministry time with that leader. But a planter needs to communicate that, while he cares and can offer some ministry, he must focus on establishing a church that can offer ministry to many people in the future. Planters can’t expect people to intuitively recognize that the demands of a church plant do not allow the same ministry services that usually come from established pastors in more stable settings. The planter must clarify to those helping establish the church plant that their personal growth will happen as they actively engage in ministry toward others.
With this in mind, the third thing that may be helpful is for the planter to carefully select who will work with him to build the church plant. Building a good team is essential if a church is to gain the credibility it needs to grip the imagination of a community. Leadership development is one of the most strategically important focuses to have in a church plant. As important as preaching is, good preaching is not enough to sustain a church on its own. In fact, the more that a plant depends upon the gifting of its leader, the more limited it is in impact. The need for gifting in leadership is essential, but the planter must develop and release other people as quickly as possible if they expect the plant to grow. The planter needs a team of people who are ready to take the mission of the church plant forward.
My last observation is this: another way to keep the main purpose of church planting in front of people is to make sure that you and your team have regular conversations and relationships with the non-Christians involved in your community. This will often reveal cultural biases and habits among the Christian church planting team that may hinder the very church that they are starting. Interestingly enough, many non-Christians are intrigued with the thought that churches can even be started in the first place. Asking for their feedback can create pathways of gospel conversations while allowing these people to voice what they don’t understand about church life. You will find rich insights from this demographic and the Christians on the team will be challenged to pray for these people and serve them instead of only reaching existing believers.
Church planting should not be an eternal state. It may take years of ups and downs, but as the plant matures, the planter will see that the community needs to have a pastor guide it forward rather than a planter who is constantly pioneering. At that stage, the planter will either make the decision to shift their personal emphasis toward pastoral giftings in the existing church or go on to cultivate a new one. Either way, the church plant’s emphasis on risk turns toward a journey to stability as different ministries take a life of their own.
Planting a church is not easy, and many leaders have approached the task as a pastor more than a planter. Understanding the difference between the two is essential if that leader wants to see a young, vibrant church in the years to come.
About the Author
David has been in ministry for over 40 years and brings a diversity of experience to the City to City world. David moved to New York City after 9/11 and after 17 years of planting churches in the area he joined the City to City team in coaching.
David is certified as a coach with CoachNet and as a coach trainer with City to City and Church Multiplication Ministries. He has coached a wide diversity of Christian leaders around the world and has been establishing coaching networks globally to serve key cities.