Key Principles for Pioneering
This article was originally published by City to City Australia. For more resources from their region, please visit their site.
Pioneering a new ministry is exciting and challenging. All faithful Christian ministry connects in some way with God’s heart and mission to seek and save the lost, as Jesus put it. And that is certainly true of missional pioneering. But there are some distinctive things that are worth bearing in mind as church planters break new ground and reach new people, demonstrating the love of Christ and declaring the good news to them in fresh ways.
Perhaps the most critical principle to embrace in pioneering is the priority of God’s action in pursuing the mission.
Biblically, God’s people are sent with the same intent and as an extension of a prior sending—the Father’s sending of the Son into the world (John 20:21). Pioneers must learn to pay attention to what God is doing—in them, through them, and around them in their pioneering context. Jesus’ invitation is for us to join him in his mission through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Keeping in tune with the priority of God’s action—and reflecting our role as those God invites to join with Jesus in the power of the Spirit—means that the pursuit of closeness with God is the foundation of pioneering. Pioneering leaders and their teams must give first priority to listening to God for themselves, turning to God in prayer, feeding on God’s word in Scripture, and practicing the disciplines of noticing the grace of God at work (like the Apostle Barnabas does in Acts 11:19-24).
On top of this foundational work of giving attention to God’s action in us, pioneers would do well to observe five key principles in determining where God is at work and how he would have them join. These 5 key principles can be expressed in the acronym READY:
Research the context into which you want to pioneer.
Engage with the people and community.
Articulate the vision you have for impact.
Develop a diverse pioneering team of other leaders.
Yield to God's timing and the wise voices around you.
1. Research
Researching the context in which you hope to launch a pioneering venture is vital. You need to listen, understand deeply, and ensure that the work you do to initiate new things is informed and shaped by evidence and facts on the ground.
Begin with demographics and statistics to build up a picture of who the people in the context are.
Are they new arrivals to this context, or did they put down roots long ago?
Are particular ages or demographics over-represented (or under-represented)?
How has the profile of this community been changing over time?
Beyond statistics, try to notice how people live: what their day-to-day rhythms are, what they value and care about, and when, where, and how they gather.
Ultimately, consider what might be going on spiritually beneath this community’s surface. What do people love, trust, and worship (functionally, if not formally in temples or shrines)? Where do they look for guidance, meaning, value, and connection? Where might there be openness to Jesus and the things of God? Where is there indifference, resistance, or even hostility?
Prayerfully considering these questions is the best way to explore what God might be doing in this community. As the Apostle Paul preached, God “made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him” (Acts 17:26-27).
2. Engage
All the research, statistics, facts, and figures in the world can’t surpass being present and engaged with actual people in the community.
Find the “city gates”—where people gather to build relationships, do the business of community life, and make important decisions. These may be formal institutional places like local council offices or town halls. But they might also be school gates, sports clubs, libraries, neighborhood houses, local business owners’ meetings, or spaces used by artists and activists.
Make it part of your rhythm to turn up in these places and get involved. Get to know people. Learn to love them. Ask them about the things you’ve noticed in your research and listen to them as they respond.
Pray for the people you and your pioneering team engage and connect with. God has a way of writing the names we take upon our lips in prayer onto our hearts. And few things can supercharge your ability to pioneer ministry that connects with people like growing in genuine love for them.
3. Articulate
You need to know and be able to articulate why you’re pioneering this ministry.
Vision can be overdone or overcomplicated. Few things kill participation and group ownership more than someone having such a thoroughly worked-out plan that the only part others can play is a tiny cog in the machine. But without at least a glimpse of where things are going, what the goal is, and what impact (under God) you dream of having, it’s very hard for people to get excited and come on board with you.
One of the key things that should emerge as you consider what God is doing in the community is a sense of what you would love to see happen:
What is good and beautiful and lovely that you want to thank God for doing and bringing about in this community—now and in the past?
What do you lament and find broken? What breaks your heart and stirs up your desire to see God heal, restore, and resolve?
What do you long to see God do in and for people here? What impact, blessing, change, and transformation is needed?
These are the sort of questions that can provide vision for your pioneering ministry. And once you start to form a sense of the answer to them, don’t keep the vision to yourself. Share it with people who can pray with and for you. See who resonates with it and picks it up (they could be your future team members). Test it out with the people in the community. See what sticks and look to build on that.
4. Develop
No one pioneers alone. It’s not possible, and it’s not a good idea to try. For one thing, building things around one person and their ideas, energy and relational capacity makes for a thin and brittle ministry. If it’s all built around you and something happens to you, or you move on or burn out, it’s unlikely things will continue. For another thing, God has made the church a body for a reason. It’s good for us to work and build together as different but interconnected parts, all pulling towards a common end.
So, make it a priority to develop a team.
Develop your team by recruiting. Recruit people who are warm to your vision, people who know the community and context (or are willing to get to know them), people who other churches and ministries can send or release to work with you. And keep recruiting (even after things are up and running). As the first missionary journeys of the Apostles unfolded, they were constantly drawing people onto their teams who had gifts or backgrounds that helped open doors—think about Timothy and his Greek cultural background that proved so significant as the Apostle Paul’s team began its ministry in Macedonia (Acts 16).
Develop your team by discipling and investing in the growth of people on your team. Team members are not only people you can do ministry with; they’re people to whom you need to minister, help them grow, deepen their trust in God, steward the gifts given them, and encourage them to take on new challenges that stretch themselves.
And develop your team by learning to delegate—not just tasks but responsibility and authority for decision-making—and by empowering others. This means not only inviting and making it easy for others to contribute and participate, but also taking what they contribute seriously. Settle it in your heart that your pioneering ministry will be better if others genuinely play a part in it, bringing ideas and input that may be better than the ones you can come up with in splendid isolation. Actively embrace the blessing and challenge of team ministry.
5. Yield
Few things are more sure in pioneering than the likelihood you’ll encounter surprises and setbacks. Things almost certainly won’t go exactly to plan or unfold on the timeline or following the path you imagine.
So, you and your team will need to be both flexible and resilient, not giving up at the first sign that things aren’t going the way you expected. But even more important than that, you need to seek God in this, yielding to the work the Spirit may want to do in you.
It can help to get into the habit of asking questions like:
What might the surprise or setback reveal in you that needs to be brought to God and surrendered?
What can you learn from the blockage or detour you’re facing?
What opportunity is there to deepen your own trust in and dependence on God as you confront your fear, frustration, reactivity, and impatience?
As well as expecting unexpected things to happen, plan to yield to God and open yourself to the voices of wise counsellors who can speak to your ideas, plans, and timeline. Also consider opening yourself up to a formal assessment process that addresses your suitability and readiness to lead in pioneering a new ministry. Undergoing assessment doesn’t have to be a matter of judgment or proving yourself. At its best, it can contribute to your flourishing and the long-term benefit of your pioneering ministry by helping you grow in self-awareness, identifying priorities for development, highlighting where you would particular benefit from developing others around you in a team, and fueling your dependence on God.
About the Author
Chris Swann is the Director of Church Planting for City to City Australia. He loves helping church planters and other leaders grow in their personal appropriation of Christ's grace and their capacity to administer it to others. He is also an adjunct lecturer in ministry, evangelism, and church planting at various Australian seminaries and Bible colleges. He loves living in Melbourne with his wife and their two kids.