Most of the books about church planting are written by people with unusually successful ministries, so that many of the ideas which they espouse are not well suited to the typical church planter, according to Joel Rainey in his book Planting Churches in the Real World. Unfortunately, the typical church plant does not end up attracting several hundred people in the first year; instead, the average is around 70 to 80 people after three years of hard work.
The book describes in blunt and honest terms many of the struggles Rainey faced when trying to plant a church, and many of the mistakes which he made along the way. There are many great insights in the book, including: it is critical that you build a strong team, rather than trying to do it all yourself; and although there is no single successful style of church leadership, it is necessary to have a well-thought-out leadership model in order for the church to be successful.
Although the book is quite short, it is well researched, referring in the footnotes and bibliography to numerous other resources. In spite of the author’s focus on realism and portraying the stark realities of the down side of church planting, the book retains a strong enthusiasm for the benefits of planting new churches. It is therefore a helpful addition to the library of any entrepreneurial church leader.
4 replies on “The harsh reality of church planting”
Having been a church planter for 7yrs in Australia I would agree that church planting is hard work – particularly when you do not go out with the support of a mother church. I learnt much and in each of the churches I planted I saw God’s hand at work that had nothing to do with programs nor embracing another church’s “successful” way of doing something.
My observation has been that a main problem is that we simply reproduce what we were a part of before venturing out into church planting. This has been reinforced to me while I have been working in Asia. I now question much of what we do in the west as actually being that Biblical! I really sense God is stirring the waters for a mighty revival and I do not feel the the traditional church model or method will actually be at the forefront of this revival.
Now, if the Lord led me back into church planting back in Australia I know that I would do things so differently. Sometimes God has to take us out of the picture before we can actually see what is going on! Regards, Paul.
Paul, thanks for your comment. I think it stands to reason that if a “traditional” church model is unsuccessful at reaching new people, then a new church planted according to the “traditional” model will be largely unsuccessful. Joel Rainey’s book does seem to describe a reasonably “normal” model of church, although his church plant did succeed in reaching some strippers, gay couples and goths; people that “normal” churches do not normally reach. I am curious as to how you would do things differently if you were planting again in Australia.
This is something in progress for me. One main reason is seeing the duplication of the Western model of church here in Asia, or more to the point, Thailand. When I first stepped into a local church (10yrs ago) I thought I had stepped back in time almost 30yrs! The style and order of service I soon discovered was not an true expression of Thai people. For example, Thai’s sit on mats and share food, talk and do most of their fellowship in this very relaxed manner. But the local churches all have wooden pews (some now have stackable chairs) and they are all in rows. This really caused me to think – why do we do church this way?
I began to reflect more on Jesus’s time and the culture he was in. It was, I believe, very similar to our Asian culture. I know in Jesus’s time there were temples, where the people met for their “worship” but I have begun to seriously question whether that was really what the Father wanted to see as an expression of His people in corporate worship. I think the Temple style really just alienated people and didn’t really help people connect. I think it helped people to become very religious to which Jesus seemed to be very outspoken about.
In returning to Australia after 6yrs absence (for furlough) I began to feel more and more uncomfortable with what I both saw and what I was experiencing. I have grown in my conviction that when Jesus was on earth He was trying to encourage participation in what was happening but what I saw was more of an audience listening to what was going up front and responding accordingly at the right times. I was also very concerned about the rate of people who shared with us that they were no longer going to church as they were tired of being an audience, of being just a number in a large crowd. They were hankering for times where they could share together with others, be real, share heartaches, etc and not make it another mtg (small groups, life groups, or whatever name you choose to use). That’s what they were saying they wanted church to be. I felt like they had all gotten together to make sure they were all on the same page should anyone ask them why they no longer went to church. Now, these guys who poured out their hearts, hurts and frustration with the local church did not know each other.
I am thrilled to hear about how Joel has been successful in reaching the marginalised in our communities. That’s what church should be about! So how would I go about changing things? Not sure how it would all pan out but I’m sure I would throw out the standard format for church and keep it very simply and have just three main ingredients – food, the Word and prayer.
I know I will sound very sacrilegious in saying some of these things but my heart cries out that there are so many disenfranchised and marginalised people the church has by and large forgotten to reach out to. It’s like we say to them, when you change then we’ll love you and welcome you into the family.
Anyways, enough of my ramblings. Just the thoughts of a misso who has seen two sides of the same story played out with different results.
Paul, what you have in mind sounds like what my friend Tri is doing in Sunshine: http://www.theboatshed.net. They do not have “services”; they simply share life with each other, pray together and reach out to the marginalised.